I always wanted a sister.

I always wanted a sister. I was raised by a loving mother, surrounded

by aunts and cousins. There was never a shortage of love to be given. My
mother would draw stars around the skin of my leg, telling me I'm special. I
grew up with bruised knees and big feelings, always on the precipice of
existence. We drove around our neighborhood and I swore that life had so
much hope. We were never quiet or homely, the neighborhood kids.
Nothing about our girlhood was particularly visually appealing or sweet,
dreaming up fantasies in the backyard, and screaming loudly for attention.
We were the worst in each other, but we loved each other so very much and
when my head started getting too crowded, her house always had room for
me. I feel maybe life had more color back then, more intensity- but maybe
that was just her. I can't put my finger on the day I woke up and she didn't
knock on my door but the day passed, the days passed and now she lives in
my backyard swing, under my kitchen table, in my cruelest moments but
mostly, my love.

We sit in silence on my bedroom floor and she silently passes me her phone
to show me some stupid video of a cat. We laugh and then once again it's
silent. She stays at my house that night, and eats a sleeve of saltines on the
couch. We don't mention the fact that I’m not eating as much as usual, we
never talk about it. The morning comes and lack of sleep is written all over
my face. She makes coffee and pancakes and sits with me while I eat, we
don’t talk about it. When I stopped going to school she never cared, she
never doubted me and maybe she was the only one. She calls me at 4:00 am
in the morning. We sit in silence and she cries. She stays with me that week.
I worry I'm losing my only friend to her sadness. I make her coffee and
pancakes and sit with her while she eats. We don't talk about it. I told her
on a Sunday. She was the first person I told when it happened. I cried and
got angry, bitter and guilty and I showered and scrubbed my skin until I felt
clean. She never tried to tell my story for me, she might have been the only
one. She understood. She always does.

I always looked up to the girl who lives across the road. She was 3 years
older than me and very intelligent in the way only people who don't need to
draw attention to themselves can be. I would go to her to brush my hair, she
always understood just how much I hated the feeling. She was never
anything but gentle with me. We sat on her front porch and she made me
tea with honey and lemon. I'd talk and she would listen. She always treated
me with respect even when I was young and irrational in my decisions but
she never took anything from anyone. I always admired that about her. She
would send me home with bags and bags of fruit gummies and pop tarts
and a warm feeling in my chest from being cared about. When she left for
university we tried to keep in touch, we never really did but I think I’ll
always look up to the girl who lived across the road.

My mother twists her face up when she's confused or thinking an awful lot,
a funny expression I must have picked up over the years. She says it's bad
for me, that I might hurt my jaw. I say I like being a little bit more like her.
My mother held my hair back when it got bad again, she never told me it
would be okay. We have always been so alike that sometimes I swear I can
read her mind. I have her curly brown hair and long bony hands, and
sometimes I see the same lines around her eyes from worrying that have
started to form around mine, the same weight of grief I bear. It's a
complicated relationship, that of mother and daughter. She holds my hand
and her nails make crescent moons into the palm of my hand. Hoping if she
holds on tight enough, I can never know real pain. I used to resent the way
my mother passed on her grief to me. My mother clenches her fists when
she's angry, I get closed off and lock myself in my room with a slam of the
door against the hinge. My mother and I don't always get along. I hope she
knows just how much I love her.

I am a patchwork quilt of all the women who’ve loved me, whom I’ve loved,
changing bit by bit, picking up habits and weaving my life together and then
leaving me changed. The more I learn and grow, the more I pick up the
things left behind by the girls I was raised by. I was raised by a loving
mother, aunts, cousins, next door neighbors and childhood friends. I was
raised with bruised knees, childlike wonder and big feelings. We don't talk
about it and we probably never will but they saved my life and whether they
live across the street or across the country, they will always be a little bit of
me - in the way I make my tea, the way I twist my face, the way I fight but
mostly in the way I love. I always wanted a sister.