A story about family. I am an only child, so this was a bit of a challenge for me. I'll see what you think. Comments are as always, appreciated  (some strong language)

Oh god, oh god oh god oh god, I hear myself mutter. At least I think it’s me.  I’m sitting by the waters edge, my arms hooked under my knees, my hair hanging in mottled rat's tails from my head, dripping, forming muddy little pools by my sides.  My forehead is bent to my knees and I press hard, willing for the headache I’m suffering to worsen, willing for physical pain to take over the emotional pain that’s wrenching me open from the inside out.

I rock back and forth in a semi catatonic daze, unable to pull any coherent thoughts together. Images are flashing before my eyes. There is screaming inside my head. I try to sit up a little straighter and take a few deep breaths. I run my trembling hands through my hair and wipe my eyes, being sure to poke my eyeballs hard. It stings and my head swims painfully. I’m more than grateful for this. I can’t handle clarity right now. My stomach lurches with such force I roll onto my side. I dig my finger nails deep into the dirt and pull myself along to the waters edge. My jeans rip and stones tear at the skin on my legs. I am aware of a trickle of something warm, but feel no pain. I make it to the waters edge before my stomach lurches again. Whatever is inside has to come out. I gag and force a finger to the back of my throat willing for the pain to be liberated from the depths of my innards. But it stays in. It’s determined to make me suffer.

Catching my breath, I stare into the water. A scream strangles as I’m faced with a ghost staring back at me, pale and rippling. Tears slide down my clammy, colourless cheeks and hit the water, causing the ripples to swell and disappear into the great abyss. My eyes catch another reflection; the chaos to my left. I screw up my eyes tight and look away. Sirens began to wail nearby. I run to them.

*

 I am, in essence, the blight of my sister’s life. I know this because she has shown me so in no indeterminate terms. She basically hates me in every way she is able to manage, excusing the fact that to some extent she has to love me. But she chooses to hate me to the point of indifference which I can assure you, is worse kind of abhorrence. I actually long for the times when I would come home from school unsure of the state I would find my room in; whether any of my prized possessions would be missing or broken and wondering whether she had dipped my toothbrush in the toilet. Now it’s as though she doesn’t even see me. For example, right now as I am leaning against the kitchen worktop sipping a cup of tea, my sister walks in, walks right into me causing the hot sweet liquid to slosh down my front and walks away, having picked an apple from the fruit bowl, without so much as a eyelash flutter. I am vapor.

 ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. It’s just second degree burns, nothing to worry about.’ I grumble as I place the cup down and pull some kitchen roll from the holder. 

 Ali is seventeen years old, is in the netball team, smokes light cigarettes and eats lettuce sandwiches every lunch time. She does this to appear ‘healthy’ and to make up for the calories she consumes nightly in her room, when she pacifies herself with chocolate bars once she thinks everyone has gone to sleep. Calories don’t count in the night apparently. She would never admit it but I really think Ali has always been a little jealous of me. Not because she thinks I’m remotely cool or pretty or worth acknowledging, but because of how close I was to our brother Lucas. She still hasn’t forgiven me for what happened last summer. And in my heart of hearts, I don’t blame her. 

 ‘Hello darling.’ My mother comes in from the garden, a bouquet of fragrant herbs in hand and comes to stand near me by the sink. ‘Did I see Ali come in?’

 I nod, throwing the now sloppy ball of kitchen roll into the bin. I miss and it hits the floor with a plop. I’ve never been any good at sports. I’m picking it up as my mother asks me,
‘You two speak today?’ 

 Drawing myself to my feet tiredly I shoot her a lazy look of incredulity. She raises her eyebrows at me and I lower my gaze. 

 ‘Don’t look at me like that Ella, I’m only asking.’

 ‘Yes, as you do nearly every day Mum. She barely talks to me now, nor will she probably ever, so please will you just let it go? It’s depressing.’

 She turns off the tap and shakes the herbs part dry before placing them on a nearby chopping board and them turning to me, wiping her hands on her ‘Kiss the chef’ apron. ‘She will speak to you again. She just needs time.’

 I roll my eyes and decide to busy myself with setting the table for dinner. I haven’t the energy to get into another one of these discussions.  As I do this, my mother busies herself with heating plates and ladling spaghetti and salad into large serving bowls. She is calling for Ali when the front door opens and I hear my father come in. 

 ‘Hello family.’ he bellows. ‘How are we today?’ he kisses my mother before giving Ali and I a fond pat on the head. Ali gazes up at him lovingly. I want to gag. 

 My family are an annoyingly cheery bunch. You know that show that American sitcoms are always referring to? You know about that big happy family? The Brady’s or something? That’s my family when they're together. Or at least they were until the accident. Now they just pretend to be. I never quite fit into that niche so the way things are now suit my only slightly better. I don’t understand people who are that happy all the time. It is impossible to be that positive. I mean how can you put a good spin on war, or cancer or really bad weather? It’s just not normal. Even after all that has happened, my parents still try to keep up the façade. It’s a strange amalgamation of irritating, perverted and comforting. As I am thinking this, I feel a headache coming on.

 Dad tucks himself in under the table them begins to hand around the salad. ‘So are we all set for this weekend?’

 I bite into a slice of pepper and look around my brow furrowed in question. ‘What about this weekend?’ I ask no-one in particular, obviously expecting only my mother or father to reply.

 My mother pierces a piece of lettuce with her fork, and tilting her head slightly towards my father says, ‘I haven’t actually had a chance to speak to Ella yet.’

 My father looks at me, and smiles with a little too much effort, giving his face a bizarre clownish appearance. 

 ‘What?’ I ask, utensils in hand and suspended over my plate.

 ‘I did ask Ali to ask you darling, but obviously she never got around to it.’ She shoots Ali a little look of frustration and I have a sudden desire to hug her. 

 ‘Well, what is it?’ I ask, now absently twisting some spaghetti around my fork. 

 My father clears his throat. ‘Well we thought we might go to the lakes this weekend. Go camping. You know, a family thing.’

 With a forkful of spaghetti suspended inches from my lips, I freeze. The limp ribbons of pasta slowly uncoil and flop pathetically back onto the plate. I lower my fork and take a deep shaky breath. ‘This weekend? You want to go to the lakes, all four of us, this weekend?’

 ‘Well you know, you know we just thought…’

 Ali interrupts, ‘I think it’s a great idea Dad.’

 I turn on her accusingly, inwardly taming the beast that is rising up inside of me. ‘Well you’ve had time to get used to the idea. Don’t you think it may have been appropriate, pertinent even to break this ridiculous childish vow of silence to pass on the message to me?’ I am sure my face is glowing red, but I keep my voice calm, even though Ali doesn’t so much as flinch. I have to admit I almost have admiration for her sheer strength of will. I turn on my parents. ‘Or one of you could have just discussed it with me before now couldn’t you? Why trust her to tell me about it?’

 ‘I know love we’re sorry. It was a last minute thing and we just thought…well we thought you two might…’ my mother reaches over to pat my hand which is clutching my fork so tightly now, my nails are sinking into the palm of my sweaty hand. 

 I sigh and eventually mutter, ‘It’s fine, doesn’t matter.’

 ‘I think it would be good for us Ella.’ my father says patiently. I look into his pleading brown eyes and relent. I can see how important it is to him. 

 I nod, ‘Yeah. Okay then.’

 He leans back and smiles. It is as though the air around the table has let out a groan of relief. ‘Great, great. We’ll leave tomorrow after school okay?’

 I nod again, pushing food around my plate, suddenly having lost my appetite. Ali tucks greedily into her dinner and begins to tell my parents about how wonderful her day was. Sometimes I hate her too.

*

 Lucas taught me to swim. He tried to teach Ali too but she never liked it as the water made her hair all knotted. It was a hot a balmy day by the lakes and the only way to stay cool was to be in the water. Ali sat on the grassy slope and played with her dolls, sloshing her legs back and forth in the cool crisp relief. I don’t remember where my mother and father were but they must have been nearby as we have photos of that day; Ali looking red, sweaty and a little grumpy in the baby blue swimming suit and me and Lucas grinning up at the camera, the light and happiness in our faces reflecting off the glassy lake. I must have been about seven years old, so Lucas was fourteen, and he was a superhero. 

 ‘Okay Ellaby, you ready to go under?’ 

 I held tightly onto his shoulders and bit my lip anxiously, peering down into the space between us where I couldn’t quite see the bottom.

 ‘What if I drown?’ I asked him, searching for reassurance in his familiar brown eyes.

 He laughed, but not mockingly. Just in a way that told me I had nothing to be frightened of. ‘It might be a little strange at first, but I promise I won’t let go of you. Just duck your head under then I’ll pull you back up okay?’

 I nodded resolutely. 

 ‘Okay, take a deep breath and hold your nose.’

 Suddenly I was underwater; transported to another world. My body felt weightless and water enveloped me in serene security. I looked down and my toes and wiggled them as a family of tiny blue fish swam by. I giggled and bubbles rose from my mouth as they do in cartoons, popping genially at the surface. I could see the bottom now as smooth shiny pebbles shone beguilingly at me, like precious gems in a lost and forgotten chest of treasures. 

 Suddenly I was aware that I was out of breath and not knowing what to do I struggled in Lucas’ grip until it was all gone, as Lucas pulled me to the surface again and I gulped greedily at the air, my black hair plastered to my face and water streaming from my eyelashes. I recovered and grinned.

 ‘You okay?’ he beamed back. 

 ‘Can I do it again? On my own this time?’ I asked eagerly.

 ‘Won’t you be scared?’

 ‘It’s not as scary down there as I thought it would be. And I can stay under longer if you can teach me to stay under for longer like you do!’

 ‘Ah well that’s a superhero’s secret.’ He stroked his chin and squinted at me as though he was mulling something over. ‘Can I trust you?’

 ‘Yes!’ I all but screamed, splashing about excitedly. I was desperate to collect some of those stones. I wanted to swim all the way to the bottom. I could swim on top of the water, and now I wanted to swim underneath it.

 Lucas and I stayed in the lake, long after Ali had left and right up until our mother called us in. I was brain fogged with exhaustion and my lungs felt fit to burst. Learning to swim underwater isn’t as easy as you think it might be, but it was sure as hell fun once you could.

*

 The journey to the lakes was uncomfortable and suffocating. Again I found myself longing for times gone by, when the three of us would be squished into the back seat like one two many balls of play dough in a tub, and fight for leg and arm room. Our mother would be trying commendably to distract us with silly car games and our father would bark at us to behave before eventually, we’d all fall asleep on top of one another; head to shoulder, legs entwined, arms bent at awkward angles but finally peaceful and companionable, slotted together like pieces of a puzzle, like it was the way we were always meant to be. 

 We had stopped coming to the lakes as we had all grown older, and opted for different holidays instead. We only came up last year for Luca’s birthday - all five of us plus a few – a weekend he had insisted upon before he embarked on his new career overseas, as a communications operator for the army. It had been fun, until it hadn’t been.

 Sitting against the knarled, knobby trunk of an aged tree I let a film fall over my eyes in the gloaming, as I try to remember Lucas' voice; the last thing he said to me; if he was happy that day. In the distant background, like noise from a television in room down a long hall, i hear my mother and father clearing away the barbeque and laughing over a shared memory in confidence.

I cannot see Ali but feel sure she in wandering about the campsite, enfolding herself in the darkness of some fabricated misfortune that instigated that scowl over dinner. I look to the unopened novel in my hand and re-read the blurb. It looks quite good. I settle myself more firmly into the grassy hollow my bottom has decided to fall into slumber in, and open the book to the front page.

 I am re-reading a paragraph on the second page when I hear a scuffle to my right. I glance over expecting to see a small bird, or a field mouse, but my jaw slackens a little as I see Ali lower herself tentatively against the tree, at a right angle to me. She stretches out her long athletic legs and pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her jeans. I watch her blow out long elegant plumes of smoke into the night air. She licks her lips; a gesture Lucas once told me she always did when she was nervous or lying. I have dragged my attention away from her and back to my book when her voice, quiet and husky, floats in my direction.

‘I forgot.’

I don’t look up. Admittedly more out of stubbornness than shock.

She speaks again, more loudly this time, ‘I forgot this weekend was his birthday.’ She hangs her head, her right hand dangling a fag that looks as though it’s about to crumble, ash falling weightlessly towards the ground, whirling slightly in the evening breeze.

I’m not sure if she is expecting me to reply. My heart is hammering so hard and loud with both joyous relief and pain, I am struggling even to breathe.

Ali turns to me now and I find myself turning to her in unison - as though an invisible string attached to both of us is shortening - and being faced with a stranger. I wonder quietly when she had begun to look so haggard, and wondering if grief has played such havoc with my looks too. Her face is so steely and I am overcome with a great desire to punch it, just to see if she shatters. This is all far less dramatic than i thought it would be. Where are the tears? I shiver from the cold. 

‘What are you reading?’

I don't know what to say.

‘Suit yourself.’ She turns away. She is such a bitch.

‘Do you wish I had died, instead of him?’ I can’t help but ask. Snap really. My own voice sounds alien to me, warped out of its usually harmony.

She takes another draw of her cigarette, her hand trembling, but says nothing.

My eyes narrow, and aloud I say ‘You’re a bitch Ali, you know that?’ My hand finds its way to my mouth as I turn away. I can’t believe I have the audacity to utter such ugliness. I know better. I know she doesn’t wish I had died, she just wishes with all her breaking heart that Lucas hadn’t either. I know this yet there is a beast inside of me. I am so angry. I placate myself with breathing deeply and combing my fingers soothingly through the grass, too afraid to face the severity of the consequences that may now befall me.

Ali has always been somewhat predictable; the one most likely to throw dramatic tantrums and the one most likely to fall apart at the sight of the smallest crack in the pavement. I can tell that now something has cracked in Ali but I am not sure whether I am finally to be executed, or set free. 

I continue to stroke the grass as the minutes of silence mount like banked snow between us. I notice that the glossy onyx paint of my finger nails has chipped. I can't remember if i brought the bottle with me, i packed in such a haze. My mother says it's time to take it off, but i'm not ready yet. Besides it's in fashion. 
 
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’ I finally utter, my nerves unable to stand the silence.
 
She blows out smoke in rings and hooks them around her fingers before they ebb away into the stars.

‘I know. But I have been quite dreadful, so I probably deserved it.’

She copies me, combing the longer grasses by her thigh. I spot a scar on her wrist.
 
It was like my second week of high school and these boys were picking on me. This particular morning I was on my way to school (Ali didn’t walk with me as it was ‘uncool’ to be seen with your little geek of a sister and I hadn’t reached the park where I met up with my friends yet) and they cornered me in an alley. Tried to steal my lunch money. They pushed me over and I hit my head so hard I swear I saw stars, then out of knowhere Lucas came flying out and punched one of them in the face. He got grounded for two weeks.

I felt so guilty that I got up really early before school one morning, woke Ali, and convinced her to help me wash that beat up old fiat of his. But we got in a fight – about something stupid like who got to eat the last of the frosties - and I pushed her. She tripped right over the hose and put her fist into the wing mirror. I thought I was done for. I wasn’t worried about getting into trouble for hurting Ali so much as damaging Luca’s car. He spent so long saving up for that thing, working in the local video store and delivering the weekend papers. But when he found Ali bleeding on the bathroom floor, her shouting and me crying, he just hugged us both, called us clumsy idiots and went to get my mother.

  ‘Did you remember tomorrow was his birthday?’ Ali asks me, now pleating two blades of grass she had plucked.

 I find my voice. ‘Of course I did. That’s why I was so annoyed you didn’t tell me when Mum asked you to.’

 ‘Yeah, right, yeah….’ She pulls her knees up to her and rests her trembling chin on them. ‘You know he loved you more.’

 It’s as though i have been slapped in the face. ‘What on earth are you talking about? He loved us both Ali.’

 She shakes her head. ‘Okay maybe he loved me, but he liked you more. You and him had your own little club, your private jokes, your swimming, all the things you did together. You both just left me out all the time. It made me so fucking angry. He even had a pet name for you, he didn’t have one for me.’ 

 I roll my eyes and breathe deeply. I shall be a good sister, I shall not attack. ‘Ali, no offense, but you’re talking crap. Yes maybe we were closer, but that’s only because we did things together. You never ever wanted to join in.’

 She shrugs.

 ‘Anyway half the time I just tagged along because I thought he was so amazing. I drove him crazy, don’t you remember the fights we used to have?’ 

 She sniffs and looks at me, searching my face while searching her brain. ‘I just remember you being best friends. Lucas and Ellaby.’

 A lump catches in my throat as she speaks Luca’s pet name for me. A shortened version of ‘Ella baby’, which stuck from the minute I was born. I honestly don’t know what to say to her, because the truth is Lucas and I were best friends. We were kindered spirits and there is nothing I can do or say, or would want to, to take that away. I am right though, Ali has always been jealous. Guilt floods me.

 ‘I wasn’t there. I didn’t even get a chance to give him my present.’

 She is plucking another cigarette from the pack and I snatch them away from her.

 ‘You need to stop this.’ I scold.

 She plays with her lighter instead. ‘You all left to go down to the lake. I just went in to put on make up, and got so annoyed you left without me I stayed in my room in a huff.’

 I nod. ‘Everyone was drunk Ali. They didn’t mean to leave you behind, and I was already down there with Mum and Dad helping with the barbeque.’

 ‘I know I know. When Mum and Dad came back they told me to go down but I was just so pissed off.’ She suddenly sighs and tears begin to fall freely from her long lashes. ‘Why Ella, why on earth did he jump in? Why did you let him?’

*

 ‘Lucas you are such an asshole! Let me go!’ I yell as he dangles me over the water in a firemans lift, his knobbly bones digging painfully into my stomach. 

 He laughs as he awkwardly puts me down and staggers over to the cooler to grab another beer. ‘Aw you’re no fun sis.’ He toasts his mates and puts am arm around his girlfriend. She punches him in the shoulder and calls him something equally offensive.

 ‘It’s bloody freezing in there! This is England not Madrid. I’d like to see you jump in!’

 He raises his eyebrows to heaven. ‘Is that a challenge?’ He gets drunkenly to his feet. I can’t help but laugh as his large body struggles to balance, and compensate for his lack of mental lucidity. 

 I roll my eyes at him. ‘No you idiot, you’re too drunk, you’ll drown.’

 He looks at me with this dorky affectionate face. ‘I have superpowers remember?’

 I grin at him, wanting so badly to hug him and tell him how much I love him and how much I will miss him once he is gone. I don’t of course. I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself in front of his super cool mates.

 ‘Besides if you spend all your time worrying about dying, life isn’t going to be much fun now is it?’

 I snort, turn my back for just a second, to get myself a drink, then I hear an uproar of egging.

On turning back I see Lucas arrogantly flex his muscles, climb aboard some rocks and prepare to dive into the liquid black lake. Before i can call out to him, time freezes, as he slips, hits his head with a sickening clunk, and slides into the water peacefully, like a tear down a cheek.

 ‘I tried to save him Ali. I was the only one who jumped in. I tried so hard.’

I dive into the water, submerging myself in fear. Water fills my heart instead of my lungs as it caves in over my head, trapping me, holding me down, and I feel the life being drawn out of me as I search desperately in utter blindness. My lungs are burning.

I look to the bottom and I see the gems and treasures, the families of fish putting their little ones to bed and the faces of life willing me to fight. I imagine my superhero brother, swimming like a fish in the lake and hear his voice telling not to be scared; that he won’t let go. I find him and kick wildly for the surface.

I cling to him as the others help me pull his cold, limp body out of the water, and adjust his shirt which has come undone and hangs around his neck like a cape. There is a lot of noise. I crawl to one side, sit by the waters edge, my arms hooked under my knees, my hair hanging in mottled rat's tails from my head, dripping, forming muddy little pools by my sides. I feel as though i am still drowning, still sinking; as though i will never stop.

I am crying now. Tears meandering down my cheeks in little streams and dripping off my chin.

Ali looks to me, and places her hand near mine on the grass. ‘I’m sorry. I know you did.’

I edge mine closer to hers, and we sit in tentative silence. Perhaps she will always be a little resentful, and perhaps I will always feel less close to her than I had to Lucas, but in this moment remind myself to be strong, and simply feel lucky to be young and alive.

I close my eyes and see Lucas grinning at me, as he teaches me how to breathe underwater.
 
'Your nail varnish is chipped.' Ali says lazily.

I feel only mildy irritated, that I have such an exhausting sister.