I am riding a high when my sister wakes me up the next morning. A high I need, to make it through this. Without my rock in on my secrets, I am wavering. And my wounds, I fear, will be on full display.

I wanted nothing more than to be like Sasha when I was younger. She was popular. Beautiful. She wore the kind of intelligence she never had to pay for. My own grades were passable, but nothing to rave about. She spoke to adults like she was an adult, so they responded in kind.

Sasha always seemed capable. Often times the oldest child suffered with the strictest rules, and when the second child came along everything was more lenient.

That wasn’t the case in our home. Sasha was able to handle any task you threw at her. With me, it was questionable. When we wanted something from the store our father would give us some cash, tell us to check out ourselves. I always froze, changed my mind about the item I thought I needed.

Simple things terrified me. I was painfully shy back then.

I avoided answering the phone at home. What if it was a telemarketer? I was so painfully awkward I may let them convince themselves they were close to selling me a timeshare. I didn’t know when to say no. When or how to exit gracefully. It would take some time to grow out of that.

I put off learning to drive until the beginning of my senior year. I could see the entrance to my high school from my bedroom window. Later, I let Britt drive me everywhere. It all fit into my plan to avoid going behind the wheel as long as possible.

My mother had been the artist. Sasha and I had inherited our interests from her. Or maybe, my sister inherited her love for the arts from our mother, and I just wanted to be like my big sister, ten years older than me.

When Sasha moved to New York for college, I knew I would do the same. I knew I would have to follow her, to escape our small town as well.

It was scary, but knowing I would be moving to a big city where the person I looked up to the most lived made it a little easier to swallow.

Sasha's girlfriend was a Director of Theatre Development on Broadway.

When I arrived in the city over ten years ago, heartbroken and terrified of the noise and movement around me, they took me in.

They taught me how to use the subway system. How to get to and from class quickly.

They were my lifeline.

My sister had always been my idol. Living with her changed that. She became my best friend. My person. The one I told everything to.

I missed my father, but my sister was my home. I had missed her terribly since she left Burlingame after her graduation. Her visits weren't frequent enough. Airfare wasn't cheap, and city life was expensive.

The shock of it was almost too much at first when I escaped.

I stayed in my room studying for the most part of that first year. I couldn't afford to do much else, and I knew I had it easy, living rent-free.

Sasha was my escape route, always in the back of my mind. She was my biggest encourager. Any flame that burned inside of me, she fanned. Any battle I was facing, she would help me fight it.

But this battle that we were facing here, we could not win it.

We would lose our father. And we would never be the same.

We would be orphans.

Our mother was an only child. Our father had one sibling. We had no grandparents.

When our father was gone, we would never return to our hometown, to our old bedrooms. To any of this.

Life forces you to grow up when you least expect it. When you don’t want it to. I knew that better than most. These streets reminded me of it. I had over ten years of chasing dreams, pretending my past was some story I had written in my journals.

I didn’t know what it felt like to have an all-consuming love. I had a boyfriend in college, Johnson. We were together for two years. We broke up and I never let myself think about him, but maybe I did love him. Maybe.

Hell, I thought of Bryan more over the years than I did of anyone else.

But I did not confuse that for love when the sun was up. When I wasn't caught up in the lust of it all. It was something unfinished. And his presence hung around like an omen before I came back here, because of the play, then the movie. I wouldn’t let his figure leave, this larger than life memory of him, this idea of him I carried with me all those years, it was fading. Now it was replaced with the scent of his skin on my own, the remembrance of his soft flesh.

I roll over and grab my phone from my old white wicker nightstand. When I flip it over, I see a text from my aunt telling me she will be here in forty-five minutes. She spent the night at her boyfriend's house in Topeka. I am so happy she has someone in her life now. Someone to give her grief to.

I don’t see a text from Bryan, and my stomach rumbles a little. I gave him my number last night after we slept together.

I don’t know what I was expecting. A good morning text, or a text of regret. Anything would have been nice. Some tangible reminder that what happened last night was real. I pull my phone to my chest, lie back on my pillow, and close my eyes. I didn't get much sleep. I feel loopy, like I’m floating above the comforter. The attic fan hums and I feel a missing for LA. I miss my air conditioning and the quiet solitude of my bedroom. I miss the familiar routine of my nights spent writing. When I hold so much in, when there is no outlet, I am on edge.

There is no moment to write here. Every hour is full of new commitments. I pull the covers away again and swing my legs off the bed. I need a shower. And caffeine, but I won’t allow myself. I won’t allow myself to indulge. I look at my phone again and groan at the ominous number sitting over the email app.

I scroll, delete, reply, as I make my way to the small bathroom down the hall. My eye catches on Ben’s name as I sit down to pee. I feel raw and open. My body isn’t used to biting, bark on back, breathless moans. It’s been a while since I’ve been thoroughly fucked. Bryan knew what he was doing. So why am I staring at an email from his brother with the subject heading “Lunch?”

I put my phone by the sink and pause. I need friends here. Community is important, and I’ve felt an emptiness in my chest since I left New York. LA has never fit me.

I wash my hands and pick my phone back up. I open the email and immediately smile. I can hear Ben’s voice as I read the text. “Let’s be friends and stuff” is all it says. It ends with his phone number. I am impressed that he searched for my email. I like to see effort. I walk out of the bathroom, back into my old bedroom, to the window next to my bed. I stare at the school and wish I could be there. I wish I could ask Bryan what last night meant. This wasn’t what I expected. To come into town and find his body close to mine. To hit the unpause button on a romance that has given me more ache than relief.

I text Ben “Hi” then lock my phone and toss it on the bed.

When my sister wakes up I am caught. “Why do you look weird?” she says when she brings in a plate of pancakes and sits down on my floor. There is no hiding from her. My sister is an extension of me, though I’ve never been able to read her as well as she can me.

I shake my head at her and lie on my bed, let my feet dangle back and forth. She doesn’t let me hide. “Tell me, Sev. Is it Dad? I'm sorry I wasn't here that first day. I know it was hard.” She wants to protect me, always. I can hear it in her voice. She wants to be a shield for the world, and maybe that has made me soft in some ways.

“It was hard. I don’t know how to say what’s inside my chest. I’m glad you're here now.” I hear her moving across the room. She puts her plate on my vanity, then lies on the bed next to me, intertwines her fingers in mine.

“We are going to make it through this.” She is using her mom voice. The one that tries to hide any worry she may have.

“You're going to get me through this. Like always.”

“You can stand on your own two feet, Sev. I know what you're thinking.” She knows part of it.

“It’s smaller here, and that hasn’t made me feel less unsure of the world.”

“Life is scary and bullshit and hard as hell. But we have to get up and face it. Have you had any stimulants?”

I laugh at her question. My anxious running mind is a product of my own worries, genetics, no outside source. “No."

“Well, something is going on in that head of yours. Something besides Dad. Tell me what it is quick because we need to go wash up and get up there to see him.” She pushes off the bed, walks to my vanity, and inspects her eye makeup while grabbing her plate. When she is done, she turns, stares until I push off the bed as well.

I place my palms on my knees, take a deep breath. “I slept with Bryan Winthrop last night.” I shake my head and tears fill my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to be this overwhelmed. But in front of Sasha, I feel the tumble. I feel the familiar hum of her mothering figure. I had not realized how wound up I had been. She is looking at me so intently, full of awe and worry.

“Sev, are you serious?” She crosses the space between us, and embraces me. To quiet the tears that are now streaming down my face. I do not like to be this fragile. I prefer sarcasm and wit. I prefer the way I can ward off the vulnerability that comes with opening up. With everyone. With anyone but her. “What the fuck, why are you crying?” She is laughing in my hair, and it pulls a laugh from my throat. Something hysterical and garbled.

“I don’t know.” I pull away and wipe my eyes. “We just got here, and it’s so strange to be here. I miss her, and I miss you, and I miss Dad, and he doesn’t remember me. This isn’t fair. Nothing is fair. Then I see Bryan, and he is working on the school across the street, and it’s like nothing has changed. Except everything has. He and Aurora are separated, and this wall is down. This giant wall that was always between us. Not my shyness and his ridiculous popularity. Not imaginary walls. The whole town knows I’m here and they saw the movie, and they know. They know, and I don’t know if I can be here. It’s too much.” My voice is shaky and unsure. I want the confidence back. The way I smirked at Bryan and the way I took control. I want that part of myself back.

“Sev, it’s okay. You’re freaking out over nothing." She wipes my cheeks.

"Nothing? I thought I loved him." I grab her hands.

"Yeah, you did think that. But you didn't." Our hands fall down, and she squeezes them.

"What do you mean I didn't?" I furrow my brow, take my hand away, and wipe my face.

"It was a high school crush. And he cheated on the girl he ended up marrying, with you. You know how preachers’ kids are. They are the worst kind. So messed up and confused. That's all he ever has been. I remember every sad phone call you made when you were in high school. I remember the way he hurt you."

"Maybe it'll be different this time." It sounds like a crock of shit coming out of my mouth. I should write that feeling down, tattoo it to my damn eyeballs, but I push it aside.

"It's going to end badly, again."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do. And so do you."

"So you're saying I should go have lunch with his brother, then?" I laugh through my tears and grab my phone.