My Sister and I

Chapter Two

I woke up groggy the next morning. I glared evilly at my alarm clock as it read seven a.m. Honestly, the school system had it all wrong; elementary age children naturally woke up at early hours so why elementary school didn't start until nine-thirty or ten in the morning completely boggled me. Luckily, fate had been on my side when my parents bought this house because not only did it take me less than ten minutes to get ready for school but I could be in school in less than five minutes. So I usually slept in as late as possible, as long as I woke up within twenty minutes of the first bell.

This morning I got up and slowly got ready for school like I normally did and it wasn't until I was putting my boots on that I remembered I had a meeting with Reggie before first period.

    "Hell," I muttered and dashed out the door and ran up the hill to the side door of school. I made it to the front office with only five minutes to spare before my first hour.

    "You're really trying my patience, Melissa," Reggie said without looking up from his paperwork. Reggie was an intimidating man, or he would have been if he wasn't one of the most fairest faculty members at the school. Reggie was the kind of teacher that tried to work with students rather than make students follow a strict set of rules. He also didn't put up with any bull. He was in charge of Student Affairs so basically he was the ultimate guidance counselor, you had to be pretty messed up to merit a meeting with him. I guess I was one of the lucky few.

He was a tall man with skin as dark as my black boots but when he smiled, man, it was the friendliest smile you'd ever get from a teacher--as long as you didn't give him any lip. Reggie and I had become fast friends almost from the very first day of school, of course I had been skipping class at the time and he'd caught me which gave me my first lesson on Mr. Reggie Lanfield. Ever since then, we'd been on a first name basis.

    "Lucky for you, however," he continued and finally looked up at me. "You got out of lunch duty today."

    "Is there anything else I lucked out on," I asked hopeful. Wishful thinking I knew but it was worth a try.

    "In fact, yes there is." Reggie smiled at me, all white teeth ad gums. It was kind of unnerving in this situation, he was never this nice.

    "Really," I asked hesitantly. "What is it?"

    "You do realize you have about a hundred and ten hours of detention, not including yesterday's--unexcused--mishap, right?" He said all this without losing his smile but I had a sudden sinking feeling this was leading nowhere good.

    "Yeah..." I answered.

    "Even if you did an hour a day of detention, you still wouldn't be able to complete your hours before graduation," he said. Still speaking cheerfully, when was the other shoe going to drop, I thought.

    "Is my punishment suppose to be standing here listening to you berate me," I asked irritated. I knew full well I was giving him attitude which Reggie never took positively but I didn't know where he was going with this line of thinking.

    "Careful, Melissa, I'm about to do you a huge favor," he warned. I failed to see how and asked him as much.

    "How so," I asked.

He shifted some papers around on his desk and pulled out what appeared to be a completely random sheet and handed it to me. I took the paper and looked at it carefully. It was my transcripts, dating all the way back to sixth grade.

    "What are you--"

    "Take a look at those English grades," he instructed.

A-A-A-B-A-C-A-A..."What about them," I asked and shrugged at the same time.

    "You excel in English, why?" He waited for an answer even though the warning bell rang indicating we had one minute to get to class.

    "I don't know, but class is--"

    "Don't worry about class, I'll write you a pass," he said and waved it off with his right hand.

    "Ok, but what does my English grades have to do with me getting rid of my detention hours?" I was still at a complete loss, when would he get to the point?

    "I want you to start a project," he sat back in his chair which creaked under his weight. He wasn't fat by any means but he was solid. He looked at me closely before saying, "Starting today, I want you to keep a diary."

I stood there in complete silence waiting for him to start laughing. When he didn't, I knew he wasn't joking.

    "Excuse me," I asked stunned.

    "Yeah, that's about what I thought your reaction would be," he chuckled and opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled out a medium sized book. It was lime green and looked rather simple but I instantly disliked the thing. "Your favorite color is still green, right?"

    "It was before this exact moment," I said slowly and continued to stare at the book. "What is that?" I dreaded his answer even though I already knew.

    "Your new diary," he smiled brightly and I had the sudden vision of me punching him in the face.

    "You're joking," again, this was said with attitude. "Right?"

    "Not to sound like Thor or anything but do I look to be in a jesting mood," his smile never faded but it did become more threatening.

    "Was that rhetorical," I asked honestly.

    "Mel," he warned.

    "Sorry! I just don't know what you expect from me," I said defensively. A diary, I mean, come on!

    "I'm so glad you asked," he said brightly."I expect you to write in this book every day starting from today until the Friday before graduation," he said. "If," he enunciated that single word. "If you wish to graduate on time," he finished. He handed the book to me and I took it as gingerly as I wold have if it was dynamite.

I was surprised to find it was heavier than it looked. I opened the first page and had to appreciate the design. The paper was compressed and matted, kind of like the paper you could make yourself at the renaissance festival. It looked pretty cool, I had to admit actually, but I still wasn't sold on this idea.

    "Reggie, I don't--"

    "This is your only chance, Melissa," he said. "You can't serve more than two hours of detention a day and even if you started today, you'd never serve all your hours."

He had a point, sadly. What was the saying again, hindsight was twenty-twenty? I shouldn't have skipped so much, I mentally scolded myself.

    "Mel," he sighed and sat up straight again. "All I'm asking you to do is write your thoughts down, once a day and bring me the book every Monday. Let me check the entries and I'll erase your detention hours at the end of this semester," he said reasonably.

    "Are you going to read all the entries," I asked. I wasn't sure what bothered me more, the fact that I was being made to do this or the fact that he'd be reading all my thoughts.

    "Yes," he said simply.

    "So what stops me from discussing the weather or what I've eaten on any particular day?" Because if there were no restrictions, that's about all he'd get from my entries.

He laughed, "Because if I feel like you're just writing nonsense, I won't delete your hours and I'll see you at summer school. Simple as that."

    "So, I just need to write my thoughts and feelings," I clarified.

    "Yup," he nodded. "Everyday."

    "Everyday," I muttered.

    "I know it'll take some time to really get into a flow but I know you'll get it," he reached into his desk again and pulled out his hallway pass pad. He wrote me a pass to my first hour but stopped me halfway to his office door. "Remember, Melissa," he tapped the calendar sitting on his desk. "Everyday and please, go to math today."

    "Sure thing, Reg," I called over my shoulder with a mock salute.

***

True to my word, I stayed for math class and even took it one step further and didn't start a fight with my teacher.

After school I went home and immediately started my homework so by the time my parents came home, I was completely done. We were about halfway through dinner when my father cleared his throat indicating he had something to say.

    "So, I got a call from Reggie today," he said and I groaned.

    "What? Why? I even stayed for math class," I whined and put down my fork, thinking I was about to get chewed out by my parents.

    "He said he gave you an assignment," he scooped more hamburger helper into his mouth. "Wanna tell me about it," He muffled through the food in his mouth. Both my parents looked at me expectantly. I was going to get back at Reggie...

    "Not really," I mumbled and my mother raised her eyebrows. "But I will," I added quickly. "It's not anything, really, it's kind of like...a writing thing," I trailed off, hoping that would be enough information.

    "He said something about a diary," my father said.

Yup, I was going to TP Reggie's desk first thing in the morning. Hardcore TP, the wet, gross, impossible-to-get-rid-of kind of TP too. "Can we not call it that, geez," I rolled my eyes. "It's a journal, let's call it a journal, ok?"

    "Ok, so he wants you to write in a dia-" my mother quickly retracted her words after I shot her a warning glare. "Dia-journal, but why?"

    "To help with graduation," I said. No need to mention--

    "It's for the detention she's accumulated the last four years," my father supplied.

    "Dad!" I interjected, irritated that he outted me to my mother. "If you already knew all the details, why did you even ask?"

    "Because I wanted you to tell your mother," he said innocuously.

    "Well, how much detention did you accumulate," my mother asked.

    "Just a couple--"

    "One hundred and ten hours," my father answered for me.

    "Dad!"

    "A hundred and te-how?" My mother's voice raised about ten octaves and I cringed. I didn't even have to look at her to know her face was bright red with anger.

    "Mom, it's not a big deal," I tried to pacify her. "Reggie said he'd cancel all the hours if I wrote in the diary," I said.

    "I thought we were calling it a journal," my father asked innocently.

I whipped my head to the left to glare at him. I didn't even bother to shout but I gave him my most intimidating look which I probably failed miserably at, "Thin ice, Dad."

    "Ok, Ok," he gave in and put more food in his mouth.

    "Well, I guess you should keep up with the diary," my mother said.

    "It's a journal, God!" I groaned and dropped my head onto the table hard enough to rattle the silverware.

***

The rest of dinner passed by peacefully but when I headed back to my room, the first thing I did was pull out the journal. Reggie wanted me to write my feelings, well here went nothing:

Dear Reggie,

        Thanks for ratting me out to my parents. I truly appreciate it. can you sense the sarcasm dripping from my written words? Well, let me assure you, there is heavy sarcasm. Dinner with the 'rents was quite delightful. She said with heavy sarcasm again.

I was hoping he'd get the picture...

How am I feeling? Besides, irritated, I feel stupid writing this. I hope you don't expect much to come from this exercise of yours. I mean seriously, who do you think I am? Anne Frank? She at least had World War II to write about. What am I suppose to write about? I'm a teenager from Mid-America, nothing exciting happens here. I could write about the war on terrorism except well, isn't that was newspapers are for?  We had hamburger helper for dinner...Oh! I went to math class and didn't start a fight with Ms. Jano. Although I still don't understand why I can't do the math problems my way as long as I get the right answer, seems stupid to me. 

I was quickly running out of ideas to talk about. How was I feeling? Bored...Stupid...that about summed up my feelings, actually. I wanted to get back to my cultures book so I decided to close out my entry with that.

Well I have a book I want to get back too. It's about the different cultures around the world. It's pretty interesting, actually. So, with that I'm going to say....goodbye? Ugh, this is too weird...

I debated on whether I should sign the bottom but felt too foolish and just dated the entry and left it at that. I put the book in the drawer of my nightstand and pulled out my cultures book.

***

I didn't dream that night...

My Sister and I

Chapter One

If you had told me that my dead sister would take me on the ride of my life, I would have laughed in your face and told you to lay off the meds. Of course, that was before my sister showed up in my dream one night....she may have been dead for the last seven years but she'd been plenty busy...

***

I hitched my backpack on my shoulder and figuratively kissed the school goodbye by sneaking out one of the side doors that would lead me to the street closest to my house. I didn't always skip my last class but I'd had a considerably rotten day up to this point, I wasn't feeling much up to attempting to learn math. I hated math anyway and it was no secret that there was no love lost between the teacher and myself so I just did us both a favor by not even showing up. My house was practically within spitting distance of the school so I didn't have far to go and I would reach home well before the security personnel could notice a student left earlier than allowed. I just hoped the person manning the cameras didn't inform Reggie, head of the Student Affairs department of my absence because he had no problem hauling my butt back to school; I made that mistake twice but now I'd gotten smarter. If Reggie knocked on the door, don't open it!

As expected, I was home within two minutes and was laying face down on my bed when the house phone rang. Knowing better than to pick it up, I let it go to voicemail and soon I could hear Reggie's voice echoing throughout the house.

There was an audible sigh. "Come on, Melissa," he sounded tired. Seemed like he wouldn't be making a surprise visit to my front door today. I had to suppress a smile, "How many times are we going to do this?"

    "Until you give up, Old Man," I muttered to myself.

    "You know you'll have to come to the office first thing in the morning," he continued. "And don't make me pull you out of your first hour otherwise I'm putting you on lunch duty again."

I groaned even has he hung up the phone. Gah, I hated lunch duty. The kids all stared at you as you picked up the trash left behind and I didn't know about other high schools but the students in my school had a nasty habit of making things hard for others. Most often they would make ten times the amount of mess than normal if there was a student assigned to lunch duty. At least Reggie gave me an option, I guess I was going to go to the office first thing in the morning to receive the normal punishment--detention. I had racked up so many detention hours in the last four years that my guidance counselor, Mrs. Kamthen, told me graduation might be highly unlikely unless I did something about them now. At the time I had shrugged and paid no attention but I was thinking maybe I should start worrying about it, it was March after all. Only three more months before graduation.... Yeah, I'd definitely check into that tomorrow morning. I wasn't worried about not graduating, despite the detention hours, because I was actually quite a good student. Of course, math was the only class I'd ever really struggled with and even then I always achieved an average score.

My impeccable academic record notwithstanding, adults usually type-casted me as the troublemaker or underachiever because I rarely participated in class or even showed up to class at all. I'd always been good at learning, I'd just never been one to follow the rules, much to my parents continued frustration. Of course, I'm sure my sense of style was also the reason people assumed I was a nuisance; on any give day I could be seen with jeans and a plain t-shirt. Not the tight, skinny jeans that were fashionable nowadays but the comfortably lose jeans, I mean who wanted to actually wear skinny jeans that constricted movements? Every once in awhile I would make myself fancy by wearing a sweater cardigan or flannel button up but only if it was cold. I just had no time for nice cloth, I would rather be comfortable. That was probably the reason I didn't have many female friends; well that, and the fact that I thought girls were whiny. Myself, notwithstanding of course,

Resigning myself to my fate, I got up from the bed to erase the message off the voicemail, confident that that'd be the only evidence of my rebellion. Reggie knew better than to call my parents, it never mattered, to be honest. He used to call them every time I left unexcused but he learned pretty quick that ratting me out to the 'rents didn't make much of a difference.

He also learned pretty quickly that sending me to the guidance counselor was also of no use because I didn't exactly fit the profile of a troubled kid. My parents loved me and never abused me and I loved them just as much. My parents and I had a great relationship as long as we weren't discussing my life as a student--which almost never came up. I had no lingering emotional turmoil or horrifically traumatizing events in my past. I also didn't have a problem with authority and always managed to be respectful with adults--not so much in my head but that wasn't really the point, was it?

No, Mrs. Kamthen couldn't categorize me into any of those neat little boxes that most students fit into, I just...didn't have a lot of ambition. I lacked direction, she said. I needed a challenge...I guess I didn't disagree with her totally, in fact, I really thought she had something with that theory. I just didn't care...

My parents came home a few hours later. They were conservationist so they drove together to conserve on natural resources, despite them both owning cars. They used to take the bus until my mom got robbed once while riding the bus. It scared her enough that my father agreed to start taking the car to work.

It was comical how routine both my parents were. I was reading in my bedroom when they both came home and without closing my eyes, I could perfectly trace their movements. My mother would walk in first and plop her keys in the key dish which preceded my father's keys only by a mere second. My father would take my mother's coat and hang it in the closet while my mother walked to their bedroom to change. My father would check the voicemails and turn on the TV to channel 5 to watch the evening news. Any second now my mother would knock...

     "Honey, what do you want for dinner," right on time, I thought. I closed my book and headed out the living room.

    "I'unno, Mom," I sat next to my father on our dark brown couch. "Daddy-O, what do you want for dinner?" When it came to food, I was never picky but my father was. My mother had been raised on a farm with eight other children and often had to eat whatever my grandparents were able to provide. I had gotten my taste buds from her, that much I was sure of. Other than that, I was completely my father.

I'd inherited his dark brown, almost black, hair which was sadly stick straight. I would have loved to have my mother's blonde curls but I hadn't been so blessed. As it was, I kept my hair short in a pixie-cut. No muss, no fuss for me.  My father and I shared the same hazel eyes and straight sharp noses. Even my smile was like my father's, it quirked to one side when we smiled and showed barely any teeth. I never wore make-up and much preferred my tomboyish style of a natural face. I felt bad for my mother, sometimes I wished I could be more girly for her but sadly, that would have been my sister.

I glanced over at the picture that sat on the mantle of our fireplace which was surrounded by two angel figurines. We had been twins. We were thirteen when my sister, Alissa, she got viral meningitis. We hadn't caught it fast enough and she'd died within four days. That was seven years ago but I could still feel her absence in my heart. I think my parents do too. Of course, you never get over something like that but the pain seemed to hurt less and less as the years went by. We still bought her a birthday cake and added the appropriate amount of candles every year on her birthday. Then we'd all make a wish and blew them out at the same time.  She'd been the girly one; long blond wavy curls with almond colored eyes. She preferred pink most but was perfectly happy in purple. She used to be so fascinated with my mother's make up and she'd make me be her model. She'd test different eyes shadows and blushes on me, just to see what fit me better. She used to think she'd be a make-up artist when she grew up. She never liked to be in the lime light, just behind it.

To this day, I'd never had a guy tell me I was pretty but my sister insisted that I was pretty with a good coloring. Whatever the hell that meant... At thirteen she knew what she'd wanted in life and me, well, even at eighteen I had no idea. I never really thought about it and even with my impending graduation, I still hadn't made a plan of what to do afterwards. I sighed audibly which caught my father's attention.

    "What's up, Mel," he nudged me with his shoulder.

    "Just thinking," I finally looked away from Alissa's photo and back to my father. His face had grown old. I think losing a child aged a person more than they actually were. Even my mother was prematurely gray despite only being 48. My father's face seemed to get these haggard lines around his  mouth when he smiled. As if his body didn't want him to smile any more. My mother had similar lining around her eyes.

    "About what," he asked.

    "Hmm, nothing in particular," I shrugged. "I'm going to go see if Mom needs help in the kitchen."

    "Okay, Baby," he said and went back to watching the news.

My mom was busy cooking ground beef in a skillet in the kitchen. She had on her Hawaiian-esque apron and she was humming to a song in her head. "Whatcha humming?"

    "Patsy Cline," she answered and started singing the lyrics. The song was "She's Got You" which always seemed depressing as hell to me but it was one of her favorites. I asked her once why she liked that song and all she said was, "First loves are always the most powerful."

Never having had a first love myself, I just had to take her word for it. I'd never even had a boyfriend. I didn't really know what I was missing and love seemed to finite to me. It didn't seem to really be worth my time but granted, most of my friends were of the male variety and none of them had really caught my eye as boyfriend material. Honestly, I preferred it that way.

    "So what's for dinner," I asked, taking a seat at the table.

    " I thought we could have tacos today," she answered before turning off the stove.

    "Ahh," I said noncommittally. I watched as she added the taco seasoning and pulled out the other ingredients; tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, etc. Soon dinner was done and we were sitting at the table holdings hands.

My parents had become rather religious after Alissa's death but me, I tended to believe she was happy and leave it at that. I tried the whole church thing and it just didn't suit me. My parents never pushed me and always made sure I knew the church invitation was always open but I respectfully declined. However, that didn't stop me from hanging my head with my parents and praying before dinner every night. If it made my parents feel more at peace then I would do what I could to help them.

After dinner was done, I helped my mother load the dishwasher before disappearing to my room under the pretense of doing homework. Instead, I opened my book again and went back to reading. My current book was about world cultures and their differences. Michael, one of my closest friends, had bought me the book for Christmas. It was actually pretty fascinating how different the world was considering we'd all started as part of one continent named Pangea. Somehow, after a bazillion years, the parts of the world evolved drastically which allowed for the different races. I was currently reading about the cultures of Asia and it was interesting enough for me to put my homework on hold. But before I could stop myself I was falling asleep...

I very rarely dreamed of Alissa but when I did, the dreams were always intense. This time was no different. Sometimes Alissa would appear in my dreams as the thirteen year old I remembered, all bright smiles and laughing eyes. But then there were times like this where she appeared as how I imagined she would have looked had she lived. She was breathtakingly beautiful; blond curls and brown eyes in a cream colored face with my mother's full lips and pointed chin that somehow made her look soft rather than stern. Today she was wearing a long black skirt with a pastel purple cable knit cardigan. Refined, like my mother.

She looked sad and my first instinct was to make her smile.

     "Hey, Sis!" I smiled at her, "Chin up!"

It was a pretty weak attempt but she smiled for me anyway.

    "I keep checking up on you but somehow you never change," she didn't say it in a mean or hurtful but rather she looked at me in a sad pitying way. I somehow felt naked; not in the physical sense but like I was vulnerable. "You should be different by now," she said and reached out for my hand.

    "What do you mean," I looked at myself. Of course, even in my dreams, I wasn't nearly as elegant as she was. I was wearing jeans and one of my better shirts, at least it was all black but it was also one I'd originally bought from the men's section...

    "I mean your light, it's brown. It's always been brown," she said and looked at me. Or rather not at me, but around me. I looked behind me thinking maybe there was something there but we were just standing in our living room and it looked normal.

    "I'm...sorry," I said questioningly.

    "I would expect you to glow or at least change, maybe a green or blue, but it's always brown...just brown...brown, brown, brown," she was mumbling by now and waving her hands around my head. I took a step back, this was just too weird. She stopped muttering and looked back at me, "You don't understand what I'm saying, do you?" She asked me with a small smile.

    "Umm, honestly, not in the slightest," I told her. Did she mean the couch? I mean the couch was brown, sure. This had to be the strangest dream I'd ever had of her.

    "It's ok," she said and pulled me into a hug which I returned, I mean how many times do you get to hug your dead loved ones. Dream or not, real or fake, I wasn't passing up this opportunity. "You'll understand soon enough, I'll make sure of it."

    "Liss, what're you--" I started to ask but she interrupted me.

    "I'll be back," she pulled away from me and kissed my forehead like she used to when we were kids. "Be ready!"

    "Be ready for what?" I shouted at her fleeting image. Just as I was about to run after her I fell into the black nothingness of normal sleep. Little did I know that I'd be seeing her again and things would only get weirder...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 After posting this, I decided to make a slight alteration: 

Alissa was originally Melissa's older sister by two years. I've decided for the sake of the story line to make Alissa, Melissa's twin sister instead...