My Feared Family

Flashbacks

The next day I continually tripped over my own feet trying to walk down the stairs.   "Hey Jinxx!" Helena was sitting on the couch drawing, I tripped one last time before I fell the rest of the way down the stairs.  

"Why are you so happy." I got up and rubbed my head.

"Its your sixteenth birthday today!" He tore the picture he was drawing out of his drawing pad and handed it to me.

"I drew it myself." It was a very detailed picture of me, when I was five, and my old parents.   We were all sitting in the park.

Flashback

"Vanity come here sweetheart!" I ran to mom as quick as I could and stood in front of her smiling.

"Do you want to go to the park since me and daddy are off work?" I nodded and ran to get Holly.

"Holly! Holly!" Holly was ten at the time, I looked up to her she was my older sister, she always had a smile on her face and was laughing, having fun.

I walked into the bathroom and saw her, she was standing over the sink, blood running down her arm as she pushed the blade to her skin.

"Holly?" She looked over at me with tears running down her face. 

"Vanity, you can never tell anyone about this, do you understand?"

"But-"

"I said do you understand!" She yelled at me as she put down the blade causing me to jump back.  Holly never yelled at me, she never kept secrets, I never kept secrets.  I nodded and ran out of her room while she was cleaning up.

"Hey baby girl! You wanna go to the park with me, dad and Van?" That was my nickname, some kid from my old school used to call me that. 

"No thanks mom!" I had the picture of Holly carving out  the word 'Worthless' into her arm burnt into my memory forever.   We went out to the car once dad was ready.

Holly reminded me of my other sister that we never really talked about.  I looked up to her to.   It happened last year...

Flashback in a flashback

Cody was getting me dressed for my first day of preschool.  "You are going to be the prettiest little girl in that classroom." She buttoned up my skirt and stood up.

"Cody?"

"Yea kiddo?"

"What are those." I pointed to the puffy lines on her thighs as she knelt down infront of me, tears were streaming from her eyes.

"They're battle scars."

"Well are you winning the battle?" She chuckled and shook her head.

"No kiddo, I'm not."

"Well, maybe I can fight the battle for you, I can fight!" She hugged me and kissed my head.

"No, don't ever get into this battle, because you can't get out of it unless you try to fly away.  I don't want that to happen to you.  Don't you ever get battle scars of any kind.  Never let anyone hurt you enough that you join this battle,  that goes for Holly to.  When you get into high school, it gets harder not to join the fight.  In fact its hard in middle school.  So don't let anyone get under your skin, okay?" I nodded as she stood up and walked out the door.

The next week Cody came home crying, she ran upstairs and locked the door.   Around an hour later when it was time for dinner I went to get Cody.  Holly had been teaching me how to pick locks so this was practice.  After four tries I finally got into her room.

She was hanging from a rope trying to fly.

I went down stairs and told mom and dad.  Mom went upstairs to see what I was talking about 'flying'.  When she saw Cody she dropped to her knees crying.  Dad came up to see what was keeping us.  when he saw mom holding Cody he left for a few weeks without telling us where he went.

When he came back him and mom had a big fight.  The family fell a part for a while.  I was that little thread that everyone was hanging onto. 

Flashbacks over

I dropped the picture and ran upstairs crying.  First Cody now Holly, Mom and Dad.  I locked myself in my room and locked the door.  I screamed into the pillow a couple of times and slowly drifted back to sleep.