Good Sister (9781250047786)

by Kain, Jamie

  I glance at the door without meaning to.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll only bite if you want me to.”

  I have no witty comeback for that, but some little frozen part of me melts. I still can’t quite believe Tristan Tyler is interested in me. At school, I am no one. I am known only for being the sister of a girl who had cancer, and now the sister of a girl who died in an awful accident.

  Sarah’s sister is how I’ve always been known, and I’ve been okay with it mostly because I love Sarah. But now …

  Now that Tristan sees me, I want to know what it is he’s seeing. I want to know what there is about me that might catch his attention. Is it merely my convenient presence, here so much more often now that I can’t stand to be at home?

  I don’t have to respond because he motions for me to follow him to the kitchen, where he rummages in the cabinets until he’s found a bag of miniature Snickers bars.

  “Want some candy, little girl?”

  I’m not sure if I should be offended at the “little girl” part. I shrug. “Sure.”

  “I have to keep these hidden or everyone else will eat them.”

  “I thought your mom only ate spinach smoothies.”

  “That’s just what she eats when other people are looking.”

  I don’t quite believe this. If my mom is a size two, then Jess must be a size zero. Or maybe she shops in the juniors’ section.

  He takes out a handful of candy bars, then slides the bag across the table to me. I grab two, then one more because I realize all of a sudden that I didn’t eat any dinner.

  “I want to show you something.” He nods toward the backyard.

  “I’ve already seen the hot tub,” I say, surprised at my own nerve.

  He laughs. “That’s not what I want to show you.”

  Oh. “Oh,” I say on an exhaled whoosh of air.

  That we have been naked in a hot tub together and kissed—that we nearly did so much more than that on his ex-stepfather’s bed—seems like a small miracle.

  Or does he even remember?

  I worry that it was all a crazy dream, or that he was so stoned he’s forgotten it happened.

  We go out onto the back deck, where Buddha is lying spread out in the moonlight—at a time when any normal cat would be stalking about in the shadows hunting things.

  I unwrap one tiny candy bar and take a bite as he points up into the oak tree whose branches shelter the deck. From the branch above us hangs a mobile of glittering silver stars. It looks like a hundred of them, all different sizes, suspended as if by magic from clear string.

  “I made it. Thought you might like it since it matches your tattoo.”

  I don’t know if I should attach any significance to this, but I really, really want to. I love the idea that he not only noticed the stars on my ankle, but actually liked them enough to make a matching mobile.

  This seems unlikely though.

  I decide I’d better not point out that one heavy wind is going to have the thing hopelessly tangled in the tree.

  Still, with my head tilted back, staring up at the twinkling stars above me, I feel myself getting swept away by romantic feelings, like a heroine starring in my own love story. Will it end in tragedy, or happily ever after?

  He did this for me. I can almost make myself believe it. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Just like you.”

  I look at him, glad it’s dark so he can’t see me blushing. Yes, I am lame enough to blush at his compliment.

  “I didn’t know you made stuff,” I say before the full stupidity of the comment sinks in.

  “I just do it to annoy my mom. She hates kitsch, says real art is the only thing worth the effort.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure what kitsch is, but I am chastened enough by my last dumb comment not to ask now.

  He takes a step closer to me. “Did my brother ban you from staying here anymore?”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice I was gone.” This comes out sounding more pouty than I intended.

  Another half step closer. “Of course I noticed.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his as if this were something we do all the time—this touching thing. When, in fact, it’s only the third time our bodies have touched. And what do they say about the third time being charmed?

  My hand is clammy, but it’s too late to pull away and dry it on my jeans. Except, well, this is the point at which I should be pulling away if I’m considering Sin’s utter fury at me. Sin, who could arrive home at any moment. Sin, who is, or was, the only best friend I have in the world.

  Finally I remember the two Snickers bars in my other hand. “Better eat these before they melt,” I say as I tug my hand free and begin working on a wrapper.

  He watches. I think bemused is the right word to describe his expression when I take another bite of candy bar and look back up at him.

  “Are you afraid to be alone with me now?”

  “I’m afraid of melted Snickers bars.”

  “Melted candy bars are tragic.”

  Tristan and I always have dumb conversations, and I’m not sure this is such a good sign.

  I shove the rest of a Snickers in my mouth, thinking this will keep him from kissing me at least for a few minutes. But then I chew quickly because I want him to kiss me.

  Don’t I?

  Isn’t that what my every fantasy involves?

  It is. Or it was.

  Now, I’m just as likely to think about the trees outside my window. Fantasies require too much effort, and more hope than I can muster these days.

  Then I recall lying next to Sin in his bed, and how he said we. I marvel at how something inside me felt as if it cracked open that night, and I haven’t been able to put the pieces back together again.

  But it makes no sense. It’s not like any other feeling I’ve ever had. I have no name for it. I can only marvel at it when I’m alone, when I have nothing else to think about, feeling around for some clue about what it was, what mysterious fossil I’ve found.

  It’s much easier to understand what I feel for Tristan—pure, unabashed lust combined with storybook love—and go with that right now.

  And whatever happened with Sin, it might be lost forever.

  By the time I finish chewing, I’ve regained my nerve. “Why did you take me up to that bedroom at the party?”

  “Because you looked like you needed to forget.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just like you do now.”

  “Oh.”

  “And also because you’re beautiful.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “I am. Because I mean it.”

  “How do I know you’re not just saying it so I’ll let you take me to your bedroom now?”

  I’m being coy, and it sounds stupid. It’s much more natural for me to act like I don’t give a damn, to flaunt the emotional calluses I built up waiting for my sister to die.

  “Because I already know you’ll kiss me whether I tell you you’re beautiful or not?” Somehow he manages to say this without sounding cocky.

  “Maybe I won’t this time.”

  Then there is a sound from inside the house.

  “I think we have company now,” Tristan says as he gazes through the kitchen door, his expression vaguely disappointed.

  I want to grab him and drag him away somewhere private, demand to know exactly what all this means, or does it mean nothing at all?

  But the instant the impulse arises, it is stomped down by the equally urgent desire for Sin not to see us out here alone looking suspicious. So I muster all my strength and go back into the house.

  I am a lousy traitor, the worst kind of friend.

  Just as I reach the hallway, I see Sin putting down a box beside the door. He looks up and sees me.

  “Hey, I was looking for you,” I say, wondering if I sound too defensive.

  “Here I am.” He glances past me, at Tristan, and his expression changes.

  “You set up the show alr
eady?”

  “It was ten paintings. She didn’t need my help.”

  She, as in Jess, is walking through the door now. “Oh, hi, Asha. How are you doing?” She says it meaningfully, as if apologizing for my pathetic life with that one little question.

  Before I can answer, she sweeps me up in an embrace that’s a little too eager. She must just now have remembered that I’m still in mourning. Now that she’s spent a couple of hours staring at and arranging her own art, she’s probably in a good mood, ready to acknowledge that other people—and our pain—exists.

  “I’m—” I say before the squeeze becomes too tight for me to speak. “Okay,” I finish when she lets up a bit.

  I awkwardly put my arms around her thin, wiry body. It reminds me of when Sin had a pet python (until Jess found out and made him get rid of it), the way it would wind itself around me, surprisingly strong and a little unnerving.

  She releases me abruptly, holds me at arm’s length. “Sin told me you scattered the ashes. Sarah’s gone back to Mother Earth, darling. It’s the circle of life.”

  Spiritual lessons from children’s movies.

  I say nothing at all. Just blink at her, because Jess is unaccustomed to comforting people, and I’m unaccustomed to being comforted. Especially with Tristan and Sin as my audience.

  Jess gives me one last meaningful squeeze before letting go and disappearing upstairs to her bedroom.

  Sin rolls his eyes. Tristan shuffles down the hallway, back to his lair.

  “So why were you looking for me?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “I thought I made myself pretty clear.”

  “Yeah.” I feel my courage faltering now. I hadn’t imagined how hard this was going to be. “You did. I owe you an apology.”

  He stares at me. Through me. Says nothing.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Okay, you apologized. Are you done, or do you want to go hang out with Tristan in his bedroom now?”

  I kind of deserve that, but I still wish he’d make this easier.

  “No,” I say, a lame, little protest that hangs in the air between us like a bad memory.

  Standing alone together in the kitchen, only a few feet apart, I am aware all of a sudden of how many times we’ve been closer, lying in bed with our bodies touching, even. During those times, I felt the sort of closeness I had with Sarah. Comfortable, intimate, like a favorite sweater. But now I see there was always something more, a little twinge of energy beneath that comfort.

  My mind skims over the idea but won’t settle on it. I feel it now, that spark of heat, not like any other feeling I have known.

  Sin, with his hard stare, his arms crossed over his paint-stained, gray sweatshirt, is having none of it. “You smell like chocolate.” It’s an accusation.

  I remember the last Snickers bar still clutched in my hand. It must be goo by now. I hold it out. “For you.”

  He eyes it and makes a face. “It’s not even shaped right.”

  “It melted.”

  He sighs heavily. “Tristan was bribing you with his private stash, wasn’t he?”

  Busted.

  “No,” I lie. “He was just sharing. While I waited for you to get back.”

  “I bet that’s not all he shared.”

  “Actually, it is.” I hold out the Snickers again.

  “I don’t want your old, melted candy bar.”

  He turns and heads for his room, and I follow him. I see on the door that the kitten poster is gone now, replaced by one of killer robots.

  “What happened to the kittens?”

  “The robots killed them.” He starts to close the door in my face.

  “Sin, please, wait.” I stick my hand between the door and its frame so he can’t close it all the way.

  Through the crack, he glares at me.

  “Will you go with me, tomorrow?” I say, playing my final card. If this doesn’t soften him, nothing will. “To the spot?”

  He knows which spot I mean.

  The hardness in his eyes softens a bit, or maybe it’s my imagination. For a long, painful stretch, he says nothing.

  “Okay,” he finally says, annoyance lingering in his tone.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “Do you think your mom would let you borrow her van? Maybe in the morning?”

  “I’ll just take it before she gets up. Ten o’clock?”

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  In the old days, he would have invited me into his room. I would have spent the night. We would have lain awake taking sips of contraband whiskey and speculating about the sex lives of our classmates.

  But something fundamental has changed between us, and I’m afraid things aren’t going to be like they used to be anymore.

  “I’d better go,” I say, wishing I could stay and knowing I can’t, even if he did invite me.

  I can’t stick around, smelling of chocolate, seeing stars whenever I close my eyes, knowing Tristan is right in the next room, possibly wanting me. And all with Sin right here, stirring up feelings I don’t know what to name.

  So I go. It’s painful, and I don’t want to be at home, but I have to be anywhere but here.

  Twenty-Three

  Rachel

  I can’t stop thinking about all the ways Sarah was brave and I am not. She is really gone now. There is no more of her sitting in the next room, her ghost appearing to me every time I see that damn urn, because the urn is empty now.

  But her ghost is maybe still here.

  I don’t believe in ghosts, but then again maybe I should.

  I am haunted as fuck.

  That’s what I am.

  It’s becoming clearer to me by the day, because I cannot sleep anymore. I don’t want to eat. I just want something to happen that will obliterate my memory.

  Or me.

  Either one.

  Because I apparently don’t have the guts to do it myself.

  Maybe that’s the lack of sleep talking. I have never been the suicidal type. Yet having Krishna leave me standing alone on the street in the middle of the freaking night, and scattering my sister’s ashes tonight … it’s like all signs point to life as I know it ending.

  And what’s a girl to do with depressing signs like that?

  So when it is four in the morning and I’m still not asleep, I instead find myself thinking about Krishna. I sit in bed with my laptop and do an Internet search of his name and the meditation center. I find the center’s website, which has a lame-ass bio page for each of its instructors, including him. In his photo, he smiles out at the camera in that way he has, as if he is peace itself.

  His bio says the same kind of stuff he has already told me, only less detailed and more fakey-fake, so I click back to the results page and look for anything else juicier that I might find about him in less official places. Like, do Buddhist monks have Facebook pages?

  He doesn’t, but I find an interview of him on some punk-rock Buddhism website, which seems like a ridiculous contradiction if you ask me, but nobody has. The interview has a couple more pictures of him—one in which he’s sitting on a tree stump looking off into the distance, and another of him laughing as he stands in front of a class of meditators.

  I stare at him, try to burn those images into my memory. Something is seriously wrong with me because I think I’m falling in love with a guy who has no interest in having sex with me, or anyone else.

  How could this go anywhere interesting?

  I read the interview, which is mostly about how Krishna credits his recovery from his addiction on his spiritual practice, and how he works a lot with recovering addicts, and how he struggles to stay true to his Buddhist values with blah blah blah …

  I stop reading, but then I force myself to go back and pay attention to every last word because I have to know more about this guy who has me up all night and not giving a rat’s ass about the other two guys in my life.

  Then I find a few other references to him online. Like he was part
of a peaceful protest at San Quentin for some guy who was wrongly imprisoned for something, and he is listed in a Marin IJ article as a volunteer tutor in a new program for some crappy school in Marin City where the kids don’t have books or whatever.

  So as far as I can tell, he is exactly what he says he is; not the kind of guy I should be interested in.

  Someone to be left the fuck alone.

  So why do I want to do anything but?

  When I look at the clock again, it’s nearly 5:00 a.m. Don’t monks get up at the butt crack of dawn to meditate?

  I want to see him right now. Seized with a burst of crazy energy, I get up and go downstairs. By some miracle, Lena’s car is in the driveway, and her keys are hanging on the little hook by the door. All I have to do is get in the car and go, and I could be at the meditation center in like fifteen minutes.

  So I go.

  I don’t think about it. Don’t do anything to my hair or even change my clothes. I don’t even have a reason for going, exactly.

  The dawn light is just starting to change the sky in the east, but it’s mostly dark out. Streetlights are still on, and the town isn’t up and moving yet as I drive west. I don’t have any kind of plan, and nothing occurs to me as I drive in my sleep-deprived stupor. I don’t know how I will find Krishna once I get there, and I don’t know what I will say if I find him.

  The only thing I know for sure is that I want to see him again.

  When I park in the lot closest to the main building, I sit in the car for a moment in a sleep-deprived stupor, and it finally occurs to me that I’m losing my mind. Sane girls don’t go out searching for Buddhist monks at five in the morning.

  Maybe it’s not a question of sanity, though, so much as it is a need to fill up the big empty-ass space I feel inside. Or to crowd out the ugly facts of Sarah’s death that won’t stop screaming at me every time I let my guard down.

  Nothing is sacred anymore.

  I’m not even sure what the word sacred exactly means, except when I think of life in the commune, which I can barely remember, I remember a feeling of peacefulness. Life made sense. We had a purpose. We knew the rules of the game we were playing.