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This isn’t fair.
A tug from the tall meanie pulls me. I drag my shoes on the
dirt anyway.I don’t like her. She’s stupid, and has stupid clothes, and
smells.…Probably. I don’t smell her right now, just the big forest me
and Daddy live in.Used to live in. Because the big meanie has more,
even bigger meanies, all wearing their white and yellow or green
or blue or purple clothes.Costumes. Daddy said the silly people who fly around throwing
things wear costumes and that they’re ‘cowards’ because
they hide behind masks.Daddy’s always right, only a bunch of stupid and scared people
would gang up on him.I sniffle, and the big meanie in white and purple holding my
hand keeps walking. The path to Daddy’s house (a Cabin, he called
it a cabin) is long, how much longer do we have to walk? Where
are we going? I can ask the big meanie, but that means talking to
her.I keep my mouth shut, sniffling again.“I’m sorry we had to do this, Amelia.” I don’t jump
or squeak at the purple meanie’s voice. I’m… six now, and even if
Daddy’s not here I’ll be big and strong, no matter what the dumb
evil lady says.“I hate you.”She makes a noise (A sigh, Daddy called them) and I finally
see the road made of pebbles at the end of the cabin’s tiny path.
The long brown car waiting there is new, and the big van with a
shield on the side is too.I’m pulled to the car, sat down, and buckled in. I could
scream, kick and punch, but Daddy said I was going with them now
even if I didn’t like them, and he said sometimes we have to do
things we don’t like, like cleaning up after we make cookies. The purple meanie leans through the open door before saying
“My sister, Carol, will be here to take you to your new home
soon, alright? Just wait here while I talk with her.”My face twists, “I don’t want a new home. I want Daddy’s home
and Daddy in it!” She looks like she ate something sour after I say that. Good.“I know, dear, but… Carol should explain why we did what we
did sometime after you settle in, okay?”I look away from her dumb face, at a smear of dirt on my
shoes.They didn’t even get the right ones, these are my ‘fancy’
shoes, the ones Daddy bought for me cause they sparkle and
he said to not get them dirty, but they already are
dirty so I try to rub the smudge off but that just makes it bigger. I rub and rub but it won’t go away. Why won’t it go away?The door shuts with a quiet Clunk and I keep looking
at my shoes, keeping my feet apart so they don’t get more dirty.
It’s quiet, with only the little chirps of the birds around me
and those weird loud bugs that come out in the summer time.Daddy and I used to get up early to listen to the birds
sometimes. He said he’d take me to the zoo to see all kinds of
big and pretty ones.I sniffle once, then twice, before a hiccup cuts it off.The car blurs away into a big soupy mess of browns as I try to
only sniffle, but it isn’t fair.First Mummy has to go away, now Daddy…I rub my eyes, trying to be big and strong.I don’t know if it works, but I try anyway, and Daddy said
that the… ‘meaning’ behind something is part of what makes it
special, so as long as I try, I’m doing good.After a really long time the car door opens and one of the
Meanies get in, this one is a white and yellow blob with… more
yellow smeared at the top.I blink a bunch, finally seeing the yellow Meanie. The one
with the bright yellow sword-thingy who hurt Daddy’s neck. The
super angry one that called Daddy a… a crim-in-al.My face scrunches up as I look at her.Our face’s match when she looks at me in the little mirror,
but why wouldn’t she be happy? She hurt Daddy, like all the other
Meanies wanted.“…I’m Carol, your… adoptive mother, I suppose.” She finally
says, looking like the words taste like puddle water.“You’re ugly.”She makes a weird grunt sound, eyes looking away from the
mirror before the car begins rumbling down the pebbly road. She
doesn’t say anything else, just keeps looking at the road or at
me in the mirror like I’m a stubborn stain on her shoe.…Maybe she doesn’t like me.Well… Good! Cause I don’t like her either!
I keep staring at her, making the weird face scrunch that says
‘I hate you’. Even when the forest and her face turn
into blurry blobs of colour and it gets harder to keep in my
sniffles. Even when the blobby looking forest disappears behind us, even
when my sniffles get really loud and hiccupy when we finally get
to the big city, I don’t stop staring.I hate Carol.
One of the other girl’s books hits the wall, making a
sharp Thump! sound with it.“Why not?!”I grab another book from the table, throwing as hard as I can
at Carol’s big stupid face.She grabs it before it hits her, one eye doing the weird
fluttery thing that always comes when she’s being really really
stupid. She turns, putting the book on the small wood table
behind her.
Thump!
“Amy!” She turns back, rubbing the spot on her head where the
third book hit her. “Will you just stop, child?”“I wanna see him!”She huffs like a dog, “For the hundredth time- He’s in prison!
Gone, with all the other bad people, because he was a bad person who hurt innocent people. So just stop screaming about something
that can’t happen.”It isn’t right. Daddy’s kind and smart and likes to read me
stories and- and… …and he left. Just like Mummy did, even when he said he
wouldn’t.“L-Liar! It- It’s- It’s not fair-!”Her face twists, getting even uglier. “Life isn’t fair, child!
The sooner you learn that the better for all of us. Now calm down
or-”I grab a bigger book, not noticing how heavy it is until it’s
already above me. It flies through the air, way too short and
going way left of Carol and-And slamming through the glass cabinet.The huge crash makes me jump, but not Carol. She just stares,
face getting really, really red.The next thing I know, she’s right next to me and grabbing my
arm so hard it hurts.“Ow! L-Let me go! Let ME GO!
” I swing and kick and scream and punch but she just keeps
grabbing and pulling and-!My head bonks against the stairs and everything
starts spinning, but she doesn’t slow down so I start screaming
all the bad words I know but nothing gets her to stop and it
hurts so bad why won’t she sto—!?
She throws me against a fuzzy carpet, my head bouncing and
making everything worse before I curl into a ball. A door slams shut behind me. The knob makes a heavy clicking
sound before Carol stomps away behind it, leaving me alone in
‘my’ room.Why?
Why?
Why did Daddy let them take me? All of them are mean or stupid
or Carol.My arms wrap tighter around me, the blurring red fuzz and
fluff of the carpet the only thing I see as I try to figure out
Why?He said they’d take care of me. That they’d keep me safe.I’d rather be with him, even if he secretly is a ‘bad
person’, he’s nice! And even if he’s with a bunch of bad
people he’d keep my safe!
…Right?
But… But he couldn’t keep me safe from Carol. He gave
me to her…I don’t know how long I stay there, trying to figure out why Daddy let me go, why I have to stay with Carol, but after a while a soft, slow click comes from
behind me.I uncurl my arms from around my head, rubbing my face to see
the door softly swing open, just enough for a pair of big, blue
eyes to peek in.She’s taller than me, and steps in with the face of a confused
frog with lots of yellow hair. She’s the other girl, Victoria
. The door softly closes behind her before she looks around ‘my’
room. There isn’t a lot to see, just stuff I haven’t touched or
where they keep the clothes for me. The walls are the colour of
dark grass, or maybe a forest.After a bit of looking around she just… stares at me.“Why are you here?” I mumble out, trying to keep my eyes dry.
“…Don’know. You sounded really upset earlier.” Her
voice is a loud whisper, and she keeps staring at me like I
walked into her room instead of the other way around.“Carol’s stupid.”Her nose scrunches up, “Nuh-uh. Mom’s smart, she’s a lawyer.”“…What’s that?”“She helps put bad people away.” She says with a stupid smile.
I sit up, scrunching my face too. “But she said my daddy’s
bad, so she’s stupid! She’s bad and dumb and I hate her!”“Shh!” She says, wide eyes looking around the room as she puts
a finger to her lips. “Mom doesn’t know I’m here and I don’t
wanna get put in timeout too, okay?”I sniffle. Maybe I should yell, just to make her go away… but
then I’d have to see Carol again… “Fine...” She can
stay, for now. But if she’s going to be dumb and mean like Carol
then she’s gone!She doesn’t say anything for a long time. I don’t either, but
after a while she walks over to the carpet I’m on and- flops
face-first onto it?“Thish ish super comfhey!”“What are you doing?” I say with a wet giggle, wiping the
tears off my face as she gets swallowed up by the fluffy carpet.
“Tryna’ cheer you up!” She lifts her face away from the red
fuzz, looking at me with a big smile. “See, you aren’t all mopey
anymore!”My face twists, “…M’guess not.”“See! I’m like, your hero or somethin’!”“Heroes are dumb.”“Nuh-uh.”“Yeah!”She sits up, staring at me. “They aren’t - and I’ll prove it!
We’ll play Heroes and I’ll show you all the cool ones!” She looks
away, peeking around me, “I think I saw Alex- Alexen- Alexandria earlier, lemme go find her!” She gets up,
running over to the closet and grabbing some of the toys I
haven’t touched since I first got here.“I don’t want to play Heroes,” I say to her back, and
I really, really don’t, don’t want to be here or ever see Carol
again or… or do anything here! I… I just want……I want to go home.
Home.
“…Let’s play House.” I swallow, rubbing my eyes again when
they start to get wet.She stops looking for a second. “House?” She asks, face-first
in a bin and one foot in the air before she starts looking again,
saying “Why can’t we do both? I wanna show you how cool heroes
are anyway so we gotta play!”“But heroes and House don’t make sense. Heroes are
too busy doing dumb stuff and throwing cars to be a Mummy and
Daddy.”“Well, Mom’s a hero and-“We go on and on, back and forth, but after a really
long time she gets me to play Heroes with her.It’s… fun. Vicky (“Sisters have special names for each
other, like Mom and Aunty do! So I’ll be Vicky and you’ll be…
Ames!”) is fun. She’s a lot different than Carol too. Not a
grumpy dog that barks at me whenever I talk about Daddy.It’s weird, having a… ‘sister’, but not bad-weird like
thinking about- about Daddy, but good-weird like sledding down a
snowy hill real fast or spinning in circles.She slips out of the room just before dinner, the door making
a quiet click after she does, and Carol doesn’t seem to notice
anything as she comes up to bring me food.By the time I crawl into bed at the end of the night, my chest
feels a little bit like the carpet we played on, all comfy warm
and fuzzy. And for the first time since Daddy went away, I feel…
I don’t know. Happy? Close… I feel like… I’m closer to home, Vicky feels a little like the forest
around Daddy’s cabin. Big and there, strong and- and good.
Home.
That night, I dream of playing with Vicky at Daddy’s cabin.
The paper crinkles in
my fingers, the edges twisting like the kitchen tiles under my
feet.
Why?
A question I ask a lot. Carol says I ask it too much. Maybe she’s right.Something drips onto the page, making a dark spot on the
crayon drawing of my ‘family’. It was me and Vicky
playing outside in the snow, with Carol and Mark way off on the
side.When the teachers asked us to draw pictures of our families
for Art I… I didn’t know what to do. Carol would for
sure get all upset if I drew Mummy or Daddy and… I didn’t want
Daddy in it. Not after he lied about being nice, about Carol being nice,
about not leaving.So I just drew Vicky and me, but then Vicky saw it and got all
sad and almost started crying when I didn’t add Mark and Carol
and I felt so bad— So I added them, but then I had an idea.Maybe all I needed to do was try, try to be like
Vicky, to fit in.So why? Why was the drawing in there?Maybe it wasn’t good enough? But I really, really
tried! I even put ‘meaning’ into it, wrote ‘For Mom
and Dad’ on the back for her and Mark, and Daddy said that
the meaning behind something is one of the most important parts!
…Maybe that’s why it didn’t work, because he was a liar.Paper tears and I blink again, trying to stay quiet even as a
huge rock is stuck in my throat and my eyes burn. The drawing’s
already dirty from all the garbage, and I don’t want to make it
any worse.I sniffle once and try to take a big breath. It’s really hard,
but I do it, wiping my eyes with my sleeve so I can see the
stupid drawing again.It’s fine. Vicky’s a little ripped and dirty but it’s fine. I
tear a circle around her and me, being super careful to not hurt
her more but I still add a few rips. It’s fine, I’ll fix her. The small piece piece of paper is folded and stuffed in my
pocket before I throw the rest of the drawing back in the trash.
If she doesn’t want it then that’s fine, I’ll keep what
I want. I don’t even really want the juice box I dropped in by
accident anymore, but I grab it anyway cause Carol might find out
if I waste food and she hates it when I waste food so she’ll put
me in my room again and I won’t be able to play outside with
Vicky and then Vicky will be upset and— A hiccup, then another and another as the rock gets bigger.The cupboards and fridge and table spin and spin, smearing and
smearing again until nothing looks right anymore why doesn’t
it look right? Why does she hate me?I suck in air—Cant—
I can’t breath—
Can’t breath—!
Rocks too big can’t swallow. Ground’s twisting and blurring and twisting and moving and— I need- I need- I need—!
Vicky!
Need Vicky! Vicky knows
what to do-she always knows what to do she can help me she likes
me we’re sisters sisters help—!
I run out of the kitchen, bumping into walls that twist to
trip me and hit me and—Can barely see my boots as I throw them and my puffy coat on,
barely see the door when I slam it open, barely see her
when I finally get outside to the backyard, but she’s here, she’s here, rolling around a big ball of snow with her
puffy yellow coat on and a big fluffy hat on and a huge smile
and she’s here—“V-Vicky!” Snow flies away from my boots as I jump
off the steps, rushing out to her. She lets out an “Oomph!
” when I slam into her but doesn’t even wait a second before
wrapping her arms around me.“Whoah!” She says into my hair, voice somehow warmer than the
hug, warm and warbly, soft, kind. “Uhh… A-Ames? What’s wrong?”I don’t say anything. Can’t. Not with the rock in my throat
finally blocking everything and my eyes burning like a
fire and my chest hurting so bad worse than anything ever—
She holds me while I cry like a baby, saying… some things I
can’t understand, but they’re all warm and soft. Gentle.
She’s holding me together. Putting me back together with her
words and hands. The whole time questions bounce around my head,
looking for something. But they’re chased off just like
the tears, all because of Vicky.My knees are wet from the snow we’ve been kneeling in, I’m not
sure when we even moved, but she’s never let go of me since I
hugged her.She must be cold, but even the wet shivery sound in her voice
can’t hide the warmth Vicky’s full of when she asks “W-What
happened?”I freeze, before a shaky pat from Vicky melts me again and I
put my face in her shoulder. “…Carol.” She asked, she wants to
know, Vicky cares.
She cares about me.
“…Carol threw my drawing out.” I mumble into her shoulder.She moves. A shiver? Before she says “…O-Oh. Are… Are you
sure? What if it - like - fell in?” She sounds like me, which
doesn’t make sense, Vicky always knows what to do.“But the can’s not even near the fridge, Vicky!”She smooshes me against her chest, arms tight again. She’s
shivering a lot. Is it really that cold? “Okay, okay!
Okay, uhm, I’ll… ask her! When Mom and Dad get back from hero
stuff I’ll talk with her, she’ll listen to me—”“No! No, she’ll just get upset at you too!” Vicky is
Carol’s, she actually wants Vicky, I won’t- I can’t
change that.Carol shouldn’t look at her the same way she looks at me.“Okay,” A shaky hum before she quickly says “wanna go inside?
Watch TV? Eat Fruit-Loops?” Inside, back to the kitchen, back to the fridge missing half
of a pair of drawings.I shake my head, feeling her hair rub against mine.“T-Then… uhmmm… Oh! How about we play House?” House. With Vicky.
Home.
That sounds nice.I nod. A big breath leaves Vicky and she finally stops
shivering so much. Maybe she was covering me from the wind? That
must be it, I’ll get her scarf for her before we play.The last little bits of the shiver stay with Vicky only in her
voice, “Okay. Okay! I’ll go dig the house out of the snow, you…
You go grab the rest of the stuff, yeah?”I nod again, already missing her warmth when she finally lets
go of me. I wipe off my face with my sleeve, running back into
the house and getting all of the stuff as fast as I can.Plastic pots and pans and knifes and forks and everything else
is in my arms, and I shimmy her scarf onto the pile before going
back to the backyard, actually closing the door this time.Hopefully the house is warm again when they get back.Vicky’s wiping the last of the snow off the plastic house’s
window frame when I come out, there’s a small frown on her face
when she turns to me, but her shivery smile comes out quickly
enough. I rush over, dumping the toys inside before coming back
out and wrapping the scarf around her face.“Thamph,” Vicky says from behind her scarf, puffy and rosy
cheeks covered by fluffy yellow. I pull her inside, giggling when
she fusses with the last bit of snow on the window. She stops
shivering, just a little bit, when I do.Vicky asks me who I’d like to be, still all muffled, which is…
weird, she usually picks, but… I like it. Having a choice.I’m the Mummy this time, with Vicky being the Daddy who goes
outside and makes snowballs to sell while I cook.But while I fiddle with the plastic stove, I watch Vicky
outside, and while I watch her, I think.…I tried fitting in with her family and… it didn’t work, but
that’s okay! It’s okay. The only place that matters- the only
place that I want to fit in with is stuffed in my pocket
and here. Home, with Vicky’s warm arms wrapped around me as I
pull her inside.Playing House with Vicky is always fun, nice, right.
Not that I’ve played with anyone else, but still. I don’t think
I’d want to anyway.I pull Vicky tighter, sticking my forehead against her scarf
and feeling her breath.“You promise you won’t leave… Right, Vicky?”She shimmies a little, face moving until her mouth is next to
my ear.
“I promise, Ames.”
The days turn to months, months turn to years,
and Vicky keeps her promise. Even if I can’t really keep up with
her.
When the teachers try to make me play with other kids,
Vicky always comes back to me, so we can spend the rest of recess
together where they aren’t looking.
When she gets into soccer, and I’m stuck in the crowd
cheering for her, too
me
to
actually play, I’m still the first one to rush off to hug her
when her team wins, even if Carol complains about me going where
I shouldn’t.
But when we get the news that Fleur’s been killed,
murdered by someone trying to impress the Empire, I’m… I’m not
the one who she cries with, that’s Carol and Mark.
I don’t cry as much as them. It’s sad, I know it’s sad and
that I
should
feel sad but…
I’m me, ‘Amy Dallon’, off.
Maybe that’s why Carol’s the way she is, because she could
tell I was always off, going to be off, never going to fit in
anywhere.
Except with Vicky.
Time keeps passing, and I notice something.
It’s odd, and the only way I can put it is as if… as if
someone has a puzzle, right? And someone else decided to throw in
just enough pieces from their box to form
something else
into the first person’s box.
Carol and Mark work fine with Vicky, great even, they never yell
at her to stop slouching or fix her hair in
that
tone or throw her in her room or—
…That’s enough examples, I think. The point is,
I’m the problem, the non-fitting
pieces that barely resemble a person. Me, Amy Dallon. I just
don’t fucking fit: wrong looks, wrong priorities, wrong
everything, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…
Wrong… except to her.
Vicky.
She’s more than I deserve, all that I have, and
just what I want— no, what I
need.
We’ve talked about our futures a few times, whispered
conversations in the dead of night as we hide under my covers. A
quiet back and forth, the air filled with something
unidentifiable as we ask and answer ‘Whats’ and ‘Whys’. She wants
to be a hero, join New Wave, make her parents and the Pelhams
proud. Save people. And whenever she turns to me, asks me ‘What
would you like?’, I tell her the truth, that whatever she did,
I’d be right beside her. And why wouldn’t I want to be? She’s
Vicky, she’s… she’s
perfect
:
her eye for detail, always curious to figure out the ‘hows’ of
the world, her body, picturesque in a way I never could be, her
love, her passion for those around her both near and far.
…For me.
I wouldn’t mind having more of it, though, but that’s
being selfish. And I’m selfish enough taking what I already do.
She’s perfect, or as close as a human can me.
Anything beside being with her hurts to think about, even
if my thoughts with her have been a bit
…
different
lately, but that’s normal for sisters. Definitely. High-school is
a time for change or some sappy shit like that, right?
It has to be normal, because if I don’t have Vicky, I
don’t have
anything.
So it only makes sense that I’d find a way to fuck that up
too.