Out of my league

6.

  "How do you do that?" My sister Avie asks I take a bite of ice cream. Not a lick, a bite.

  "I don't know, it just doesn't hurt... see watch," I say to her as I dig a scoop of ice cream out onto my spoon, and shove my front teeth in it.  She gives me a horrified face which makes me chuckle.

Avie is two years younger than me, but we grew up doing everything together. We did each others makeup, we even took the same ice-skating lessons. When I was 9 I broke my left hand falling out of a tree, two days later Avie broke her right hand ice-skating.

  We also have a younger sister who is 18, Dahlia. She's the baby of the family, but Avie and I have never treated her that way. We both have always treated her the same way we treat each other.

  Avie is on the autism spectrum. She's high functioning, but it still affects her the same way it affects others on the spectrum, she's just not as severe. We treat her no different, all she is to us is, Avie.

"I'm so over this day," I say to her as I lean my head on her shoulder. Once I do that, I feel her tense from underneath me. Sometimes I completely forget she doesn't like touch, or at least not very often. She's very selective with the people she touches and when she does it.

"Sorry Aves," I say to her bringing my head back up only to look down at my ice cream carton. I don't think everything has fully settled in yet. But I can feel it coming, creeping up on me like a hunter does to it's prey.

  I look up at the ceiling to stop the sudden urge to cry. I never cry. It reminds me of all the times I cried, pleading for him to stop.

  "Wren?" Avie says my name, but what she's really saying is 'are you okay?'

  "I destroyed his car... I beat it up, then a little girl came out and saw me and asked if she could help. Her and her dad helped me." I say to Avie bringing my eyes to hers. Her mouth is ajar and her eyes are wide with horror or amazement, I can't tell.

  "Eh, he deserved what happened to his car, but  he never deserved you," She tells me while facing the tv. Before she came over I turned on new girl, since it's my comfort show. And right now, I need comfort.

   I laugh a little at what she said, but I didn't disagree with it. She's one hundred percent correct on that statement.

  I wish Dahlia was here. She knows how to talk someone up and make them feel better, but she's stuck at work. She works at a cute little bookshop downtown. If there was one thing I was ever jealous of about Dahlia, is that she works in a bookstore. It's the cutest thing.

  "Are you spending the night?" I ask Avie while getting up to throw my ice cream away, or what's left of it.

  "I wish, but I'm going to the rink in the morning," she says while scrunching her nose. She never spends the night. Ever. She's too anxious to spend the night at anyone's house.

"Oh, there's a new hockey team that's at the rink now.... I think they came from Colorado? Maybe? I don't know, I didn't ask," Avie says while gathering her things to get ready to leave.

"Really?" I ask, it's actually kind of surprising she is talking about this, so either she thinks one of the players is cute or she is annoyed by them being there.

She walks to my fridge to grab a water bottle and an apple before she leaves. I stand up to walk her to the door but before I can reach the door she stops me.

"You know I love you right Wren? I don't show it because you know, I don't really know how, but I do love you and he didn't deserve you," she says walking to the door then takes a bite out of her green apple.

  I smile at her as my eyes go blurry with tears. My body starts to shake with how hard I'm trying to contain my tears. I won't let them fall. I suck it up and give Avie a big smile.

"I love you Avie, so much," I walk towards to the door and unlock it for her.

"Thank you so much Avie, thank you for coming when I called," I tell her, genuinely meaning it. Gosh, I love her so much.

  She gives me an awkward smile, but I know she means it. "Bye Wren," she says as she speed walks out the door. I close it behind her while laughing at her speed walk.

After I lock the door I hear my phone ring from the couch. It's probably Dahlia texting, since she couldn't make it tonight.

I walk over to the couch and pick up my phone flipping it over and seeing who it was.

Dahlia. Hah! Knew it.

I love you. I'm sorry I couldn't make it tonight, you deserve the world.

Thank you Dahlia, thank you.