Day 1: Untitled 1,676 Words

Preface

Many stories don’t actually begin until the end. Whatever came before the climax is simply a cacophony of meaningless events designed to create the result. The result is often what matters. And the end? The end always becomes a new beginning.

My story starts at the end, or the beginning, whichever you prefer. I don’t care.

One

On May 27th, I found her body. Her toes were still brushing the bathroom tile floor, her torso bent over the side of the clawed tub, head submerged. Even from the entrance to the bathroom, where I lingered for some indeterminate amount of time, I could see the blood swirling in the water. Although she was positioned palms down, I knew. I knew what she had done. If slitting her wrists didn't work, she was going to drown herself as well.

She always was an overachiever. She always took things on head-first. Ok, now I’m getting morbid. I don’t mean to be funny or give off the impression that I don’t care. I do care about this. I do care about her. After all, she was me. Well, sort of.

So, I’m standing there in the doorway, just looking at her as if the scene before me was a perfectly natural one to walk in on. Right away, I knew she was gone. Dead gone. I didn't even bother moving her head out of the water or turning off the faucet. I let it run, staring down at my sandals as the pink water gushed past me on the floor and soaked into the adjoining bedroom's carpet.

Detective Hawthorne asked me repeatedly why I didn't try to save her. Surely, I'd want to save my own sister. He looked like he was going to throw up right then and there.

She was already dead inside, I told him, my eyes averted from his. I knew he was feeling as sick inside as I was, but I couldn't let him know. This was no time to collect sympathy. Whatever bond we had before now was severed. I had to make that clear.

I could feel his brown eyes boring into mine. His hand tentatively reached out and touched my chin. I allowed him that seemingly insignificant gesture.

What happened here, he asked softly, in that voice I'd grown to trust.

I paused a long time before answering, letting the sound of the other policemen rushing in the house obliterate the silence.

She found peace, Detective. She finally found the inevitable.

Two

My sister used to have a very rich boyfriend. His name was Paolo and his parents were minor royals from some country or other.

She met Paolo during her senior year at Vanderbilt. Paolo had already graduated the year before, but couldn't seem to leave the keg parties and female liaisons behind.

He was the most handsome, dark-skinned guy at her sorority’s annual fundraiser for Homeless Kids Need Books Too or Save the Aardvark or whatever it was they raised money for. I still insist that he came to it by mistake, expecting a kegger or an opportunity for a one-night stand. He wound up getting my do-good sister instead.

I was in New York City at the time of their coupling, practically living on the streets, which happens when you don’t have a job and aren’t willing to turn tricks to compensate. Luckily, I had quite a few friends who were willing to lend me their couch for a week at a time in return for taking care of their roach problem. That part was easy, as long as they didn’t mind my using their textbooks as weapons.

She tracked me down one afternoon while I was in the bathroom trimming my pubic hair with my current roommate’s $40 scissors. I ambled into the other room, my jeans around my ankles like shackles.

What do you want, I asked, immediately taken aback. It wasn’t like her to call. Maybe Christmas was coming. I couldn’t remember.

She practically shrieked in my ear. Paolo this, Paolo that. The sun shines out of Paolo’s ass. You know what I mean.

They were coming to visit me at school. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d dropped out of NYU years ago. I surely didn’t mention my living arrangements. I guess I figured she’d get busy with her pre-med degree and be unable to come.

I get us confused sometimes. Sometimes I forget that she’s the one who has follow-through. At least I remembered to pull up my pants before my roommate came home. I left the scissors in the bathroom, though.

Three

Paolo’s stares made me feel dirty and hollow.

I know what you’re thinking, and I must insist that it’s quite the opposite. He wasn’t more interested in me than my sister. He just knew. He knew what was really inside of me. It’s like he could see it.
She was clueless. She accepted me to be who I said I was, who I looked like, which was her. I looked like her.

Our initial meeting was plenty awkward, the current roommate and I sitting on one tired old couch, she and Paolo on the other. She twittered about all the things she and Paolo did in Nashville and how her final school projects were going.

My roommate kept giving me lazy side glances, his eyes asking, Is this really someone of your mold? I shrugged. What was I supposed to say? It was always the way it always was, you know?

Paolo pretended to be interested in what she had to say, but I knew that he was really turning me inside out. He was close to calling me out, in front of her, no less. I knew something had to be done.

Four

After the Paolo incident, as I like to call it, she didn’t date anyone for a very long time. She finished her undergrad and continued her medical degree. Her life was nothing but labs and rotations and sick people. It suited her just fine. She’d always had a need to fix people. That’s what’s so ironic in this whole thing. Did she not see that this desire came from her wanting to fix me?

I saw it. I saw plenty.

I saw her become a doctor. I saw her salary skyrocket and her surroundings become more posh, but she never let it get to her head. Not her. Certainly not her. She wasn’t made for that. She was made for me.

I eventually left the rush of New York and moved in with her. Nothing much was going on in the Big Apple anyway. Besides, I was sure Nashville needed another country singer heckler to frequent its clubs.

She was so happy to have me with her again, to have our two halves become their rightful whole.

She held a big party, introducing me to all her friends. They gushed about how adorable we were together, what a sight we made. I wondered if we should have gone shopping to buy matching outfits. Heh. Mom would’ve got a kick out of that. Rest her soul.

Detective Hawthorne was there. I never did learn his first name. Even in the bedroom, it was always, Detective. I didn’t care about his name. I only cared about what he could give me. He at least had that going for him.

She was so happy that the detective and I found one another. She just knew it was going to last. God, she was sincerely honest when she said that late one night. I almost choked on my cereal. At least she was trained in the Heimlich maneuver, just in case.

Five

I lived there a full year before it happened. Before that day, we existed on opposite schedules. I slept in. She was gone by 5 am. I was gone by 7 pm. She came home at 8 pm.

Then, one day, she was actually sick. She was too sick to go into work. I did the dutiful healthy-sister-makes-sick-sister-chicken-soup thing. I brought her meds to her beside every 4 hours.

By evening, she wanted to get up to take a shower after a day of feverish sweating. I helped her into the bathroom. We paused before the mirror, her in her pink girly robe, me in my tank top and cut-off sweats. Side by side. Good and Evil.

At first I thought she was going to be sick. I pulled her hair back from her face and started dragging her towards the toilet, when she pulled back. She fought free of me, and went back to the mirror. I took my place by her side, waiting for her cue. Our eyes locked in the shine.

That’s when I realized she saw me, I mean really saw me. For the first time.

I tried to play it off.

What’s wrong, I asked her in my most innocent-sounding voice.

If I just played dumb, maybe the moment would pass. Maybe she’d think that her fevered mind was playing tricks on her. But, she didn’t respond. She only kept staring in horror at the mirror.

She was seeing me for the first time.

My image no longer frightened me. I’d had 35 years to get used to seeing it. Sure, I’d screamed incessantly as a young child when our mother would place me in front of the mirror like all mothers do with their inquisitive babies. My sister would smile and giggle and try to touch herself in the glass, but I bawled my head off at the hideous thing in the mirror. By age 8 I’d come to terms with who I was, what I was.

I stood there, and waited. And waited. After 5 full minutes of silence, I went about my business. I was meeting the detective for a dinner date. It wouldn’t do to be late.

Six

When I came home the next morning, that’s when I found her. I guess having the devil stare you in the face can be a bit disconcerting.