A

“Kill yourself then!” I screamed, slamming the door shut behind me. Tearing my fingers through my hair I paced the bedroom, mind racing between thoughts. Wouldn’t my life only get better if my sister would cease to be? No more tiptoeing around the house, wondering which facet of her we were going to experience today.

“Open this door right now!” my mother shouted in the hallway. I opened my door a crack, there was an electrical cord swinging on the outside of my sister’s door now, the other part was inside her bedroom. Sirens blared outside in the night, getting louder and louder the closer they got. The front door opened downstairs, two police men pounded their way up the stairs. I could hear my sister’s screams above all the commotion on the hallway; above my mom’s panicked cries, the police men’s commands, and above all my racing heart. It’s a strange mixture of emotions, to love someone and to hate them at the same level of intensity.

I don’t even remember the conclusion to the night. It blurs and smears with other memories of suicide threats, cops being called, tears shed, punches thrown. The dramatics that shaped my later teen years were different than most. I had the usual angsty teen drama to cry over, crushes on guys out of my league, friends talking behind each other’s backs, teachers with a vendetta to make my life miserable., etc etc. That was school drama, day drama. Night drama was a whole different monster…..

That monster came in one form, my younger sister A. A was two years younger than me in age but seemed light years older in all other ways. She was a wild child at 12 years of age. Dating inappropriate guys years older than her, dabbling in drugs, sneaking out of the house, running away countless times after not getting her way.

Sometimes I delighted in the monster, following her around, pretending to be as tough as she always appeared to be. Breaking free of the strict rules my mom had set for us was liberating. A and I had a strange role reversal as sisters. Instead of being the older sister dispensing advice and telling tales of my experiences, she was the person who explained sexual terms to me, told me what smoking pot was like, what falling in love was like. I was the cautious one, always a step or two behind. I don’t know if that was an inherent personality trait or if I ended up fading a bit in her brash brightness.