March 2008

Even from the access road, the base emitting from Royce's truck rattles the walls of the trailer. I can hear the orchestra of dogs barking insistently over the beats, announcing the arrival of Rosalie as she graces Shady Pines Mobile Park with her presence. Soon, she will gracefully stumble into my night in all of her beauty and brokenness.

The reverberating walls are violent by the time Royce pulls into the yard, rap music bumping and shaking the full length mirror attached to the back of our closet door. Light from the reflecting street lamp dances across the room in a glowing-green disco and I decide that I'm not going to pretend she didn't wake me.

I roll over, placing the book I had fallen asleep to on the floor and feeling around for the outlet. I plug in the string of Christmas lights hanging above our bed, my eye catching the ancient alarm clock resting on the dresser.

4:35 AM on a school night. Rose's inconsiderate entourage only annoys me for a moment before my irked and tired feelings are quickly replaced with anticipation for her company. As I rub the sleep-sand from my eyes, I can't help rolling them at her antics. It must heave been three days since I last saw her.

The symphony outside my window continues in a roar of laughter and the smash of a beer bottle meeting gravel as the truck door creeks open. The clumsy and charming departure she gives her friends is full of chuckles and "fucks" as I hear her trip up the porch steps. I can see her now without having to peer into the living room, listening as she wobbles on her heals before taking them off, giving herself a second to lean against the front door and regain her balance. She shuts the door louder than she intends to and I can picture her grimace as she suddenly realizes that she should be discreet at this hour.

But I know her thought about the noise is gone as soon as it arrived; making room for the moment she saves for returning from wherever she goes. I've seen her do it so many times before: close her shaded eyes and inhale deeply as she remembers her life outside of these walls, stretching shoplifted candy lipstick across her face in a secret smile. She projects her adventures like a movie across the back of her eyelids, imprinting all the possibilities before opening them to make sure that Phil is still snoring in front of the TV.

She tip-toes now, trying not to disturb Phil who remains lulled by the infomercials. But her foot falls a little too heavy and I can hear her pause as she spots the soft streak of light beneath the door to our room. She drops her heals and closes the distance quickly with the knowledge that I'm awake.

And then I'm greeted by the ever widening grin against her flushed face, illuminated by golden hair in a wild halo. She trails her dilated, glassy, bright blue eyes across the closet mirror before finally fixing them on myself.

My sister— always with the grand entrance.

Her mouth forms a mischievous line, and I rejoice in knowing that this must have been a good night for her.

"Hey Tink, I had a feeling you would be waiting up for me so I came through for you." She slinks toward the bed and throws herself across the foot, extending her arms towards me and presenting me with the ultimate treat.

A Taco Bell bag.

When she sees that my expression hasn't changed she reaches into her bra and pulls out a sandwich baggie full of bud.

She adds quickly, "And I thought I would give you another rolling lesson."

I hate that this excites me.

"FYI, I was sleeping. Some of us are still in school."

She giggles at my jab, reaching into the bag and tossing me a burrito— no shame in her game.

"Okay Bella, sorry I'm not another brick in the wall." She retorts.

I eat my burrito and watch my sister as she flits around the room, slowly shedding her clothing as she brings the space to life, lighting a candle on the dresser. She's now in her pretty underwear that I know she didn't by for herself, revealing her curvaceous, flawless tan- a canvas for the beautiful red rose inked across her shoulder. I wrap my arms around my knobby knees and my cheeks heat up as I recall dabbing toothpaste on a pimple just a few hours ago. She bends over to pick up the required reading I had abandoned on the floor, and I look away from her, green with envy.

But only for a sec.

She tosses my book back on the bed and fiddles with the boom box, placing one of her prized CDs in the player. Low, angry music floats through the air as she she plucks a cigarillo from her jewelry box, sauntering back towards me, leaving fairy dust in her wake.

"Alright Bells, so I think the key to a good blunt lies within the split. This is why you should grow your nails out."

I watch as her paint-chipped, sparkling nails work their way down the paper, the innards falling onto my book. She constructs the blunt with the keen eye of an artist; licking the paper, lighting it with care, and concentrating on this more than she would anything.

The embers make her face glow as the blunt ignites. She finishes with a French inhale and passes it.

I grab it and eagerly inhale, causing fire to spread in my lungs and tears to sting my eyes. I choke until my ears ring.

"Bella can't ha-annng" she sings, handing me a cup of water from the nightstand. I giggle, which makes me choke harder before I calm down and sit up with my hands behind my head. The room spins for a bit before it settles in a wonderful, hazy veil.

This time last year I was a Harry Potter reading seventh grader who wore D.A.R.E T-shirts, trying desperately to deny the easy ways out. But in these moments I felt like less of a child, if I ever was one. All of that childlike faith in myself, the trust I put in others was perhaps a mere illusion. Call me emo, but smoking allowed me to appear as old as I felt. Paper had always been waiting to be perched between my fingers, and it felt right to share this communion with my grown-up sister. If we didn't have trust or innocence, at least we had this. Empathy.

One day I woke up and I was a habitual pot smoker. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how it began.

We laugh some more.

And I am so happy my sister didn't spend the night with Royce.

"Do you work tomorrow?" I ask after a few moments of puffing and passing.

"No, but I did get a modeling gig in Seattle."

Rose looks away as she lies. She had been an aspiring model since dropping out two years ago. I don't know where she went during these "photo shoots" but I do know that I have yet to see any of her work or extra money. She insists that she's invested in a manager, who I haven't to met or even googled. She could be moving weight or "dancing" again, but I'm sure I would have noticed her increase in income. Either way, she was so worthy of being a model, it made the deceit easy to swallow.

"Can you and Royce pick me up from school after? I'm staying for extra credit so I won't make the bus."

"Yeah," she exhales "If not I can get Angela to."

She hits the blunt a second time, skipping me, and picks some polish from her thumb with her index finger.

I don't ask her for anything else.

She rises and walks from the bed to the window, letting the broken blinds down and tacking up the sheet that hangs around the frame— keeping her truth from peeping inside.

"After this takes off, I'll be good to take care of both of us in the next year. I can gain Power of Attorney so that no one else will have custody of you. Including the state." She keeps her back to me as she continues, "The tips I make at La Bella are so shit right now. It's fucking slow, but I know these gigs will pay off. We could buy a car so I could drive you to school."

I visualize the picture she's painting, seeing us laughing and singing behind the wheel of some car, headed somewhere. As opposed to riding on the tailgate of Royce's truck as it starts to rain, everyone staring at his embarrassingly loud truck and obnoxious music.

Rose also insists that the modeling will buy us a new apartment in town. One that Renee doesn't have the address to.

"Bells, you better say goodbye to Rosie the waitress." she sighs, placing her hand on her forehead and closing her eyes.

Her statement makes me frown. I was proud of her for keeping the "side-job" at La Bella. While the tips weren't great, they supplemented the cost of living in our podunk town, plus it was honest work. In fact, I often wondered why I hadn't said goodbye to her yet. She was eighteen now, emancipated from all that we had been through. Nothing kept her here- sneaking past a drunk man and climbing into our bed. Nothing stopped her from purchasing an apartment in Port A with her savings.

Except for me.

I feel a heaviness settling across my chest and I don't enjoy this feeling when I'm high. I count my pulse, coming too quickly.

"Oh fuck, I almost forgot!" Rose shouts as she jumps off the bed.

She saunters to her giant bohemian hag-bag of wonders and reaches in, producing something that twinkles under the Christmas lights.

She kneels behind me, lifting my hair and places it around my neck. I feel the weight of the pendent on my collarbone and look down to observe it.

A silver Tinker Bell with a green gem dress and a small sparkle at the end of her wand. The necklace looks fake and lovely. Rose has an affinity for shop lifting even though she makes money, often bringing me evidence of her crimes— little gifts. She had been caught several times in her teens so she slowed down a bit in her new adulthood.

For a second, I wonder if it's really stolen, and in the next I don't care where it came from.

"I love it."

Tinker bell was one of her pet names for me. She had whispered it in my ear as a baby and laid me across her tiny legs to watch me suckle at the edge of a formula can. I don't remember this of course, but she had reminded my mother in screaming sessions. She was the five year old that fed me when Renee was so toasted that colic wouldn't stir her.

"I knew you would! And there will be more where that came from."

Warmth spreads from within, radiating from the necklace.

"Thank you, Rose."

Another blunt and one per-pressured sip from her flask later, she paints my nails black and we talk about Royce's cousin, Mike. He had turned fifteen tonight, motivating them to get plastered at First Beach. Mike always comes in with Royce to sit in Rose's section at La Bella. He stares at me as I do homework at the host stand and it unsettles me in a way I've never felt before. I feel a tug in the pit of my stomach under his gaze, unsure of what it means or if I like it.

Rose snorts mid description of the evening, "Dude, he would not stop asking where you were. I told him to keep his dick away from you. Spikey Mikey has a dumbass haircut and he's too old for you."

"I'll be fourteen this year!" I blush.

"My point exactly."

I smile and forget what we were talking about.

She's far from sober and still manages to draw a perfect white heart across my right thumbnail. I observe the same amount of concentration that went into rolling the blunt.

There is a bit of brightness peering beneath the sheet covered window and I yawn. She places the the nail polish on the night stand as I blow on my fingers, watching her fetch her bubbler from under the bed, lighting the half smoked contents and reclining.

"Morning, Tinker Bell." She smirks.

"Morning, Rose."

This is a running joke made at the end of an all-nighter. Overcast sunrise stretches a little further across the floor.

"Sorry I kept you up."

And with her apology, she closes her eyes and finally passes out. Maybe she would remember our conversation upon waking and maybe she wouldn't, but either way she needed rest...a break. Resting is something that has become harder for us every day that we wake up to this life, more tired than we were the day before. But I would be free of this place in just three years.

In three years I'll be sixteen and emancipated.

I'm touched in my buzzed state. Turning to Rose, I pull our purple comforter over her shoulders, examining her arms as I do so. Nothing new.

"It's okay." I whisper.

It's light out now and I tell my body that I need to go to class: I have that test and I can't be truant again. I'm too high and the sip of whiskey hadn't helped. Getting dressed takes a huge amount of effort with such heavy limbs, but is doable considering the lack of effort I put into my awkward appearance.

I blow out the candle and gather the Taco Bell garbage. The bag is empty when I pick it up and I realize that she only brought one burrito home. She had gotten one just for me or sacrificed her own. The bag crumples in my hands with care as I walk down the hallway, passing Phill in the living room, still out of it.

I throw away the trash before sneaking a cigarette from a pack on the counter, tucking it safely behind my ear. I can smoke it on the way to my bus stop. Blood flow and nicotine equals good grades for sure.

As I'm leaving, I notice that I left the bedroom door open. I walk down the hallway to close it, pausing when I see that Rose has rolled over and is looking at me under low lids.

I wave and she smiles one more pretty, secret smile before ducking back underneath the comforter.

I'watch her seep into the bed and for a moment I'm tempted to give in and lay back down beside her. But instead I close the door gently, and leave for school.

If I could go back in time, I would of crawled back into bed and held her. I would of let her heartbeat be my lullaby. I would of known what happened next.