Strings Attached

Chapter One

I hated seeing others being rude to my little sister, and I constantly defended her when anyone else hit her or yelled at her, but I could hit her and yell at her because that is how this thing works. We can annoy the crap out of each other, but no one else is invited to do so.

When I was nine and Brianna was five, we would always pull each other's hair and yell at each other. We would fight about the most insignificant things, like who stole each other's Barbie doll or who had stained whose homework with permanent markers, but we did get along pretty well.

One day, Brianna had told me that a boy in her class had pulled her hair, and that she hated him. I, taking my big sister role quite seriously, demanded to know who had done it, and the next day, in the playground, Brianna had pointed him at me.

I told her that I would be right back, and Brianna's big, brown eyes stared at me with both admiration and fear. I walked to the boy and demanded to know why he had pulled my little sister's hair, and he had told me that he had seen us pulling each other's hair all the time, so he did not think it was a big deal.

"Oh, it is a big deal," I said. "We can do that to each other because we are sisters, but you are not supposed to do it."

"Why not?" he asked, confused.

I had smiled and whispered something that I will never forget in his ear. "Because I will cut your sausage if you ever do it again."

The little boy had started at me with fear, and he even peed his pants, which made me feel a little guilty afterwards, but he never bothered Brianna again, and he even became one of her closest friends. We even laughed about it every now and then, and he once told me that he had genuinely believed that I was going to cut his sausage down.

"Don't mess with me," I would reply, and he would simply shrug and try his best not to look scared, even though it seemed to me that he kind of was.

The point is that Brianna and I loved to annoy each other, but we also hated to see the other having a bad time.

That is precisely why Brianna was enjoying seeing me on the floor in fetal position and shaking, but that is also why, in the middle of the night, Brianna got up and started shaking my arm, waking me up and saying, "You can sleep with me on the bed if you want to."

I smiled because I knew that this was the way our relationship worked. My little sister did love to see me suffering, but she also hated it.

***

I woke up feeling quite tired. Sure, Brianna did allow me to sleep next to her on her bed, but that honestly did not help that much. I had spent about two hours trying to sleep, but the floor had made my back hurt, and it had taken me a lot of effort to finally find a comfortable position.

Brianna's snoring did not help at all. Brianna was the best sister in the world, but while she slept, she sounded far worse than my stomach's growls whenever I was hungry.

Brianna seriously could have won a snoring contest without even trying. It was just very natural for her to snore.

I pushed all my thoughts away and focused on getting dressed. It was not as easy as it sounded, considering that I accidentally grabbed one of Brianna's jeans, and I was trying my best to fit into it without realizing why it was so tight.

As soon as I found out what my mistake had been, I mentally slapped myself and tried to take the jeans off, which was way more difficult than it sounds. Brianna really liked tight skinny jeans, so it was basically mission impossible.

I made a mental note to label my jeans with a Sharpie next time, and I realized that I was running late as soon as I finished getting dressed.

I cursed and made my way to the bathroom as fast as possible, but someone was inside it.