Page 33 of Letting Go

You don’t know how your brother-in-law ended up inside you?

Cool. Very chill. Happens to the best of us.

No.

No, no. Be elegant. Be elegant.

I take a breath, but it gets stuck somewhere between my ribs and the realization that I might vomit.

Our relationship has always been weird. Not exactly bad, but fractured in a way I’ve never really had the language for. My parents brought her home when I was ten. A squirmy, gurgling baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket and expectations.

At first, I was excited. Like I’d won some big sister lottery. But that high wore off fast.

Because suddenly, everything was a competition I never signed up for.

She said mama before I did. Crawled before I could roll over. Potty trained at three while I was apparently still waddling around in diapers at four, which my mother reminded me of with a laugh like it was cute. Like it was funny.

And then came the bigger things.

I got McDonald’s and a cake from Walmart for my birthdays. She got catered backyard parties with bouncy castles and live magicians.

They acted like the ten-year age gap didn’t exist. Like I wasn’t in high school when she was still learning to spell her own name. At my sixteenth birthday, they gifted us matching colouring sets. I kid you not. Me,who can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. And to top it off, they surprised me with a family trip to Water World.

Sounds sweet, right?

Except they scheduled it on the day of a mandatory exam. And when I asked if we could reschedule, they just said, “Keira’s excited, and it’s for kids anyway.”

Right. Kids.

I was sixteen. And that trip wasn’t for me. It was never about me.

So, when I left for college, I didn’t cut out my parents. I cut her out. I didn’t even mean to at first. But every time she texted, every call she made, every “Can I come visit?” just dragged the whole mess back up. All the ways I’d been pushed aside. All the ways she’d never had to fight for their attention because it was handed to her on a glitter-covered plate.

The last time I answered her call, she was complaining. Complaining that Mom was always sending her care packages, and Dad wouldn’t stop asking about her grades. At the college he paid for in full. She’s never worked a job. Never learned to drive. I was working part-time and riding the bus at sixteen just to be away from her.

Our parents? They were busy. Too busy for me. Not too busy for her.

So yeah. I let Mike handle her. Whenever she showed up at the house, God, it makes me sick to even think that now, I’d just pass her off. “Oh, Mike will take care of her.” “Babe, can you keep her company?” Like she was a damn plant I didn’t want to water.

Did I do this?

Oh my God.

Did I help him groom my little sister?

My stomach flips. I double over on the seat like I’ve been punched. Because suddenly I’m not just angry at him. I’m angry at me. For not seeing it. For being so desperate to distance myself from her that I handed her to a man who apparently took one look and saw something he could exploit.

This isn’t just betrayal.

This is biblical.

Cain and Abel, but make it a twisted domestic thriller where I might be the one who handed over the murder weapon and walked away.

I should hate her. I do hate her. But I also hate that I feel sorry for her. That somewhere deep in my gut, under all the fire and fury, there’s still this instinct to protect her. To believe she didn’t know what she was doing. That she was a kid, my kid sister, and he took advantage.

But if I let myself believe that, then I have to ask the real question.

Where does that leave me?

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