June 12 was the one year anniversary. Of my sister abandoning us.
The last day I saw her was the Thursday before she left. She and my family went to Knobles for free, like we do every year - the adoption agency provides it. I couldn't go because I had to work full time that day. She came to pick me up, and she was mad because Anna's car had a flat tire, so they had to take my mom's van and Lisa's car, but my mom made my dad drive Lisa's car with the kids in it, since she said Lisa wasn't a safe driver. When Lise picked me up, she was all mad about that. My dad was testing her brakes, and he kept hitting them suddenly. It really pissed Lisa off.
She had to stop for gas, and I remember it so clearly : my feet were on the dashboard my toes were still the sparkly orange I bought during Class Trip. It felt like the first day of summer, the first day you really feel free and happy, like everything in the world is right. We drove home, and had dinner. She went to bed early, and I played sims until late.
She had work early, so in the morning I left a Sarah Dessen book on her pillow. It was a big one - "This Lullaby"? Maybe "The Truth About Forever"? I don't completely remember, I just know that it was a good one. My mom took me to work, and picked me up. We went downtown, and it came time for Lisa to call, telling my mom she got home safe. She didn't call though. We called the house, and her cellphone, and no one was picking up. So we started freaking out.
What if she got in a car accident? What if she was smashed against a tree somewhere? We raced home, checking all the trees, all the buildings for that beat-up Ford Focus, trying to see if she was anywhere. But she wasn't. She wasn't home, either, and then we realized that her toothbrush was gone, and her laundry. Half of her wardrobe was missing. She must have been packing slowly for weeks, and I suddenly remembered seeing her a week earlier with a duffle bag. "Running away?" I'd asked, and we'd laughed. Laughed.
We still couldn't get a hold of her. We called my nana and pop, and when my dad came home, we told him. Around six 'o clock, she answered him. She told him that she was in the area, she was safe - and she wasn't coming home. She 'just had to get away' and she couldn't take it anymore.
Everything sucked for the next couple weeks. Everything sucked for a long, long time. My parents alternated between angry and distraught, and I just sort of found distraught and stayed there. I had to put up with all of their guesses, all of their angry words, everything. They said she was jealous of me, that she'd never really been happy, all sorts of awful things. It sucked. Nobody wants to be the cause for someone's misery.
The thing is, I missed her more than anything. Lisa nad I have always been kind of jealous of eachother. She's pretty, I'm smart. I make friends more easily, but everyone wants to date her. We're such different people, but together, we were a team. I helped her figure things out, she helped me take things a little lighter. I never even realized how big of a part of me she was until she was gone, and then it was just like someone had ripped out my heart and stomped on it with cleats. I wrote dozens of angry, hurt poems, poems about sadness and guilt and the dark, dark abyss she'd left me in, where suddenly I was expected to soothe all the wounds she'd left- soothe my parents', and mine, and my whole damn family's . I was like the Lisa spokeperson, explaining everything so that it hurt them less.
I was really depressed for the first few months. I totally fucked up some friendships because I was too upset, too down, to alone feeling to connect with anyone. I just didn't want to deal with them. There were times when I wanted to cut, or go back to Bulimiaville, and times I just wanted to end it all. It is not that dark any longer, but some days are still terrible.
Like today. Today I was driving down the road and I saw a Ford Focus. It just brought everything up and I started crying, bawling in my car as I drove home. I miss my sister, and she is not the same person, even when she calls, even when she tries to connect. I miss the person she was, and the relationship we had. It feels like she's dead, and I don't know what I can do or how we can make it the way it was, or even if it can ever be what it was. So many things can never be taken back. She will never be a part of our family like she was before, she will never be as close to me as she was before. I hate it and it totally sucks, and there are these terrible days like today, where I wonder if I will ever be happy again.
It is consuming me tonight. It is this awful ache in me that never goes away, and I wonder if it was partly my fault, and I think of all the times I told my mom that she wasn't alright, but didn't push the subject because I was afraid my mom would be hurt or offended, and it was all so stupid. All the nights she watched the Hills in the livingroom and I sat in the green room playing Sims, all the nights I could have reached out, but didn't.
I am sad, and I miss my sister. I hope one day, this will all heal, and we will be a real family again.
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