Page 32 of The Poison Daughter
She grins. “You look terrible.”
“Good. Maybe it will scare off my new fiancé.” I stand, cross the room, and flop onto my bed. Aidia follows and lies down facing me. I could conjure the gardenia scent of her perfume even if she weren’t in front of me. The scent of my sister is burned into my memory, like my soul has always known the smell of its other half.
She only comes home when she’s close to breaking, and her calm now makes me wild with fear. Now she seems a faint approximation of herself that leaves me feeling like I’m looking at her through distorted glass.
“What are you doing here?”
She shrugs. “I knew you’d need me.”
“What if Rafe?—”
“Fuck Rafe.”
My sigh turns into a laugh. “Aidy, your last bruise isn’t fully healed yet.”
“I told him Mother sent for me to get you ready for your big night and he couldn’t argue, especially since—” She hesitates. “Especially since I can’t be there tonight.”
I sit up so fast I get a head rush. “He can’t keep you locked up in that grim little mansion whenever it suits him.”
“He can and he will,” she says. “For now, I choose my moments. Besides, you know I hate parties. I’d rather have you to myself. Now, lay down and tell me how you’re feeling.”
I slump back onto the bed. I want to fight with her, push her to fight for herself, but her replies are too calm, too stiff—practiced theater meant to convince other people she’s fine. I know she’s not.
The sharp edges of her are wearing away. I can see it in her smile that fades too quickly and the tired rasp of her usually smooth voice.
There’s a terrible clarity in seeing her like this. I loved her so much I ruined her, and then I ruined myself. Now I don’t know how to mend anything.
She traces the stitching in my bedspread. I wish she’d run her fingers through my hair like she used to when I had an episode, but she keeps her hands to herself.
Touch has always been harder for her. No matter how strong she seemed when she was standing on her own, when I hugged her, she’d fall apart. I wonder if she would now, but I’m too much of a coward to reach for her and find out.
What’s wrong, Aidy?I want to ask so badly.
I’ve never confronted her directly. Never asked her to transform the unspeakable violence into words. I know what it’s like to follow the blood trail in your brain like a well-traveled path but still not know how to give voice to it. True intimacy would mean allowing someone to poke around in my chest and explain why I’m forever riddled with this senseless agony.
This is how we’ve always been, our broken parts mended, growing around each other in gnarled scars. No matter how hard I try to heal, I can’t stop pressing my fingers to the same half-mended fracture, giving myself a new reason to hurt.
Vaguely, I wonder what I’m trying to blot out with that ache. But I hurl the thought from my mind as soon as it rises.
Staring at Aidia now, I see all the ways we are similar and the few where we diverge. People have always said we could be twins, just born eleven months apart. Aidia has the same black hair and fair skin, but her eyes are a pale lilac that looks blue most of the time, while mine are a dark violet. My expressions are a mirror of hers, and she has the same silvery scar on her palm. And yet I have always looked to her and seen the ways I lack.
I’ve been reserved while she danced like a star through every party or challenged our parents with articulate fury.
Aidia had always seemed complete while I felt half-formed. Rebellion came so naturally to her. I would have never found my own path to it without her. She was so resolute in her convictions that they built the foundation for my own.
That’s what it is to have a sister—to love her, envy her, and also be in awe at how much better than you she is. Having a sister is pressing your heart up against another heart and seeing how your hurt and triumph mirror each other. It’s saying, “There’s no pain you carry that I don’t carry too. As long as I’m here, you’re never alone.”
I could never decide if I wanted to be her or run from her. Aidia was vital and flexible, while I lived at the mercy of the vicious swells of pain in my head.
I spent my youth navigating the mercurial weather between my sister and my father. I learned to be ready to take cover when a gale was amiss, and when to step in and pull her out of the rain. For all my efforts to emulate Aidia, I am nothing like the girl-shaped thunderstorm that is my sister.
At eight, you should not need to know how much your sister can take, but I did. Whatever intuitive, animal instinct that lived in me then rears up again now. I know the rhythms of my sister.
You have seen this before. The thought cleaves through my brain like a lightning strike, but I shake the hurt away. I don’t want to think about all the past times when I could do nothing. I want to focus on a future where I have a chance to save her.
Surviving is just as much about knowing when to approach the wounded animal of my sister as it is about knowing how to size up an opponent.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
