Chapter Five #2
For the first time in a long time, I regretted moving so far from our parents, but she’d had that great job offer, and I’d decided to move with her, because I can do my work anywhere, and now I was wondering if I should have just stayed there.
I just wanted my independence, and I thought that’s what I was opting for by moving here with Marissa.
Instead she’d become my keeper. She seemed to decide that my wellbeing was her responsibility, when she should have been helping to empower me.
I’d had to work so hard to build a life without her controlling it, but now she was getting out of hand.
I was in bed, the edge taken off the darkness by my small nightlight, staring at my phone and it was a ridiculous time of the morning, like almost five am, but I couldn’t sleep. I felt like she was awake too, and right outside my door. It was creepy as hell.
Something made me want to check, so I climbed out of bed as carefully as I could, having no idea if I was moving as quietly or stealthily as I felt I was, and when I reached my door, my fingers hovered above the handle for a moment.
Was I being crazy? Was she crazy? Were we both?
Was I hoping to find her, or not find her, outside my room?
I stared at the handle, my fingers lowering and folding into a gentle fist. Should I put a lock on the door?
How would she react if I did? Why was I suddenly feeling unsafe in my home, and not because of any external force, but my own sister, my own twin? The other half of me.
I backed away from the door, biting my lip and forcing the crazed thoughts out, because I was making myself nuts over this.
She wasn’t outside my door. She wasn’t spying on me, or stalking me.
It was all coincidence, right? We’re twins.
Maybe we just end up in the same places because we’re so alike. Yeah, that has to be it.
I climbed back into my bed and set my phone aside, grateful for my nightlight gently glowing in the corner.
I’d been unable to sleep in full darkness since I lost the ability to hear, because without sight or sound, there’s just nothing.
I panicked the first few times I tried, screaming into the void, until the light flicked back on and mum or dad stared down at me with so much pain and sorrow in their eyes.
We’d learned pretty fast that almost dark was okay, but fully dark, pitch dark, was a hell no.
I finally drifted off to sleep as the world was starting to lighten outside my curtained window, and I slept fitfully until my sister woke me at eight thirty with coffee.
“You look exhausted, sis. Are you not sleeping again?” She sat on the bed with her own coffee, while I took deep inhales of mine, like I hoped the caffeine would start to permeate my system through my olfactory sense, another one that was heightened since I was reduced to four of them.
“Restless,” I murmured, because my hands were too busy to sign.
“Do you need the sleeping meds again? I can get some today for you.”
I shook my head. Even though in the light of day, she was behaving like a normal loving sister, and my fears of last night seemed insane, something about being medically comatose in the night was terrifying. What if something happened? What if she did something?
A light touch on my hand had my eyes lifting from the steaming liquid I was desperate to chug as soon as it cooled enough.
“Do you need to talk about it? Is something bothering you?”
I shook my head, blowing on my mug to try and speed up the cooling process.
“You can talk to me about anything, you know that. Is someone causing problems for you?” Yes, you, or at least I feel like you are, even if you aren’t.
All I could do was shake my head, and that’s when her eyes suddenly narrowed, and she lunged across the bed, snatching my phone.
“Is it that biker guy? Is he harassing you, or something? I’ll call the fucking police again. He’s a menace!”
I think for a moment I was just struck completely still and dumb by her words. Obviously I didn’t hear them, but I read them on her lips, which grew more and more agitated and rapid as her words became filled with anger.
“No.” I reached for my phone, balancing my coffee on my leg, and she glared at the screen as if she could rage the biker from it, even though I’d never even properly met him.
She suddenly turned and threw the phone across the room, hitting the wall with a silent thud as it disappeared from sight. Oh my god!
I leapt up from the bed, forgetting the coffee which poured over my legs and hand.
“OH GOD!”
Marissa started to panic, dragging me to the bathroom and getting me in a cool shower, while I let my mind whir over what had just happened. I shoved her away as I pulled the shower curtain closed.
“I can do it!” I yelled, the words surging from my chest with fury.
How dare she? How dare she smash my phone like that?
It wasn’t just about cutting me off from potential biker man messages, which was impossible anyway, but it was like stealing part of my world from me.
It was my lifeline. It was the only way I could keep contact with many people I knew, because I couldn’t exactly answer a landline phone, and we didn’t have a specialised deaf user phone, because mobile phones do it all now, right?
She’d cut me off. That’s what she’d done. Frozen me out. Silenced me even more. Silenced my world.