My Protector, My Sister

 When I was four and she was seven, Emma, my older sister, plopped me on top of her pink and baby blue two wheel bike and said Ride it, Sadie, ride it. Just like that she put a hand on my back and pushed me down the dirt hill out back, and I couldn’t do anything but put my bare feet on the pedals and pedal. Eventually I stopped. Well, more like I crashed…into the neighbor’s car, and broke my right arm in three different places.

   Emma came running down the hill after me, once she saw me crash. I was just sitting there, with her newly wrecked pink and baby blue two wheel bike lying across my lap.

Are you okay, are you okay, she asked me over and over and I just knew that she thought it was her fault, and I could see the tears forming in her eyes. I hate seeing Emmers upset.

It’s okay, Emm. I told her, putting off the intense pain radiating from my right arm. I stood and I wrapped my left arm around her, and tried not to cry when she squeezed as she hugged back. We both pulled the totaled bike over and up onto our porch, and ran inside to tell our mother.

After Emma went back outside, I remember saying, Mom, I need to go to the doctor. I hurt my arm. She said let me see and I told her that I couldn’t move it. She went to the side of me and let out an Oh my God when she saw the bone pressing up against the skin.

I made our Mom drop Emma off at her friend’s house so she wouldn’t know, and then mom drove me to the hospital where they put me to sleep and I woke up with a big purple cast on my arm. I told Emm that I fell, and I honestly hoped that she didn’t connect the two. For the record, I don’t think she ever did.

 I always looked up to my sister, always listened to her, always respected her, even as I grew older, but after “the incident,” I never showed any pain ever again after I saw the look on her face as I sat there with her bike on my lap. The only one who eventually learned to tell when I was in pain was Emm. I never liked her to see, though we messed each other up pretty good over the years while we were playing the game.  I think I viewed showing pain as me being weak. Most people just thought that petite little blonde Sadie, couldn’t take anything. I hated it.

 My freshman year of high school was defined by the word senior. Senior is what Emma was. We kept up our usual good natured and mostly painful game of tormenting each other in the halls, and in the sociology class we had together. Until the day we were chasing each other and I managed to flip Emmers over the railing of the stairs, and she fell a good 20 feet to the next landing, only to land on top of our principal.

Needless to say, that did not go over well. The day Emm got back with a broken ankle was the only time I’ve ever been truly, truly afraid of my sister. She can be the nicest, funniest person in the world, but she can also make your life miserable. Instead of avoiding her like I probably should have, (which is none too easy to do when you share a room) I stuck to her like glue. I figured that if I didn’t go away, she’d kill me quickly, even if there was no chance of going painlessly. So for the whole time she had her crutches, I was walking on ice around her, I was her legs, her voice, her eyes. When she wanted something, I got it. I left all of my classes 5 minutes early to get Emma’s books and walk her to her classes, even when we had class on opposite sides and floors of our 5 story high school. I remember sitting on the floor of our room in the middle of the night listening to her breathe when I couldn’t sleep from nightmares centered around the fact that I came way too close to actually killing my sister.

Emma was back to normal, if slightly less tolerant, by the middle of the year. I am still thankful that she didn’t have to graduate with her cast. Now that would have been hell. Honestly, I might have thrown myself down a flight of stairs if that was the case. I consider that period in time my self-inflicting phase, though I never self harmed.

After that we went back to our usual of just outright torturing each other on a daily basis, our old game, although never again near stairs. I don’t think I ever explained what exactly the game is. Basically it’s trying to, literally, out-pain the other. The first person to give loses. It was spawned a few years after “the incident,” and Emma won first, since she had just turned 12 and I was barely 9. The score is currently 5-4, in favor of Emma. We had been playing that one round for nearly 4 years, not even Emmers ankle made her give, even though I never even meant to do it, it had to count. After she fell on top of the principal, she looked up at me on the balcony, and before telling me to go get the nurse, she said, laughing, Sadie, you b***h, you’ve got to do better than that to get another win. I grinned and ran off to get the nurse, after helping up the principal of course.

After she graduated, Emma wanted to be behind the camera, after I graduated, I wanted to write but still have a job and go to school. So, we both ended up going to the same college, her for photography and camera management, me in journalism. My freshman year of college was also defined by the word senior. After gaduating and bouncing around jobs between smaller stations in the city for a year, we both ended up at INK23, the biggest station in the city. Emma was behind the camera, I was behind the pad and paper, sometimes though I would actually jump in front of the camera for certain stories I didn’t want to give up.

Oh, and let’s not forget the freaks that come with plastering your face on the evening news.

In my 3 years on that particular job, I managed to get robbed 4 times, almost stabbed, ran off the road a good 25 times, and the best one yet: chased across a bridge downtown at gunpoint at two in the morning during a tropical storm while trying to record a story live. I owe Emm one for that, she did try to run him over in the INK23 van.

 In the end she chased him all the way to the police station, with the cameras still rolling. That one is definitely a favorite to watch in the DVD player, my older sister chasing a creep in a news van through downtown at two in the morning, in a tropical storm, all the while cursing him out and threatening to castrate him if she caught him, all at the top of her lungs and with the camera going. Our boss was not so happy about that one, though it did make him laugh.

 About a year after that, Emma and I had different jobs at rival stations, making for good natured debates on which station was actually better. Emma moved in the same housing complex as me, and we ended up living across the courtyard from each other.

 A few months later Emma started seeing a guy from my station, a Greek reporter I had worked with a few times named Aros. After a few weeks I started noticing bruises along Emm’s arms and legs. I asked her about it, and she said something about the new camera she was working with, and, that time, I gave her the benefit of the doubt; her personality hadn’t changed any. For weeks after that, she started wearing out of season clothes, three quarter pants and long sleeve shirts, even though it was May and almost 80 degrees every day. The doors and windows of Emma’s townhouse were always shut, which was distinctly unlike my sister. I learned a few days later from a mutual friend of ours that Aros had moved in with Emma.  After piecing the information together, I came to a conclusion: Aros was abusing my sister.

 Deciding not to jump in and ruin a potentially good relationship without the facts, I kept a close eye on him at work, and even went so far as to get my work section moved near his, and I started eating at Emma’s a few times a week, and inviting Aros and Emma to dinner at my place on the other days, carefully observing him and how he acted towards my sister and me. I started to recognize a pattern of scratches on his wrists that corresponded to Emma’s broken, ripped, missing, and sometmes bloody nails. She was fighting back. With every passing day I began to suspect him more and more, and I started to hate him more with every discolored patch of skin I saw on my sister.

One night I came home from work late, and had to park down the street since all the spots were taken, so I went around the back to go in, since it was closer. Once I got into the courtyard, I saw Emma’s back door was open. Sensing that something was wrong, I dropped my bag and ran towards the door, forcing the locked screen open and shutting the door behind me, I started across the first floor and up to the second floor where the bedroom was. Peeking around the corner of the stairs, the first thing I saw was then open bedroom door and the shadows of two people, one sitting, one standing, on the wall in front of me. The first thing I heard was a loud thud followed by a strangled cry from my sister. I came around the corner to the sight of my sister, crumpled in the corner, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt, with Aros standing above her with his face flushed and his hand raised and a lump in his pocket that looked suspiciously like a gun.

 I barged into the room, grabbing the first solid thing I could find, a snow globe of New York City, and bashed him in the head with it. Get your motherfuckinghands off of my sister, I screamed at him. Emma looked up, her green eyes full of tears caught mine and I saw 5 distinctive bruises forming on her face. I told her to go downstairs and cover her eyes and ears. She ran, without a second thought, and a moment later, I heard the downstairs closet door shut.

 Aros stood up and lunged at me, knocking me to the floor, where he pinned me to the ground by my throat. I pulled my knee up into his stomach, rolled over on top of him and punched him in the mouth. He slipped a hand down towards his gun and pushed me backwards off of him, sending me out into the hallway where I collided with Emma’s dirty clothes basket. Pulling a pair of jeans off of my head I looked up to see the barrel of the gun pointed at me. I shot up off of the basket and lunged at him around the waist. He shot, and missed, and instead he met me, causing both of us to roll into the hallway, where I wrestled the gun from him and kicked him hard in the private, and he started to fall down the stairs. He grabbed my left arm and held tight as he fell. I grabbed onto the banister and held on for my life. After a moment, his grip on my wrist slipped and he went crashing down the flight of stairs to the landing, ripping my shoulder out of socket in the process. Ignoring my arm, I went down about half of the flight of stairs, and when Aros stood and looked up at me, with pure hatred and defiance in his eyes, I raised his gun with my right arm, and fired five shots into his chest, one for every bruise I had just seen on my sister’s face.

 I don’t remember much after that, but I do remember stepping over his lifeless body and going and getting Emma out of the closet and hugging her close as she cried and babbled, not even caring that my arm felt like if had been cut off and Emma was hurting me. I remember Emma popping my arm back into socket once she realized it was dislocated, and I remember never even making a face as she moved it around for minutes before successfully putting it back.

I remember calling 911 and sending them to our address, and I remember Emma crying, and I remember both of us sitting in the back of a police car on the way to the station.

I remember being asked if I wanted an attorney, and I remember Emma calling hers for me.

I remember us being separated into different rooms for questioning, and Emma breaking down so bad they had to bring us back into the same room.

I remember being given a glass of water, and telling them that if they wanted my DNA they could just ask, and I remember Emma’s lawyer telling them I would plead guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter.

I remember waking up alone in a cell while Emma sold most of what I owned to post my bail, and I remember Emma driving me home, what must have been at least two days later.

After I got back home, we broke the leases on mine and Emma’s townhouses, and moved into a two bedroom townhouse together. We figured that I’d be in jail soon anyway, so why waste money? Emma seemed different after I posted bail. Until every one of the bruises was gone, she was distant, but after they were gone, we were back to our old game, though she steered clear of my left arm, and I her face.

 Two months later, I was in court. The voir dire process must have been interesting for the defense, because I swear I got the jury from hell. My representation was good though, and we managed to cut my sentence down a little. I ended up with a 4 year sentence, with the possibility of parole, for the manslaughter of Aros Constantinos. 

None of it matters though. I am content to know that everytime I look at my sister's eyes, no longer swamped in tears, or her skin, no longer marred with bruises, and her voice, no longer small and weak, but back to the same confident voice I know and love, I don’t regret what I did. I would do it again in a heartbeat, even if I knew that I would undoubtedly get a death sentence. I can sleep at night, regardless of the fact that it's on a prison bed, and I don’t have a changed outlook on life like a lot of people think about people sent to jail. I can live with the fact that I took someone's life to protect someone else’s. I wouldn’t make a habit of it, but I will never regret it, ever. I love her.

My name is Sadie McCallister, I am 27 years old, and I am a murderer.

Author's Note

I found this buried in my documents, the part up to high school was written in Jan. 09, the rest in March. Emma and Sadie are products of a few experimental character sketches for another project, and I felt that I should tell their story first.
I hope you guys enjoy this.
Don't forget to revew! =)
I should be back up fully in a few weeks.
--poetic-raven2012, --Jenn

Reviews

[Lexi Nicole]

Great piece. The characters are so real, and I love Sadie's narration. I like how you went through Sadie and Emma's background, how they used to go around hurting each other and trying to make one another give in, and then you turn it around when Sadie has to stop someone else from hurting her sister. There's a lot of powerful emotions in this, you've got a lot of skill as a writer. Keep it up!

-Howl

[V. Lucien Maier]

Well done over all. Although the story jumps around a bit at first.
There is a lot of very interesting back ground, But that may serve the piece better if it were dispersed throughout a bit more. But over all a good story with a good build.

[Marie Anzalone]

I really liked this piece as well, because your story rang of truth. Please write more.

[Ahmad Alhour]

Its too good to be buried between documents :d lol
No, actually it pretty nice.

Keep it up.

[Jo]

This was such a good read. It seemed so realistic to me and when I started reading, I couldn't pull myself away, despite such a sad story. You wrote this beautifully and the ending is very intriguing. You did well on this story and I enjoyed reading about their story. Great write!

[We are young.]

THIS WAS SO AWESOME GREAT WRITTING SKILLS!!! Sister love is a great thing to write about.

[Becca*Type2012]

Nice story! I liked how the relationship basically stayed the same after Sadie went to jail for protecting her sister, and I also like that she is semi-proud of going to jail and saving her sister's life. Nice story. Interesting ending. Perfectly Jenn!

[D Kupisiewicz]

I'm not really into sad tragic stories, but this is well written.
Pat yourself on the back.
Only small suggeston would be quotation marks for the dialouge.
Thanks for the cool read.
David