Because She's My Sister Chapter 2

Well, this was already written so I figured I'd stick it up too. This chapter is just one big flashback, explaining what Elijah was asking about.

Chapter Two

Last Tuesday, Mom had invited Elijah, Tom, and Sergeant Grey over for a kind of thank-your-local-police-force dinner. She’d made her famous turkey pie, with blackberry cobbler for desert. After dinner, they played a movie in the living room. It was The Notebook, which I’d seen already. Believe me, once is too many times for me, with that kind of movie. So I went out on the back porch to stargaze, instead. I love watching the night sky, especially when it gets cold in fall like was then. The stars seem brighter, the sharp smell of wood smoke drifts over from the Averys next door, and all seems right with the world.
It wasn't long before Elijah wandered out there, too. “Not enjoying the movie?” I teased.
“No explosions or car chases yet… I’m giving up.” He shrugged in mock disgust, coming over to lean against the porch railing next to me.
“Welcome to reality… I gave up on that stuff ages ago.” I laughed.
“On romantic movies?”
“Movies, books, the real thing… all of it. It’s so fake.” I sighed. “I mean, girls grow up expecting Prince Charming and then you keep thinking that he's coming, when he's not. It’s messed up.”
“Is there something wrong with prince Charming?”
“With the concept, yes! You think, oh this guy’s gonna be perfect and we’ll fall in love and it’ll be happily ever after. But in the end it turns out he’s a jerk. So you move on to the next one, over and over, always thinking, ‘Oh, this one will be different.’. But they never are. You never end up getting your heart’s desire and becoming a princess. You end up getting your heart broken and becoming bitter.” I let out a long breath, then felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to unleash my anti-fairy tale spiel at you.”
“No worries. I get what you’re saying. But you know, just because Prince Charming is never going to come riding up in a Ferrari doesn’t mean you should give up. There might be a Duke Pleasant with a Prius just around the bend.”
“On the other hand, it could be a pirate. On a Harley.”
“Would that be so bad?” Elijah laughed. I couldn’t help laughing, too. Elijah’s just always had that kind of laugh. The contagious kind.
I’d known Elijah pretty much my whole life. He was five and a half years older than me- an eternity away. When Angie was born he had just turned eleven. When she was two, Mom started dating again and hired Elijah as our babysitter. I know now that most people don’t leave their kids with adolescent boys, but I’ve come to accept the fact that my mother is a bit of a flake. And anyway, Elijah lived next door to us, so it was convenient. Most of the other kids lived on the other side of town, close to the school. They weren’t available on short notice like Elijah was. It worked out fine in the end, Elijah being who he was. He was always responsible for his age. He was Angie’s favorite sitter because he played with her. Our other babysitter, 15 year old Alexis from two streets over, would turn the TV on
and spend the whole time talking on the phone with her boyfriend. Elijah brought board games, played hide and seek, built forts outside, told stories, and even played barbies. Angie called him Lijee, and he had names for us, too. Angie was Angel and I, a bit growth stunted at seven, was Little Bit.
Nobody ever called me Tabitha. Mom and Angie called me Tabby, which I didn’t like because it made me sound like a cat. I was generally known as Tabs, but also went by Bitty for a while, just in time for sixth grade and the inevitable nickname “Bitty Titty”.
In her fleeting brat stage at 8, Angie would scream incessantly if Mom even suggested having anyone else sit for us. I always thought that Mom should just leave me in charge instead of paying someone, but for some reason she never trusted me to take care of Angie (even though I was the same age then than Elijah had been when he first sat for us). So until Angie was 14 and declared old enough to watch herself, Elijah came over whenever Mom had a date. Once Angie passed 10, she lost interest in games and mostly wanted to paint her nails glittery colors and have her friends over. By then, Elijah was well into college, so he usually just did his homework and ate everything in sight.
Early adolescence was not a good stage for me. I was just a little too tall for any of the boys my age, built thick and sturdy like an athlete with none of the reflexes. I still took tae kwon do, but that was the extent of my extracurricular activities. I had no close friends at school. What I did have was unfashionable large boobs, acne, and a hopeless killer crush on anything male. I skulked around the house, my nose always buried in a book, sneaking furtive glances at the babysitter, acutely aware of the cruel irony now when he called me Little Bit, yet deathly afraid he’d stop. Like a large spider skittering from shadow to shadow, equally terrified of being invisible and being seen.
By the time I again became human enough to interact with Elijah without swallowing my tongue, he had left for police academy two cities away. I left town too, last year. I tried to go to a university two states over and hated it. I rationalized my flight back home- I’d get a job, earn some money, go to community college and avoid the huge loans. Mom and Angie were running low on money, they needed me. Those weren't the real reasons, though. The truth was stupid. A bad relationship I couldn't face another year. So now I was home, and Elijah was back as well. Still male.
“But seriously.” Elijah cut through my little jaunt down memory lane. “You’re too young to give up on love yet.”
“I never said I was giving up on love… just romance. Not the same.” I smiled. He smiled back, not saying anything for a minute. “So, Miss Not Giving Up on Love. Got a boyfriend?”
I checked my pockets. “Not on me.” I shook my head and he laughed again. “No, I just got out of a relationship with this guy from college… I’m ‘taking a break’.” I made air quotes and a face.
“Awesome. So the chances of you being busy tomorrow night are slim?”
“Uh… slim to nil. Why?”
“My friend’s band is playing at Jonesy’s. They’re pretty good and they want to spread the word… you wanna go?”
“Um... sure.” I shrugged. When I was a kid, Jonesy's had been a bar, but lately it had made the transition to diner/ music venue. Angie and her friends were always hanging out there, but I had never been.
“Cool. I think you’ll like them. So… I’ll pick you up at 9.”
I swallowed. “Uh, wow… I’m such a spaz, I totally forgot. I can’t. I have a… um… thing. Meeting. With… interview. Job thing.” I backed towards the door. Elijah turned around, leaning back against the porch railing. “At 9 o'clock at night?” he raised his eyebrows.
“Uh, yeah. It’s a night shift.”
“That doesn’t make-“
“Well, goodnight!” I hurried inside and upstairs to my room, feeling like an idiot.
There actually was a halfway decent explanation for my freak-out. The thing was, the “relationship” I’d come out of in college was actually only a relationship in the sense that it had been a friendship. I liked the guy, he didn’t see me that way... which would have been fine, except he didn’t bother to inform me of that. We went out on several dates… or at least, what I call dates. Dinners, concerts, dancing, movies… we had fun. But on our fifth date, I tried to kiss him and he pushed me off, acting very surprised. He said he only liked me as a friend, and he hoped we could stay friends. I laughed it off and said of course we could, fully intending to avoid him for the rest of my life.
Instead, I got sucked into this weird little non-thing. He’d flirt with me, compliment me… we had great times. But then, every two months or so, I’d start to think he was finally developing feelings for me… and then he’d start dating someone. He’d disappear from my life for two weeks, then break up with her and come tell me their sad tale. I was like the long suffering wife to his philandering husband, the band aid to his cut, the aspirin to his headache. He started being the insult added to my injury. The salt in my wound. Basically, I was miserable. When school let out, I ignored his calls, his texts, his email invite to come up with him to Hawaii, and his final angry letter. It had taken a lot of will power to cut that boy loose, and I wasn’t about to get sucked into another confusing “Thing” with Elijah. I knew he wasn’t asking me out. I knew he just wanted to hang out, as friends. But no matter how much I knew that, there was always going to be part of me that wondered, or hoped, or wished. I believe whole heartedly that men and women can just be friends. But not Vincent and I.
And not Elijah and I.

Thanks for reading! You'll need to join in comment :(
Just in case anybody's thinking anything, nothing in this chapter is even remotely based on any of my actual experiences.

*Edit* Hey, does changing his name help, or does it still sound too much like my own experience?

Because She's My Sister Chapter 1

Ok, corny title, I might change it. This chapter includes swearing and an act of violence and probably some very bad writing. Continue at your own risk. :)

Chapter One

It took five kicks to get the door open.

In our house, the doors are thin, some kind of man made material that buckles with just one swift punch. Here, in this gorgeous home, the doors were solid wood. Not solid enough that I couldn’t hear the frantic pleas coming from the room, but thick and sturdy and not inclined to fold under my sneaker.
If the door had been locked, I would have been in time to save her.
If it had opened with just one kick, or maybe two, then it would have spared her the worst of it.
But it took five.
If it had taken seven, she would have been dead.
If it had taken eight, he would have escaped out the window and the town might never have known that Pastor Adams’ son was a rapist and murderer.
But it took five.
I finally burst through as the lock gave, the doorframe splintering. The noise made Kevin jump up, startled, and reach for his pants, releasing the belt around my sister’s neck. I guess he’d been too absorbed in holding my sister down to hear me kicking his door in. “Shit! What the fuck, get out of my room!” he started screaming at me while Angela sucked air into her lungs; a shuddering breath, just like the one she took when she was born. And once again, she was thrust from a world of darkness, into the world of the living.
For better or worse.
Kevin made for the window, but tripped over the end table, which had toppled along with the lamp at some point before I kicked the door open. I didn’t need that pause- I would have gotten to him before he got outside. I had plenty of time to tackle him, holding his face in his mildew scented carpet and twisting his arms behind him painfully. “Angie, call the police.” I growled.
“No! You can’t! It’s not what it looks like!” Kevin gasped, struggling in panic. “Get off me, you dumb bitch! Get the fuck out of my house!”
“Angela! The phone!” I said sternly, grinding Kevin’s face down with my knee. He might be a daunting prospect to my 14 year old sister, but he posed no challenge for me. Whimpering, Angie rolled off the bed and started crawling to the desk by the door, where a cordless phone sat.
We heard sirens immediately. Pastor Adams and his family only lived 3 blocks from the police station and jail. It was a centrally located house, equal distance between the jail and the church, to suit Pastor Adams’ needs. He worked as the chaplain at the jail and juvenile detention center, as well as being pastor at the tiny community church. It took the police seconds to charge upstairs and relieve me of my duties. Sergeant Gray didn’t take it easy on Kevin for being the pastor’s kid, either. He’d long been suspecting Kevin of vandalism, petty theft, public intoxication, and generally being a nasty, pain in the ass snot. But he’d never been able to prove anything until now. Kevin’s fake ID was sitting out on the desk, along with two bottles of vodka, and Angela still had his belt loosely around her neck as well as the perfect imprint of his fingers on her cheek and neck. And other, not so visible places, as I learned later.
“You get Angie to the hospital ASAP, you got that, Tabs?” Sergeant Gray admonished me, after he read Kevin his rights and cuffed him. I nodded jerkily, gently pulling the belt from around Angie’s shoulders. “I’ll have Officer Delaney stop by tomorrow morning to take her report.”
“No.” Angie said softly, her voice rough.
“I know it’s gonna be tough, Miss Angie, but you gotta talk to Tom.” Sergeant Gray sighed, rubbing one hand over his face and up into his graying hair.
“I know. It can’t wait. It’s gotta be tonight.” Angie said, still soft, looking at her feet.
“I dunno… Tom’s prolly in bed by now.” Sergeant Grey said doubtfully. Angie looked up and fixed him with her gaze, narrowing her wide brown eyes intently. “Sergeant, I intend to give a full and accurate report tonight and only tonight, because after tonight I am never going to think about this again.” She looked fierce, but her voice was wavering and breaking. I put one arm around her shoulders. “It better be tonight, sir.” I agreed. I could feel Angie shaking under my arm. Sergeant gray sighed, then nodded. “Ok. I’ll wake Tom up. If he won’t get his sorry ass outta bed, guess I’ll take the report myself. See you girls at the hospital.” He nodded again. “Come on, you sorry sack of shit. I got a cell with your name written in shit on its walls. Hope you’ll feel right at home.” He growled, leading Kevin non too gently out of the room and down the stairs.
When they were gone, I turned Angie to face me, grasping her shoulders gently. “Did he break anything?” I asked.
“Just my heart.” Angie replied softly. I bit back a reply and pulled her gently to me, wrapping me arms around her fragile back and burying my face in her hair. How could she let herself fall for him? Why did I ever let it get this far? Angie gripped me to her like she was drowning, buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed. My grip tightened on her, past the point that I was afraid I might hurt her. The fury and hurt in me were as deep and powerful as my love for her, a quantity I’ve never found an adequate way to measure.
Everyone who met Angie loved her. She didn’t have to try. She just drew people to her. With her fluffy, white-blonde hair and her big grown eyes and pointed chin, she looked like she might sprout wings and fly away at any moment. Her eyelashes were thick and golden brown, and she made a habit of looking up at people through them. It was a nearly irresistible expression. When she paired it with her signature uneasy-lip-biting, I hadn’t met a soul yet who could refuse her anything she asked for. She had a way of making people feel clever. Prettier. Special. Helpful, smart, funny, and sweet, she always put people off their guard and made everyone fall in love with her. And she did it with no hint of ulterior motive, no awareness that people were drawn to her like moths to a flame. If I was closer to her age, I suspect I would have grown up jealous and resentful. I know what I am, and too often it’s selfish and cynical.
I was five when she was born. I remember the way her eyes opened as she sucked in that first breath. She didn’t scream, just coughed and kept breathing. Her eyes were blue when she was born, and completely aware. Some babies, you look at them, and it’s like they’re totally blank. They see the world but they don’t get it. In some people, that goes away, and in others, it doesn’t. But some babies… right away, you can see that spark. That noticing, the alertness. From the moment of her birth, I looked into Angela’s eyes and I knew there was somebody inside, looking back at me, thinking her own thoughts. My mother, relaxing on her bed, surrounded by candles, smiled at me while I helped the midwife cut Angela’s cord. The midwife wiped her off and wrapped her up in a pink blanket, then handed her to me. I took short, slow steps as I walked up to the head of the bed to give her to my mother. I was so entranced by that little person regarding me curiously, our eyes remaining locked even after I handed her to my mother to be fed. I had never seen anything so perfect. So beautiful.
Nothing changed as she grew. She remained gorgeous, flawless, fascinating. When she learned to talk, she spoke with a sweet, wispy lisp. Her first word besides “Mama” was “Tabby”. Her huge brown eyes and golden curls made her the favorite of relatives and babysitters. I wasn’t upset about it- I loved her as much as they did. And anyway, The Baby didn’t have my wide vocabulary. She didn’t go to school or Tai Kwon Do or ballet. She couldn’t read or write or draw. She could be the beauty. I was the brains. As we grew up, however, Angela adopted a vocabulary just as extensive as mine. In time, she could read and write and plie. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t look up from under my lashes, bite my lip, and make the world fall in love with me. There would always be more for Angie to learn, and there would always be things I couldn’t.
“Let’s go.” I pulled back finally. Angie nodded, wiping her eyes. I took her hand and led her down the stairs, out the door, across the lawn where Pastor Adams stood, staring down the road like it led off the edge of the world. I opened the passenger door for her and buckled her in, like I used to when she was in a booster seat and I, the Big Girl, got to sit up front on the condition that I strapped her in. We drove to the hospital in silence.
I stayed with her as the nurse checked us in and led her down to be examined. I stayed behind when she changed into a hospital gown and went to be prodded and scanned. In the hall, my knees started shaking. I slid down the wall to sit on the ground, wrapping my arms around my legs and laying my head on my knees. Overhead, the fluorescent lights crackled and glowed sickening blue. My phone buzzed.
New text from Grady
Hey Tab have u seen Angie? Shes not pickin up where is she?
I sighed. Angie’s best friend Grady was one of my favorite people, but he had two annoying flaws. One, no respect for proper spelling and grammar. Two, no matter how hard I tried to convince him otherwise, he refused to believe that he had a chance with Angie, romantically speaking. Like every other male in Lilac Falls, he was crazy about my sister. They had been best friends since 3rd grade, and he was among the few I would have trusted to date Angie. Grady was honorable, sweet, gentle, and smart. Not like Kevin. I seethed. Grady would have ripped off his own leg before letting anything, anything, happen to my sister. He was going to have a heart attack when he found out about this.
She’s safe. No worries. She’ll talk to you tomorrow.
I probably would have told him to come by if he’d had a car. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I wasn’t feeling much like driving. But being 14, he didn’t even have a permit. I put my phone back in my jeans and leaned my head back against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut. My foot and ankle felt too hot, kind of throbbingly numb, but I didn’t really register it through my haze. Raped. My sister was raped. My head kept pounding it, over and over. That bastard probably gave her an STD. Or got her pregnant. Why did Mom let her leave with him? Why didn’t they listen to me?
“If I don’t get to sleep, neither do you.” a familiar voice brought me out of my reverie. I looked up to see Elijah Hunt shuffling down the hospital corridor, his hair sticking up and the dark grey shirt of his uniform untucked. “Thought they were sending Tom.” I said in greeting.
“Tome sleeps like the dead. Didn’t pick up. And that Adams kid was making such a ruckus, the sergeant didn’t want to leave him all alone. No knowing what he might do to that police station.” Elijah smiled sleepily. “So they sent me.”
“Are you even all legal yet?” I grumbled.
“Nearly. Anyway, doesn’t matter that much up here… heck, YOU could take the report if the serge signed it. It’s not that hard.” Elijah yawned. “Where is that sister, anyway?”
“Getting checked out.” I let my head drop back against the wall. Elijah shuffled over and sat down next to me. He let out a long sigh and his breath stirred some hair that had fallen out of my ponytail to rest on my cheek. I wrinkled my nose. “Didn’t you brush your teeth, Mr. Police officer man?” I muttered.
“When duty calls…” Elijah shrugged, laughing. I scowled. One thing I usually liked about Elijah Hunt, he was almost impossible to offend. But at the moment he was getting on my nerves. I knew why, too, but I didn’t want to think about it.
“So what happened?” he asked after a pause, only seriousness in his voice. I shrugged, dropping my head to my knees. “When Angie didn’t come back by her curfew, I started getting worried… by 1, I knew something was wrong. I went my D.J.’s party and he said she’d just left with Kevin. I drove over there, went upstairs and heard screaming… so I kicked the door in. Angie called the police, and then we came here.” I shrugged, then glanced over to check if Elijah was taking notes. He didn’t even have his pen out. He was looking at me oddly. “I guess that should have been what I meant…” he sighed ruefully, finally getting out his notepad and pen. I wondered what he had meant, if it wasn’t that. “Ok… what time did you get to the Adams house?”
I answered all of his questions, except the first one I guess. Maybe he was talking about last week… a little voice whispered in my head. Well, duh. That’s pretty much the only other thing he COULD have meant.


Wow, if you stuck through all of that, you're awesome. Criticize me! (but by the way, "You suck, never write again isn't really criticism... it's just mean....just saying.) Oh, and my italics were lost when I copied and pasted from Word... I fixed the ones I saw, but there might be a couple of times where it's supposed to be the narrator (Tabitha) thinking in her head, but it looks like regular text.
Love!

Online community in an online classroom

It's great that this online class encouraged community in the students. I think it's so important to interact in order to learn. It's really been nice to read some people's posts about challenges they face in this class, challenges similar to mine. It's very beneficial to know you aren't alone in your obstacles.

Schedules: Realistic for me?

I'll be frank. I don't like schedules. I know they're necessary, and without them the world would be in chaos. What can I say? Maybe I like chaos. (My room is proof of that.) I don't think it's very likely that I would sit down at my computer at the same time every day. For one thing, I share this computer with my parents, and it always varies what time I'll be allowed to use it. For another thing, some days I am busier than others, and it's less likely that I'll be online. I am confident that I can set the necessary time aside to do well in this or any other online class. It just might not always be the same time.