Page 111 of Not Made to Last

Dom glances around the room before crossing the threshold and silently sits next to Oscar on the floor.

They don’t greet each other.

No one says a word.

They just wait, watching me, because I’m the only one who has something to say.

I turn to Liv. “Do you remember the night I came over, and we did that thing with the twine?”

Liv nods, her brow dipped slightly. “Yes?”

“Do you have something like that I can do?” I flex my fingers. “I need something to do with my hands if I’m?—”

She turns her entire body to mine, one leg up on the couch, and offers me her hands. “Right here,” she says, wiggling her fingers.

I match her position, hold on to her hands, and brush my thumbs along the backs of her fingers. And I don’t know how she does it. How this simple touch can set off something so ingrained, so visceral, inside me. Lifting her hands, I kiss the tips of her fingers, then lower them again.

I look from our touch to my sister—one last time. One last out. She simply nods, urging me to go on. And so I do…

“It was the summer after my freshman year…”

64

Rhys

It was the summer after my freshman year and my sister’s junior. A couple of months earlier, she secretly applied for a job as a lifeguard at a summer camp, and they offered her the position. She kept it from everyone because she knew how my parents would feel about it. My sister, Izzy, is incredibly smart. Gifted, really. But the level of intelligence that Izzy has, unfortunately, comes with a slew of other problems.

Socially, she struggles with awareness and the emotional cues of others. The first time I noticed it was in elementary school—when a bunch of kids teased her about the food she ate andhowshe ate it. The next day, she returned with enough food for them all. She gathered them in a circle to teach them how to divide carrot sticks into equal segments for consumption—just like she does. Even during this, they continued to tease her, and she… she continued to smile, carry on as if nothing was happening. The day after that, I punched the ringleader of those asshole kids right in his nose. Broke it. I was in third grade.

It was those types of situations that had my parents weary of her decision while also wanting to encourage her to be independent. She was seventeen, but her developmental mind was that of someone much younger.

In the end, they caved and allowed her to go on the condition that she call every day.

She was supposed to be gone for eight weeks.

She returned after two.

And the Izzy who came back was not the same one who left.

She was guarded; didn’t like to be in a room alone, didn’t like the quiet, didn’t want to be hugged… even by me—someone she used to have to force to give her affection. I knew something was wrong, but when I asked her, she just shrugged. And when I asked my parents, they greeted me with silence. But there were whispers throughout the house and heated conversations behind closed doors.

I’d catch my dad in fits of anger… my mom constantly in tears…

And my sister…

…it’s like she wasn’t even there.

One day, I answered a knock on the door, and there was a woman on the other side. She introduced herself as a detective and asked to see my parents. I sat in Izzy’s room, watching her stare out the window… and she was just… blank. Empty. I asked her if she wanted a hug, just to test the waters…

She shook her head and looked at me… and the tears in her eyes… I’d never felt heartbreak until that moment. It was the first time she said it…

“You’re a hundred percent of my fifty, Rhys.”

My mom came into her room not long after and gently coaxed her away, locked her in her office with the detective. I tried to listen in through the door, but all I could hear was muffled conversation.

And my sister’s cries.

That night, I lay on the floor of her room, and she lay in her bed. She had a night-light on. She didn’t turn it off like she normally did, and when I offered to do it for her, she said to leave it. I remember lying there, looking at the glow of stars on her ceiling created by a light she had when she was a fucking toddler, and I don’t know why…

---