I feel bad for Kyleigh sometimes. She’s actually only younger than us by a couple months, but I guess we’ve come to think of her as our baby sister. It’s just that she’s so easy to make fun of, and so easy to get a rise out of.
I remember seeing her in gym the other day. The lacrosse team was practicing on the field, and the girls’ gym class was running laps at the same time. Kyleigh was impossible to miss. She’s tall, lanky and gangly, like an uncoordinated colt. She was running in the middle of the pack of girls, all knobby knees and elbows, when suddenly the poor thing fell. She tripped on something, and smashed her face into the ground.
The other chicks kept running and Kyleigh was left to pick herself up. She slowly got to her feet, her shirt and shorts grass-stained, and her curly brown hair coming out of its clip.
I jogged over slowly.
“What’d you trip on?” I asked, looking around. Maybe there was a rock or some uneven ground that I should tell the grounds crew about.
But Kyleigh just colored and mumbled, not meeting my eyes. That’s when I realized that she hadn’t tripped on another object. She’d tripped on her own feet!
It was so ridiculous. As varsity lacrosse players with athletic scholarships, my brother and I are agile and quick, with the ability to run up and down a field multiple times without falling. To realize that our clutzy sister had tripped on nothing other than herself made me laugh kindly.
“Really?” I asked. “Do you have shoes that are too big or something?”
She’d stared at the ground, saying nothing, before darting off to rejoin the class, her gait just as ungainly as before.
But I watched as she moved away. There was something about her. Both Ryder and I like Kyleigh, although we’ve certainly never let her know. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try.
When our parents divorced, it was a fucking bad time for us, and the custody battle was hell on earth. My mom was a pill popper, and my dad used every resource in his means to paint her as a drug-addicted, amoral slut who couldn’t be trusted around us. Ryder and I were only twelve at the time, so we were caught in the middle. We were no longer children but not quite men either.
Of course, my dad won. After the divorce, we lived full-time with him, and my mom disappeared. It was heartbreaking. Maybe she hadn’t been the best mother ever, but she certainly wasn’t the monster that my dad portrayed.
But pretty soon after, my dad started dating Teresa, and it was obvious, even to us, that this wasn’t a new relationship. This was something that had begun while my parents had still been married, and my dad had been an adulterer, stepping out my mom to take up with Teresa.
My brother and I were fucking pissed. We felt a sense of loyalty to our mom, and to know that there’d been another woman? Well, it was disgusting. It wasn’t just the pills or my mom’s scatterbrained habits. Instead, George had been seeing someone else on the side, pretending to be the responsible dad when actually he was the cheater.
So when George and Teresa tied the knot last year, Ryder and I revolted. We’d refused to attend the wedding, refused to go to the engagement dinner, and frankly refused to have anything to do with Teresa. We called her “the two-timing slut” or just “that slut.” God forbid she ask us to call her “Mom.”
I think she understood. Teresa avoided us mostly, traveling a lot with my dad, so they were often out of the house, leaving us to ourselves. But what we hadn’t counted on was Kyleigh, her daughter.
Kyleigh, Kyleigh, Kyleigh of the big brown eyes, curly brown hair and willowy frame. No, willowy would be overstating things – she was built like a broomstick. No ass, no boobs, and more of a child than a woman. She was around our age, a senior in high school, and of course, she’d moved into our house immediately after the wedding. We’d barely bothered to acknowledge her. I still remember that first day. Her boxes were stacked in the foyer, and the girl had been madly typing on her phone when my brother and I returned from practice.
“Whose shit is this?” Ryder asked, kicking a box.
“Um, it’s mine,” said Kyleigh nervously, standing up and brushing herself off. “Hi, I’m Kyleigh, your new stepsister. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet you at the wedding,” she said, holding out her hand.
No doubt my dad and Teresa had fed the guests some bullshit about Ryder and I being busy just to save face. But even our new stepsister had fallen for it. I decided to set her straight.
“Listen, I realize we’re legally related now, but don’t give us any shit okay?” I snarled. “My brother and I don’t want you here, just like we don’t want your slut mom.”
Kyleigh gasped and covered her mouth, but she didn’t look surprised. Suddenly, I remembered that shit had gone down on her side as well. Her mom had stepped out on her dad, ditching her husband to marry George. What kind of terrible role models were our parents?
“Don’t bother us, and we won’t bother you,” grunted Ryder as we hauled our gear upstairs, and there had been no sound from downstairs for the rest of the night.
But like it or not, Kyleigh was now a member of the household, and we couldn’t avoid her forever. The next morning, we’d woken to the delicious smell of coffee, pancakes and bacon on the griddle. My stomach stirred and memories of my mom came rushing back. Since the divorce, Ryder and I had basically been on our own and we ate cold cereal most mornings. My dad definitely didn’t cook.
When we stumbled downstairs, there was Kyleigh at the stove with an apron on while frying up some eggs.
“Hey,” she said brightly. “I thought you guys might want something before first period.”
My brother and I didn’t speak. Instead, we sat down and devoured the meal before grabbing our backpacks and heading out the door. I think she was disappointed, but who knows? It’s not like we talked about it.
She tried to win us over for a couple weeks, but Ryder and I were like ice. Slowly, Kyleigh gave up and mostly tried to stay out of our way, which was fine by me. But my brother and I watched her covertly, and we noticed how kind she was, and how genuine. She helped people with their homework, did a ton of community service, and seemed really into being a nurse one day.
But now school is almost over, and we’re off to college. Before we go, we’re having one last party at the house … and our sister’s not invited.