CHAPTER NINE

Sisters Are The Worst

 

Elsea laid on the couch, staring at her mother’s workout equipment. She had been instructed to clean up the hand weights, jump rope, and stretching mat. Her mother was out running last-minute errands with her father for the Christmas party, and she had no idea where Hannah was and didn’t care. In the meantime, Elsea contemplated her future.

On top of everything, her car had died that morning, and now she couldn’t get away even if she wanted to, and now she had no place to go. Things were over with Peter. She hadn’t heard from him since she walked out of the wedding. It was clear that she never meant anything to him.

Then what was it all for? she thought. She was proud of herself for making a scene the way that she did at Hannah’s party. Her stomach jumped with excitement, knowing that Hannah’s day was ruined like her day had been ruined. She could hardly stand the silence anymore and felt that it would be beneficial for her to start drinking. She had been banned from the Christmas party and had to be out of sight before it started, so she figured that it was best to start throwing back shots so she could at least feel good in her solitude.

Not sure what she was going to do next, Elsea started to make of list of things that she could do in her head, a list of acquaintances that she had acquired over the years, but she knew that none of them would have time for her. It was Christmas, and she was the only one without a life. She didn’t have a significant other, she didn’t have children, and the people that she thought of weren’t even her friends, so she knew the she would only be receiving polite rejections.

She stood up from the couch and went upstairs, opened the hatch to attic, and pulled out the bottle of whiskey that she had stashed up there. She knew it was only a matter of time before her parents discovered that she had been drinking and raided her room. They got all the other stuff—the gin, the vodka—but they didn’t get the whiskey. She opened the bottle and took a swig before she walked into her room and stretched herself across her bed.

What am I going to do? she asked herself.

A noise from downstairs disrupted her thoughts. She jumped at the sound of shouting.

“What is the problem, Hannah?” she heard Stephen say. “Why won’t you say yes?” he demanded.

“Because I’m not ready!” Hannah yelled.

“Bullshit, Hannah! That is all that you have been thinking about and hinting at for the past five months. Now you act as if you haven’t been doing those things, as if they don’t even matter.”

“The truth is that I just don’t think that we have a lot in common, not enough to get married. You know, spend the rest of our lives together.”

“That’s a lie, Hannah. You just told me that you loved me … I’m just so confused. Will you please start making sense?”

Elsea could hear the desperation in his voice. He was pleading with her the way that she wished Peter had pleaded with her, but he didn’t. To Elsea it was obvious that he didn’t even care if she was still breathing. She kept listening, taking shots of whiskey straight from the bottle in between.

“Jesus, Stephen, don’t you get it? I just don’t want you anymore!”

Silence followed, but only for a brief moment.

“That can’t be true. They way that you made love to me last night says different. What is it, Hannah? Is it your sister? You were right, she is horrible, but that is no reason for you to—”

“I fucked Josh! There, are you happy? We love each other, and that means that we can’t be together. Do you understand?”

Elsea fumbled with the whiskey bottle in her hand, and it fell to the floor, making a loud thud.

“What was that?” she heard Hannah ask.

“Never mind what that was. What do you mean you fucked Josh? Who is Josh?” Stephen asked.

“It means what it means. I fucked Josh.”

“Hannah, how could you? How could you, you …”

Something crashed.

“Get out, Stephen. We’re done!”

“I need some air. I’ll be back for my stuff later.” Elsea imagined him fighting through tears.

When she heard the door slam, she walked over to the window and watched him walk down the driveway to his car. She opened the door and walked downstairs. Hannah sat on the couch watching TV as if nothing had happened. Elsea coughed, and Hannah turned around an looked at her, startled.

“What are you doing here?” Hannah demanded.

“Listening to you and your boyfriend, you slut,” Elsea quipped back. She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, and a wave of heat flushed over her. The whiskey was talking for her while she hid in the back of her mind, terrified of what would happen next.

Hannah looked at her long and hard. “You must be drinking again. You’re really bold today. Go sleep it off. You probably won’t even remember this conversation tomorrow.”

“You are a little slut,” Elsea repeated, but this time she wasn’t so sure that it was the whiskey making the accusation.

Hannah reached behind her and grabbed the back of the couch as she turned toward Elsea. “I don’t have time for your shit. You’re not supposed to be here at all right now. Why don’t you go somewhere else and be a loser. God.” She tuned back around, reached for the remote, and paused whatever it was she was watching on television. She stood up and walked toward Elsea, bumping her on her way to the kitchen.

Elsea reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Hannah yelled, yanking her arm away.

“Well, don’t walk into me, bitch!”

Hannah pulled her arm back and smacked Elsea across the face.

The slap stung, burning like alcohol on a fresh wound. It felt as though her face was on fire, not only from the slap, but from the anger as well. This wasn’t the first time Hannah had hit her. She remembered hiding the bruises from her parents over the years, and she was happy when Hannah went off to school because she had finally had some peace. She had been bullied by her for too long. She remembered trying to tell her parents once, and they’d ignored her, not thinking that their perfect little Hannah could do something like that.

“What is wrong with you?” Elsea demanded, holding her hand to her face.

Hannah approached her, forcing Elsea to retreat back into the living room. She bumped into the couch as she retreated, pushing it out of place.

“There is nothing wrong with me.” Her eyes were filled with anger. “It’s you. It’s always been you. Why are you even here? Why do you even exist? I can’t stand you.”

Elsea tripped over her mother’s weights, afraid of what was about to happen next. She was brave one moment, then lost it all in the next. She saw how her fear excited Hannah, how it only made her all the more eager to hurt her. The look in her eyes was the same pathological look that she had in her eyes the last time and the time before that, and the time before that. The cycle continued. Hannah’s rage was something that Elsea had never understood, and she knew that she would never understand it. She braced herself for the blows that she knew were coming, but one came that she wasn’t expecting.

“That’s why I fucked Peter,” Hannah said, laughing.

Elsea’s eyes filled with tears as Hannah continued to taunt her. Through the blur of water that had accumulated in her eyes, she saw Hannah ball her fist. The same fist that she had seen ball up against her many times. It was a ritual for her in every way. It would start with the insults, and then once Elsea saw the glee in her eyes, she knew that the first blow would follow. After all of these years, she still could not escape the hurt, the abuse, the pain.

Then suddenly Elsea’s fear transformed into anger. She was tired. She was beyond tired. Her mind was chaotic, filled with so many different thoughts. She remembered how it felt to hold the brick in her hand while she was at Peter’s. She’d felt powerful and liberated. A feeling that she had never felt in her entire life because she was always in fear, but not anymore.

But Hannah got to her before her courage. She grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the floor, then kicked her in the stomach, and Elsea felt the air leave her body. Her eyes bulged and her face turned red as she tried to catch her breath. She reached out for the only thing that was in front of her, and that was one of her mother’s five-pound hand weights. She swung it around with full strength toward Hannah’s head. It struck Hannah in the temple, and she collapsed, holding the side of her head with her hand.

“You bitch!” Hannah screamed.

Elsea knew that she only had a short window before Hannah raged toward her again. She grabbed her mother’s jump rope and tackled Hannah to the ground, straddling her, restraining her arms with her legs pressing the weight of her body onto her chest.

Hannah struggled beneath her sluggishly, still trying to recover from the blow to the head.

Elsea took the jump rope in her hand and wrapped it around Hannah’s neck. All she could do was squeeze tighter, even as the rope slipped through her fingers from the sweat of her palms. She fought harder to retain her grip on it. She knew that the tighter she pulled, the sooner she would be out of her misery. No more worry. She wouldn’t be afraid anymore, and that was what pushed her to keep going. And she kept going until Hannah stopped struggling beneath her and the light went out in her eyes.