2. Road Trip
2
ROAD TRIP
L ux
“So what do your parents think about the whole Brinley and Scott thing?”
“They don’t know yet,” I shrugged.
“And why the hell not!?” Jasmine exclaimed, her eyebrows raising with disbelief.
“I haven’t told them, and Brinley certainly hasn’t.” My parents thought that Scott and I had broken up due to the strain the long distance had put on us, and that we’d simply outgrown each other. Both those things were true: those issues had contributed to our demise…but they had no clue how much of a hand Brinley had in things. She hadn’t brought him around the house, she had enough self-preservation to realize that she’d catch some flak for that, and it was as if she was waiting for me to tell on her.
“I don’t think I can handle them excusing her behaviour again,” I admitted. I knew I couldn’t handle yet another dismissal of my concerns or listen to them minimizing what I’ve always suspected could be a real problem: that my little sister needed psychological help.
“I still can’t believe Brinley did that to you!” Jasmine blasted, rolling her eyes. She had caught me staring out the window with the same dejected look that prompted her to force me to come on the trip in the first place. “Actually, scratch that. I can believe it.”
While it had been seven months since I’d last gotten to hang out with Jasmine, we fell into the same familiar pattern we’d always had with one another. I realized just how much I’d missed my best friend, and how much I was looking forward to spending time with her again.
As much as I hated to admit it, I’d been down the last few weeks. It wasn’t exactly upbeat knowledge, knowing that your own family would intentionally betray you just to hurt you. My eyes started to itch, and I blinked away tears, glancing out the window and trying to pull myself back together. There was no reason why Jasmine’s presence should make me feel so emotional, other than she felt and acted more like a loving sister than my own.
I’d known Jasmine and her family since grade seven, and she’d known mine just as long. Our younger sisters had been close friends too, although Camellia was so sweet compared to Brinley. None of Jasmine’s three sisters were as competitive and cruel as Brinley, and Jasmine had a great relationship with each of them.
To have so many sisters, and to have such unique bonds with them all…it was something I’d longed for with Brinley. Jasmine’s sisters could depend on her, and vice versa. I couldn’t depend on Brinley unless I wanted to depend on getting hurt. My little sister had always been catty and mean, choosing to see other women as the enemy. She saw other girls as competition, someone to defeat, rather than the powerful allies they could be.
Jasmine had called me after seeing my Facebook relationship status change. She thought I’d be happy, celebrating having finally broken the chain that had held me back since high school. She’d thought I’d be ready for a summer of mingling. But I wasn’t, I was quietly devastated. Not about the Scott thing, and once I explained the other party…she understood.
Things had seemed so wonderful at the beginning of our relationship. Scott was one of the few guys in our grade with a license and a car, and he’d picked me up every day before school, and he loved having me at his rugby games. But outside of sports, Scott didn’t have many goals, and his grades weren’t very good.
Scott planned on taking sports therapy after graduating. He thought it’d be cool to work on big sports teams, but he lacked the motivation and discipline, and his marks weren’t high enough to qualify for the program without taking a few refresher courses first.
Which was what he was doing, refresher courses at the local community college—and my sister, apparently.
I sighed, finally drawing my gaze away from the window and to my friend. I lifted my shoulder in a weak shrug. “Brinley just…has a lot of issues.”
Jasmine chortled. “Understatement of the year.”
“I want her to get help for them, Jas. It’s always been painful watching her lash out at those close to her, simply because she’s hurting. If she got help, maybe she wouldn’t.”
My friend sent me a sympathetic smile. “Girl, you know I love your heart. But…people have to want to help themselves; they have to want to change. I don’t think Brinley sees a problem with herself.”
I nodded in agreement. She was right about that. I was beginning to see it.
Although she understood, Jasmine didn’t like how down the whole situation made me feel. She’d said I wasn’t acting like me, and I really wasn’t. I’d let Brinley smack me down, and I remained on the ground. I had allowed my sister to dull my shine, and if I was being perfectly honest with myself, I’d been letting her do it our entire lives.
“Remember when Brinley actually stood up for me that time with Brittany Carmichael?”
Jasmine pursed her lips, shaking her head. “You mean that time she out mean-girled the meanest girl in our grade? Yeah, I remember. But that was more like a territorial fight between two mean girls.”
I sighed again, knowing she was right. It had less to do with me and more to do with Brinley taking on the mean popular girls in my grade, even if she had said “ nobody torments my sister but me ,” before the ensuing catfight.
If Brinley wanted something, she’d stop at nothing until she got it, so I usually let her have whatever it was to spare an argument. Before dropping out to “pursue modelling”, Brinley had walked the halls of our high school like Regina George herself. Her beauty allotted her popularity, and most of her peers—Camellia included—were too intimidated to stand up to her.
She didn’t bother to hide her inner ugliness, but when it suited her Brinley knew how to schmooze and could put on a very convincing innocent act. A lot of the time, the adults were fooled by her; my parents, especially. Brinley really would make a great actress, as she could act out any emotion expected of her in any given situation.
But when she got angry, it was like a switch flipped. Brinley would fly off the handle, screaming and yelling, her eyes cold and raging. Her comments would slice through even the toughest of armour. Over the years, I’d learned to mask my hurt, because Brinley would only use it as a weapon to further antagonize.
I thought she’d grow out of her petty cruelties, and as adults we’d grow closer as sisters. But it seemed we only grew further apart, separated by Brinley’s anger and actions.
My high school graduation was the first indication I’d had that Brinley’s resentment for me had escalated from stealing my favourite clothes and purposely ruining them. She had scowled throughout graduation ceremony. In every picture our mom forced us to take together with me in my graduation cap and gown, Brinley was glaring. At the fancy restaurant my parents took us too for dinner, she had erupted into tears because everybody was making such a big deal of me graduating.
She’d next taken personal offence to my career choice, like it was somehow meant to be a slap in her face, like I was rubbing it in that I was “smarter” than her, when that wasn’t the case at all. I wanted to help people. My choices weren’t meant to slight my sister, and it’d never occurred to me that she’d react so combatively. I’d hoped that her pursuing her own dreams would bring her some form of happiness, and that we could bond over our differences while still supporting one another’s choices and dreams. Brinley’s recent cruel actions had me wondering if there was anything within in her that was salvageable. She showed no regret over how much she’d hurt me. It had put me in a dark place, wondering what I’d done to deserve such contempt from my baby sister.
I needed this trip; I needed to get away from her and regroup. I needed to figure out how I was supposed to move past the hurt she’d caused—or if I even could. I didn’t know how I could ever trust her again, and I considered myself a pretty forgiving person. To know that Brinley had intentionally sought to hurt me, and that she’d relished in succeeding…well, that changed things. It might be too much for even me to move past.
“You’re so loyal and helpful, and kind…a lot kinder than I am. You see the good in everybody, even if they don’t deserve it.” Jasmine remarked, keeping her focus on the road as some guy in a lifted Dodge sped past us, the engine roaring.
“Hardly,” I huffed. “I see the bad in people too, I just try not to condemn them for it, and I try not to let their past choices define their future. If Brinley got help for everything tomorrow, I wouldn’t hold a single thing against her.”
“I know, that’s the craziest part. I’d never talk to my sister again if she did half the stuff Brinley’s pulled on you.” Jasmine sounded impressed. “But…and I don’t mean to upset you by saying this…I think you’re holding your breath on something that isn’t going to happen. Brinley isn’t going to change, and definitely not overnight. For so long, you’ve held yourself responsible for her actions towards you, and you need to stop.”
I nodded, releasing a slow breath. She was right.
I was no martyr, and I knew consistently signing up to be my little sister’s punching bag wasn’t going to help her, and it certainly wasn’t helping me. But there was still a part of me that didn’t want to give up on her. I couldn’t turn off caring about my own sister, and I knew I could never truly escape the scope of Brinley’s problems or their trinkle-down effect on me because I cared. At the end of the day, we were sisters. It was just in my nature to worry about her.
It seemed like Brinley had been looking for something to drive the wedge permanently between us for years. Did I want this Scott thing to be what finally pushed us apart forever? I wasn’t so sure, but I did know that if she continued to show no remorse for her actions, I’d have no choice but to distance myself to protect my own heart.
I’d highly suspected my sister was mentally ill for years now—although my mother vehemently denied it whenever I voiced my concerns.
My parents were from the era of not talking about mental health, from burying it with a glass of rye or wine. They had a “stiff upper lip” approach to mental health. I don’t think they even knew what to do with the possibility of my sister’s mental illness, so they’d ended up minimizing it. Telling me it was just teenage angst, that Brinley had a flare for dramatics. My mother assured me Brinley would grow out of it, and to not take it so personally; all sisters fought.
Something in my gut told me otherwise, and things only got worse when she dropped out of school to be a social media influencer. The moment Brinley realized that people no longer needed an agent to be discovered, she’d invested all her time on social media cultivating a following.
Brinley had a knack for doing makeup and hair and making herself look flawless. She’d inherited the same gifts from our mother, who’d done some modelling work in her early teen years. The more followers Brinley got, the more her cruel nature reached new heights. I couldn’t help but worry that the pressure of maintaining that carefully cultivated image was worsening her mental health struggles. She’d sneer and scoff, tell me that her only problem was me, then she’d toss a couple of insults my way and storm off.
“I think she’s hurting, and instead of addressing why…she lashes out.” I shrugged, toying with my hair. That knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less, but it helped me understand her.
I’d read somewhere that people who feel disempowered lash out because they lack the skills that make them feel better when they feel bad, and it’s the only way they know how to get that boost. Brinley coped with her issues by being cruel and attacking, and this latest offence was just another example of her pattern, a pattern my parents had ignored and excused for our whole lives.
On the flip side, if they did finally acknowledge there could be a problem after all these years…what would change? Would they insist she finally see a therapist? Would it benefit Brinley in the long run to come forward about her discretions? Was my silence perpetuating harm?
“Brinley has made a lot of bad choices, but she’s my sister.” I pointed out, weakly trying to defend my…defensiveness of her, and Jasmine sent me a look over the top of her sunglasses briefly before her attention returned to the highway. “It feels wrong to just give up.”
Jasmine sighed. “You’re too close to the problem, here. She’ll never be able to see you as anything but the enemy, the competition. At least not until she learns how to deal with her issues herself. You’ve gotta let go of the idea of being the one to save her. Brinley needs to save herself.”
It was a hard truth to hear, but Jasmine wasn’t wrong.
“She’s family, and family is supposed to be there for each other, to help each other.” It was the internalized expectation I’d been brought up with, and no matter how mad I got at Brinley, that expectation was rooted in me.
“She slept with your boyfriend, Lux—and now she’s dating him. Worst of all? She doesn’t see a problem with it. How could you forgive something like that?”
I sent Jasmine a sad smile, appreciating her willingness to stand up for me. She was more like a sister to me than my own blood. “Well, yeah, it hurt. But Scott wasn’t my forever, I guess I knew that, but I was…”
“Afraid to rip off the Band-Aid?” She arched a brow and tilted her head. She had been saying for years that I should break things off with Scott and be single for a while, enjoy college life to the fullest. She never really liked him.
“Yeah. I guess you could say that. I should have ended things with Scott years ago, but I was afraid to.” All the excitement I’d once felt for him seemed to have remained behind in the halls our old high school, and that was perfectly alright.
Even before Brinley had sent the photo, I’d been considering breaking things off with Scott.
My patience for his laziness and lack of interest in our relationship had already worn thin. I just hadn’t been sure how to go about breaking up with him. Confrontation wasn’t really my forte, and my aversion to drama had me dreading it.
Our relationship had never been the stuff of romance novels, but Scott had been more creative about dates when we were in high school. At least then, he’d taken me out for meals and to the movies. After graduating, his idea of a date had been to have me watch him play Call of Duty until three in the morning. He had zero interest in going out when I was home, unless it was to drag me along to one of his friend’s parties.
“You really should have; he was never at your level,” Jasmine said, shooting me a knowing glance before turning her attention back to the road.
“Tell me about it,” I sighed. “He never put in the effort.” When I first started university, I’d made frequent trips back every other weekend to do laundry and to see him, but Scott had put zero effort in us. I’d ended up spending my time with him doing homework while he played videogames and all but ignored me.
At first, I’d been so focused on my studies, I hadn’t even realized what was happening between us. Not consciously, anyway—or perhaps I knew, but again, just didn’t know how to end it. Eventually, I’d stopped going as frequently, opting to stay at the dorms instead and save my parents’ the trip.
I didn’t think Scott would be bothered by this, after all—he never called me out for it or asked why I’d stopped coming as much. Our relationship really hadn’t really felt like a relationship in years, and as he’d tossed that at me, I couldn’t blame him for finding something else to fill that void. We both knew it never had to be my sister, though. That was one betrayal he could have spared me.
“He didn’t deserve you, that was obvious from the beginning,” Jasmine said, shaking her head. “I feel bad you wasted all that time with him.”
“He didn’t distract me from my studies or my goals.” I reminded her, pausing to collect my thoughts. “He complained about that, you know, when I told him things were officially finished between us. He said, ‘Good, you cared more about school and your future than you did me anyway’.”
“Because he wasn’t your future, and you both knew that. You just didn’t want to admit it.” Jasmine scoffed. “Forget about that loser. You need to find someone adventurous, someone to sweep you off your feet and give you the experience of a lifetime.”
“I’m not looking for someone to sweep me off my feet, and I’m not even adventurous!” I pointed out with a laugh as I tucked my copper hair behind my ear. My finger brushed against the gold of my heart shaped daith piercing. Jasmine had one too, we’d gotten them the summer we’d turned sixteen. It was the most ‘adventurous’ thing about me.
“Not yet, but after this trip you will be,” she said confidently. “You’ll get the camping bug—then you’ll want to do it all the time!”
“Don’t count on it,” I sighed, rolling my shoulders. I detested bugs and dirt, and I was certain there’d be plenty of that where we were going.
“Just you wait. You’ll be eating your words by the end of this trip,” she giggled. “You’re going to love it!”
“We’ll see.” Secretly, I hoped that Jasmine was right. I hoped that I’d love every minute of it, that it’d be the distraction I needed away from the crummy bits of my life. I hadn’t felt like myself lately.
But I was determined to not sulk this weekend. I wasn’t about to allow Brinley another win. Me spending the next several days away from her miserable would be just that, letting her cruelty have the upper hand—again.
“I think,” Jasmine drawled, wiggling her eyebrows at me, “that you’ll love the experience so much, you’ll decide to move to Sudbury and be my new roomie. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“You’re looking for a new roommate?” My curiosity was a little piqued.
“Actually, yes. The student renter moved out at the beginning of July, and the room is still available if you want it. They don’t usually start looking for new renters until closer to September, but I could talk to Desmond, tell him to let you have it.”
“I don’t know…” Rooming with Jasmine would be easy—we’d always gotten along. She was just as serious and focused as I was when it came to school and work, but she knew how to unwind, too. I’d forgotten how to do that, and living with Jasmine would remind me how to have fun again.
It sounded like a better option than my current predicament. I didn’t want to commit to the idea, but I could always check out local job listings and see if any clinics or hospitals were hiring. It wouldn’t hurt to broaden my job search several hundred kilometres, especially if it meant putting more distance between myself and Brinley.
* * *
The drive to the French River was a long one from Guelph, where we’d grown up and where both of our parents still lived. We filled the rest of the time with reminiscing conversations, laughter, and music. She updated me on how her parents and three younger sisters were doing, and we laughed about the time the two of us had stumbled in after a few too many drinks at a semi-formal after party when we were in grade eleven.
Jasmine was the eldest daughter of the Mayor of Guelph. The Kade’s had been politicians for many generations, and although Mayor Kade was about as modern and chill as politicians came, it had been a risky thing for us to do. Even though we had been honest about where we were and we’d returned before Jasmine’s curfew, we’d gotten into a lot of trouble afterwards. If our giggles hadn’t been the thing to give us away, Jasmine’s parents could smell the alcohol on us, and they weren’t impressed. As the eldest of four girls and the daughter of a politician, an example had to be set. For the rest of that summer, Jasmine was grounded and had to do community service. She chose to volunteer at a sleepaway camp up north.
The Kade’s had informed my parents of my misdemeanour too, but mine were laxer about it. After all, Brinley drank in excess; every weekend, she’d stumbled home past curfew, drunk. My minor drinking experiments had always seemed so tame, comparably.
Jasmine’s punishment had worked more effectively to discipline me, as I’d had to spend an entire summer without my best friend, and she’d had the best time at the sleepaway camp. After that incident, the two of us got a hell of a lot wiser about drinking.
My phone dinged with a message, and I absently picked it up. It was a new Snap from my sister. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and she’d already started in with sending Snaps directly to me. She’d sent Snaps of her and Scott together so often that seeing them together had lost some of the initial sting.
The Snaps were always cross-posted to her stories, adding double the fuel to the gossip mill. Back home had been churning with Brinley’s latest escapades. I’d received more “hey girl, just checking in” messages from former high school classmates than I cared to admit, all of them fishing for information on the latest Kennish sister drama. Some were my old friends, curious but authentic, relating to the pain of being betrayed, but most were Brinley’s minions, fishing for insider information that I wouldn’t give. She was looking for a public reaction, but she wouldn’t get it.
I dropped my phone into the centre console without checking her latest Snap. There was no sense in giving Brinley power when she wasn’t even here. It felt like a waste of energy, energy that I could spend worrying about all the uncertain things this trip would undoubtedly contain instead.
Like all the unfamiliar people, and variables. My stomach churned with nervousness. “Let’s see how this trip goes first, I might not like you by the end of it.”
Jasmine cackled, like what I’d said was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.