Being Shot

P h o t o #58 - Emma and Ellie

SMALL WARNING: THIS CHAPTER INCLUDES SLIGHTLY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS.

P h o t o #58 - Emma and Ellie

As children, we were inseparable. Our hands always clasped together, even when doing something as simple as eating dinner or watching one of our favorite Disney movies. Our mother and father saw no harm in our love for each other, donning us in matching outfits and hairstyles and even presenting us with matching gifts for our matching birthday. As we grew older though, I'm sure that even they saw something strange in how close we continued to be.

So when junior high rolled around, when our classes began separating and our friends diverging, I would assume that any set of parents worried about the isolation of their twin daughters were silently relieved that we were finally acquiring our own separate personalities outside of just the two of us. Even I, as I played along and joked with the boys and girls I became friends with, was happy I was finally beginning to grow as a person.

It seemed that Ellie was the only one still stick at a standstill. Unable to find her place, unable to find herself.

Although we were joined at the hip until puberty, Ellie was always the kinder and quieter one of us. Her grace was always noted by our relatives and family friends. I, on the other hand, could never seem to hold my tongue when the situation called for it; always impulsive and distracted, upset when things weren't in my favor. For most it was hard to believe that I was the older sister, this three minute difference suddenly a large barrier in their eyes whenever they found out about it.

I couldn't deny that I loved my little sister with all my heart, but my earliest feelings towards her could be something of a rival to jealousy. While she was praised for her well manners and polite silence, I was scolded for impulses like tapping my fingers incesively on hard surfaces and crying whenever someone allowed my portions of food to touch.

Yet, during the time we were still practically intertwined, we continued to grow together despite these minor - at least to us - differences. Even when our mother came home with reddened eyes and flushed cheeks. Even when our father came home with a new orange bottle of candies and a deep frown he'd immediately try to hide the moment he saw us.

One night during our later elementary school days, after many of laying awake together in our room wondering why mommy and daddy didn't seem as happy as they used to be, with our twin beds separated by a single night stand we shared, we finally asked our mother as she gave us her usual goodnight.

She tried passing off our question, telling us we shouldn't worry about it until we were older, but we persisted. We knew how to work our mother, as she was one who couldn't bottle up how she truly felt.

She closed her eyes, her brow creasing, her fists clenched as her sides as she stood in the doorways, her silhouette even taller and thinner against the carpeting of our room. Every emotion she held in, she wore on her face for a single, alarming moment. And then she smiled.

"Daddy hear's angels. Don't tell anyone, it's a secret."

The very thought excited us. As the squirrelly little girls we were, we couldn't wait to talk to our father about what the angels said. We stayed up late contemplating what we should say that night, what they could say back. I don't think my mother understood the severity of her comment to her imaginative children.