MY PARENTS VISIT TABBY every weekend. The first time, Mom brought cookies. As if they were going to let those cookies find their way to my sister. I’m sure the guards ate them and had a laugh at our expense.
I visit when I can, but I prefer not going with my parents. They change things—Tabby is different when they’re around, more censored. It’s not like she’s a liar or anything, but we all act different around our parents. Like the best versions of ourselves, because we want them to be proud.
Mom and Dad don’t talk about Tabby. At least, they don’t talk about her when I’m within earshot. They must have something to say. The night Tabby got arrested, they both just kind of stood there, frozen, like pieces of machinery that forgot they needed to be recharged. I was the emotional one, the one matching Tabby’s tears.
Yes, she cried. People are commenting on how she doesn’t look sad in any of the pictures online. Emotionless, someone wrote. She’s basically a robot. Of course she killed him. Total sociopath. But what do you want from her? Do you really need to see her tears? Do you feel entitled to them? If so, ask yourself why. Do you think you’re owed water coming from her eyes as some kind of apology?
What did she do to you? Do you even know her, or do you just think you know her because you’ve read so much about her, because her face has been everywhere? It’s a legitimate question. But I know my sister is capable of emotion because I’ve seen her wearing every single one. I’ve even borrowed some from her, same as I used to swipe clothes from the hangers in her closet without asking. Funny, now that she’s not around to tell me to quit touching her stuff, I haven’t gone into her closet once.
The police went in there, though, the night they arrested her. I’m not sure what they were looking for. Some hidden box of secrets, maybe. If you’re thinking I should go and search her room myself—because I’m her sister and can unravel the knot of her mysteries better than anyone—I’m not doing that. My sister may have things to hide, but they’re inside her head, stamped into her skin. And she’s allowed to have secrets. Nobody gets the right to extract and unwrap them just because they don’t know exactly what happened that day in the woods.
Today, Tabby is happy to see me. Her spirits are high, considering. She’s wearing makeup and her hair has been straightened and she’s Tabby again, not a muddy-eyed girl in a prison jumpsuit.
I mean—I guess that’s one secret I can tell. Tabby’s famously (infamously?) blue eyes aren’t blue at all. She has worn color contacts for as long as I can remember, even back when we lived in Rochester. Mom’s eyes are blue and Dad’s are brown. I took after Mom and Tabby didn’t, so she claimed she wanted to match. I used to like it, matching my sister, except the eyes weren’t enough for people to think we looked related, and hers were brighter than mine anyway, more electric. Just like she’s brighter than me, more electric.
Sometimes I want to tell the media about my sister’s brown eyes, just so they’ll stop calling her the Blue-Eyed Boyfriend Killer. I hate whoever came up with that. I hate that they reduced her to her appearance. I hate that it’s a facet of her appearance that came from a box. I hate that we get judged for changing our looks with things that come from boxes. I hate everything about this.
“The food in here sucks,” Tabby says. “But the good news is, I think I’m down a few pounds.” She leans back in her chair.
“You don’t need to lose weight” is my stock response. Although I’m sure Mark made her feel otherwise. You could use the exercise.
“I’m working on my beach body,” she says. “For next summer.” There’s that smirk, the one everyone reads so deeply into. It’s just her face. It’s just her attempt to find the humor in a situation that is completely not funny. What’s so wrong with that? Everyone just wants her to be miserable, a grieving widow. But Tabby was never much for mourning anything. I remember once when she was driving—shortly after she got her license—a bird flew into the windshield and broke its neck. I cried. She didn’t.
“What was I supposed to do?” she had said. “Swerve into traffic? That bird had a death wish.”
(Don’t repeat that story. It’ll only make people read into everything more. The way things have been going, that bird will come back from the dead to tell its sob story to a reporter and make Tabby look even worse. Here’s evidence she’s a murderer. She didn’t hesitate before killing me!)
“How’s school?” she asks now. “I never thought I’d miss it. But being in here is kinda like being there, honestly. The people in here aren’t very nice either.”
“It’s fine.” I don’t tell her what they’re all saying. That some of them are looking at me differently. That sometimes I don’t mind, because at least they’re looking.
“And cross-country? I know I missed your first meet. I’m sorry.” She looks down at her hands. She is sorry. And that’s the Tabby nobody else gets to see. My Tabby. The one who remembers every single detail of my life that I deem important, along with details I don’t think matter but she somehow knows do.
“Don’t be sorry. I won.” It’s a lie. I didn’t win. I didn’t even run. But Tabby is here, the one place the truth can’t travel. She has no way of knowing—Mom and Dad can’t even tell her, because they don’t know either.
“Of course you did.” Her hands drum on the table in front of us, pale fingers and perfect cuticles, the opposite of my jagged mess. Her nails are painted black. “You know, I’m jealous of you. I always have been. You have all this talent. Your body just knows what to do. It runs. Mine never got the memo.”
My mouth is too dry for any words to form. It’s a hostile environment, always saying either too much or too little. I just know that there’s no way Tabby could ever be jealous of me. She always had more of everything.
“It’s not talent,” I mumble. “I just work harder than anyone else.” It’s the truth. They go out and party, drink, smoke, pass out without worrying about the consequences. My life is a routine, structured and disciplined. Lately it feels like a cage.
“You own it, though,” Tabby says. “Maybe my problem is I never really worked for anything. If I had, things would have been different. I wouldn’t be in here.”
But she’s lying. I have a feeling Tabby worked at a lot of things. It was making them seem effortless that took so much energy.
“Promise me something,” Tabby says. “Just make sure you have your own life outside of them. Outside of boys. Girls. Other people. Because if you let them in too much, you won’t be able to see where they end and you begin. You’ll lose yourself in the mess.”
Our time’s up, and I can’t ask her what she means by that. Maybe I don’t need to, because I already know.