Young Writers Society

There’s road construction on the way from the mall today. There was an accident at the four way ahead of us and the lights are flashing red. Nothing is moving forward.

My sister’s light erratic finger-tapping on the steering wheel is the only break in the silence between us. I stare ahead lost in no thoughts at all.

There’s a sigh. It's hers. I feel her glance at the side of my face. I wonder if she's wondering about what I'm thinking.

“Your hair,” she interrupts, “it's cute today.” Her right hand reaches towards my temple and she lightly fingers my coils. She pulls one down and smiles as it springs back into place at her release. “I wish I had cute hair like that.”

I turn my head in her direction give her a tight smile. Seemingly timid, actually impatient. I know she won't allow this to be the end of our exchange. She breaks into a wide toothy grin, chuckles slightly, and turns back to see if the traffic has progressed.

I study her as she runs her tongue over her blackened vampire tooth, the cavity she never got fixed. She looks at me again and I see a corner of her mouth pull to the side.

“Can I tell you something?”

I have no clue what she wants to say, but I send my approval through my eyes. She peers back ahead and continues.

“Y’know, I was raped when I was little girl.” She leaves her statement hanging in the air for a moment probably hoping that I'll soak it in.

I leave it right where it is.

“I was eight.”

I let a heavy moment pass. “Okay,” I finally verbalize, squinting intensely out the passenger side window. The sun has nearly set and the flashing traffic lights illuminate the car. She raises her eyebrows, still looking away as she begins to fight a smile.

“My cousin had come to stay on the farm with me and my mom down in Mississippi and,…well, yeah.” My head slips in her direction a bit as I try to see her from the corner of my eye. She purses her lips and hums a note. Both copper colored hands come up as she pretends to adjust her neatly laid tracks.

“Wow,” she breathes, “traffic is bad today.”

“Yeah, it really is.”

She seems to feel my response isn't adequate.

“You're so quiet,” she says, “Always so quiet…” She trails off as if she's wondering about something. “That's why you don't have friends.”

My eyebrows crease in confusion at the conversational route she’s chosen. I laugh in mild astonishment.

“Whatever,” I offer cheaply. She turns to me abruptly with a spark in her eyes seeing a chance to create sisterly moment.

“Look at me. I'm Jessie,” she mocks dramatically, “who needs friends when I have laptop and a lock on my bedroom door.”

My eyes roll and my smile widens reluctantly. Her shoulders come up as she chuckles some more. She stretches her arms out like a giddy little girl and releases a breath as some tension drains from her body. I can see she is pleased with the exchange. I turn back to the passenger window, pleased with the exchange as well.

“My uncle tried to kill him y’know.”

“Huh?” I ask, not following what she’s saying.

“My cousin,” she exclaims, in awe of my confusion.

“Oh.” I'd forgotten. Well, I guess not so much forgotten as ignored.

“When he found out,” she quiets her speech for emphasis, “he beat the shit out of him and put a gun to his head.” I make the mistake of raising my eyebrows in passive interest. She sees it and bites.

“It was crazy. My momma had to get in the way and stop him from doing somethin’ stupid. Y’know like actually killin’ him or some shit ‘cuz that woulda been wild.

“I was in my room upstairs lookin’ out the window. Maaaan, that boy was a bloody mess. Mn, mn, mn,” she shakes her head, “I ain't never seen another ass beatin’ like that in my whole life.”

She waits patiently for my reaction. Fingers still tapping, eyes on the side of my face, searching. For something. Anything.

Somehow, I don't have anything to give.

I don't know what she wants from me.

Is it anger? Sympathy? I want to tell her I'm at a loss. I try to lose myself in the flashing red lights and the frozen traffic. At some point it feels as if she’s driving me backwards.

With no emotional response to harvest from me, she turns back to the road, perhaps in understanding. Maybe, she found out what she wanted. Maybe, she just needed to know if I remembered or not.

She must remember. I wish I could ask her.

I wish I could ask her if she remembers the taste of a young girl’s innocence.

The memory has faded but somehow not a day goes by when I don't think of what transpired between us. The event is long gone from my mind and yet there is no mistaking its imprint.

“Can I tell you something?” I turn to her. She bites into her bottom lip and in that moment, refuses to meet my eyes. She stares tentatively out the windshield, red lights flashing in her burnt umber eyes. The tapping on the steering wheel ceases. She faces me and raises her eyebrows dramatically, seemingly in intrigue and amusement.

I sigh and turn back to the passenger side window.

When you left, I want to say, I missed it.

Instead, I say, “Nevermind.”

The corner of her lip quirks up. “Okay, then.”

When you left, I want to say, I didn't stop.

The accident has been cleared and traffic is starting to move. The lights are still flashing red but at least we’re getting somewhere. My sister begins to focus on the road, moving the car ahead in tiny increments.

You’ll probably never know that we’re in this together. Your cousin, seventeen-year-old you, seven-year-old me.

I begin to wonder if those little girls I taught to play doctor as a child are in it, too. I wonder how far it went from me and whether the chain is still catching links.

I wonder if I were to trace this one back, how far into the past would it reach. Maybe there are other chains. No, there must be.

How crazy to think I'm a part of something like that. A chain of lost childhoods. And to think there may be multiple chains branching out from this one link…my link.

That’s why I can't ask her. That's why I'll never ask her. Because I don't want to talk about mine anymore than she wants to talk about hers.

Maybe, it's different. They’ll tell me so. They’ll tell me that I was too young to understand but somehow not too young to put my fingers to their lips and tell them it was “top secret”. Not too young to lock doors and clear browser histories. But somehow too young to know that what I was doing was wrong.

I don't know. Why is it so easy to remember what I did but not how I justified it?

I breathe deeply through my nose as I lay my head against the window. I allow my eyes to fall shut from the mental exhaustion; the unwanted trip down memory lane.

It doesn't matter anymore.

I just want to move on.