Parker

Chapter 32: Aggie

Author's note:

Alright guys. This is a freaking monster of a chapter.

Thank you so much for reading this far. It's been really wonderful reading all the comments as i post chapter to chapter.

Enjoy! and please consider voting and commenting if you like it.

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Chapter 32: Aggie

When Aggie was younger, she used to tear out pages of magazines that her sister was featured in.  she would save them in a spiral bound notebook, and lock it up in her top desk drawer. 

Any time Mira caught her doing this, she would scowl and say, "that's fucking weird, Aggie."

But Aggie would always ignore her.  After all, those ads were jobs, they were accomplishments; they were cool.  She was sure Mira would thank her for doing it one day.

But one afternoon, when Aggie was nearly fourteen, Mira walked in on her looking through a stack of magazines.  There was an aggression in Mira's step and a certain glint in her eye that Aggie recognized.  It was a look Mira often had when auditions did not go her way.  Before she could even open her mouth to ask about it, Mira's eyes darted to the stack of magazines, and Aggie could see that something in her snapped.  She picked the magazines up and threw them across the room.  She snatched the spiral bound notebook from beside Aggie and tore at the pages, ripping them to shreds.

Aggie screamed for her to stop, utterly horrified, but it was as if Mira couldn't hear her.   She kept going until the floor was littered with bits of paper.  Then she tossed the maimed notebook across the bedroom and collapsed onto the floor, face in her hands.   Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed loudly, her long hair falling over her face.

"It's not real," came Mira's muffled voice, "It's not real."

Aggie stared at her in utter shock.  She had never seen Mira cry like this.  She wracked her brain quickly, trying to think of something to cheer her up.

"Mira, do you want to watch I Love Lucy?" she asked timidly.

"No."

"Do you want to make pancakes?"

"No."

"Do you want to-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP AGGIE!," Mira screamed.

Aggie cowered.  Her sister never spoke to her that way.

Mira leaned against the bed, smacking her head on the mattress violently, her face so contorted that for a moment she almost became ugly.

"Mira-"

"You don't know anything Aggie," Mira said, her voice hoarse from crying, "It's not real.  It's all just a mirage."

The memory came to Aggie in a dream.  When she woke, her left hand was outstretched, reaching for something, and she could feel fresh tears in her eyes.  She realized suddenly that she had been holding her breath, and gasped for air.

She hadn't thought about that day in a long time.  In fact-she had completely forgotten it.  How could she forget something as strange and unpleasant as that?

"Just a mirage..." she muttered to herself.  She remembered the letter she had found from her sister only hours earlier, "Once upon a time, there were two sisters who lived in a mirage."  And then she remembered her conversation with Ferret at the beginning of the summer.  "She was so unhappy," he had said.