Filed to story: The One That Got Away
I open and close my mouth. I don’t have to say anything, because she already knows. Alice who knows me so well.
“How could you?” she asks, and her voice trembles. The hurt in her eyes makes me want to die. I’ve never seen that look in her eyes before.
“Alice,” Josh begins, and she shakes her head and backs away.
“Get out,” she says, her voice breaking. Then she looks at me. “You’re my sister. You’re the person I trust more than anybody.”
“Gogo, wait-” But she’s already gone. I hear her feet run up the stairs. I hear her door shut and not slam.
And then I burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry,” Josh says to me. Bleakly, he says, “This is all my fault.” He walks out the back door.
Louis moves to put his arms around me, but I stop him. “Can you just … can you just go?”
Hurt and surprise register on his face. “Sure, I can go,” he says, and he walks out of the kitchen.
I go to the bathroom off the side of the kitchen and sit on the toilet and cry. Someone knocks and I stop crying and call out, “Just a minute.”
Mrs Shah’s cheery voice says, “Sorry, dear!” and I hear her heels clack away.
Then I get up and splash cold water on my face. My eyes are still red and puffy. I run water over a hand towel and I wet my face with it. My mom used to do this for me when I was sick. She’d put an ice-cold washcloth over my forehead and she’d switch it out with a fresh one when it wasn’t cold any more. I wish my mom was here.
When I step back into the party, Mr Choi is sitting at the piano playing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, and Ms Rothschild has my dad cornered on the couch. She’s throwing back champagne, and he has a mildly startled look on his face. As soon he sees me, my dad jumps off the couch and over to me. “Oh, thank God,” he says. “Where’s Gogo? We haven’t done our number yet.”
“She doesn’t feel well,” I say.
“Hm. I’ll go check on her.”
“I think she just wants to be left alone.”
Daddy’s forehead creases. “Did she and Josh have a fight? I just saw him leave.”
I swallow. “Maybe. I’ll go talk to her.”
He pats me on the shoulder. “You’re a good sister, honey.”
I force a smile. “Thank you, Daddy.”
I go upstairs and Alice’s bedroom door is locked. I stand outside it and ask, “Can I come inside?”
No answer.
“Please, Alice. Please just let me explain…”
Still nothing.
“I’m sorry. Alice, I’m so sorry. Please talk to me.”
I sit down outside my door and start to cry. My big sister knows how to hurt me best. Silence from her, being shut out by her, is the worst punishment she could conjure up.
Before Mommy died, Alice and I were enemies. We battled constantly, mostly because I was always messing up something of hers – some game, some toy.
Alice had a doll she loved named Rochelle. Rochelle had silky auburn hair, and she wore glasses like Alice did. Mommy and Daddy had given her to her for her seventh birthday. Rochelle was Alice’s only doll. She adored her. I remember begging Alice to let me hold her, just for a second, but Alice always said no. There was this one time, I had a cold, and I stayed home from school. I crept into Alice’s room and I took Rochelle, I played with her all afternoon, I pretended Rochelle and I were best friends. I got it into my head that Rochelle’s face was actually kind of plain; she would look better with lipstick on. It would be a favour to Alice if I made Rochelle more beautiful. I got one of Mommy’s lipsticks out of her bathroom drawer and I put some on her lips. Right away I knew it was a mistake. I’d drawn it on outside of her lip lines, she looked clownish, not sophisticated. So then I tried to clean off the lipstick with toothpaste, but it only made her look like she had a mouth disease. I hid under my blankets until Alice came home. When she found the state Rochelle was in, I heard Alice’s scream.
After Mommy died, we all had to realign ourselves. Everybody had new roles. Alice and I were no longer locked in battle, because we both understood that Kitty was ours to take care of now. “Look out for your sister,” Mommy was always saying. When she was alive, we did it begrudgingly. After she was gone, we did it because we wanted to.
Days go by and still nothing. She looks through me, speaks to me only when necessary. Kitty watches us with worried eyes. Daddy is bewildered and asks what’s going on with us, but doesn’t push me for an answer.
There is a wall between us now, and I can feel her moving farther and farther away from me. Sisters are supposed to fight and make up, because they are sisters and sisters always find their way back to each other. But the thing that scares me is that maybe we won’t.
Outside my window, snow is falling in clumps that look like cotton. The yard is starting to look like a cotton field. I hope it snows all day and all night. I hope it’s a blizzard.
There’s a knock at my door.
I lift my head up from my pillow. “Come in.”
My dad comes in and sits down at my desk. “So,” he says, scratching his chin the way he does when he’s uncomfortable. “We need to talk.”
My stomach drops. I sit up and wrap my arms around my knees. “Did Alice tell you?”
My dad clears his throat. “She did.” I can’t even look at him. “This is awkward. I never had to do this with Alice, so…” He clears his throat again. “You’d think I would be better at this since I’m a health professional. I’ll just say that I think you’re too young to be having sex, Bella. I don’t think you’re ready yet.” He sounds like he’s about to cry. “Did … did Louis pressure you in any way?”
I can feel all the blood rush to my face. “Daddy, we didn’t have sex.”
He nods, but I don’t think he believes me. “I’m your dad, so of course I’d rather you wait until you’re fifty, but…” He clears his throat again. “I want you to be safe. I’m making an appointment with Dr Hudecz on Monday.”
I start to cry. “I don’t need an appointment, because I’m not doing anything! I didn’t have sex! Not in the hot tub or anyplace. Somebody made the whole thing up. You have to believe me.”
My dad has a pained expression on his face. “Bella, I know it’s not easy to talk about this with a dad and not a mom. I wish your mom was here to navigate us through this.”
“I wish she was too, because she’d believe me.” Tears are running down my cheeks. It’s bad enough for strangers to think the worst of me, but I never thought my sister and dad would believe it.