I didn’t realize how much I was barely hanging on until the day of the funeral when the priest closed the casket Scarlett was in and sealed her away forever. The sound of it locking will never leave my ears. Neither will the sight of her being lowered into the ground and sound of the dirt hitting the top of the casket as the priest blessed the grave with “The Order for the Burial of the Dead.”
None of those images and sounds will ever leave me. Sometimes I still think I’m walking around in a nightmare, and I can’t wake the fuck up.
If I could wake up or go back in time, I’d eradicate the monsters from my life. Robert and Ted.
My life would have been so different if I never knew either of them. One pushed me straight to the other.
Where will I go next?
I get off the bed, deciding I need to walk around.
I want to look through the boxes I got from Scarlett’s house. I want her things in a storage facility until I can get a place and take them—all of them.
We always joked about being little old ladies with our riches and success. If we got to that age and we were alone, the plan was to move in together. Just get a big house on the beach somewhere in the world and live the rest of our days together. So, I’ll take her things and have some version of that life.
Until then I was thinking of organizing what I could keep. That way I keep a part of her with me.
I hear Lyssa in the kitchen as I go by, but I don’t stop, and if she sees me she doesn’t stop me.
Good.I don’t feel like talking to anyone today. I haven’t felt like talking to anyone on any day.
I go into my room and take the box of Scarlett’s things containing her personal belongings from when we were little. She already had them in a box, so it was easy to pick up and go.
I’m starting with this one because if there’s anything to keep with me until I settle down it’s going to be in here.
I start searching through and then I find her journal Grandmama gave her.
It has a different picture of the three of us on the front cover, but the book’s design is the same as mine.
She treated hers like a diary and I suppose I did the same until I started putting newspaper articles about Ted in there. Out of respect, we never read each other’s scrap books.
Now she’s gone, I’m curious to see what’s inside. So, I open it.
The first few pages are a little similar to mine but then it changes. She’s got pictures of her and Mom at one of her plays. There are a number of images of her with Mom and Ted or Mom and Dad. Those would have been taken when she really started doing well. All while I was being abused and had to stop doing what I loved.
I stopped and weltered away while she bloomed and blossomed.
When I look at Ted’s fucking smiling face and Mom, they look so proud of Scarlett. So fucking proud. Mom was a monster too. She cheated on my father because he couldn’t give her the wealth she craved then she brought that evil bastard into my home and he ruined me.
Scarlett bloomed and blossomed and I’m not jealous of that. I’ve never been jealous of my sister. I’ve always been proud. Most of all I’m glad she never had to go through what I did, and she never suffered at the hands of Ted.
Those first few times he abused me were rape. After each incident he told me it was my fault for wearing my leotards after I came back from dance class or wearing short tight clothes when I went out. He went after me because I was the first twin to have a boyfriend and that made me look like I was sexually curious when I wasn’t.
That boyfriend was no more after Ted started his daily abuse. I remember so clearly. My boyfriend’s name was Levi and never understood what was wrong with me and why I suddenly lost interest. He didn’t know it was because I felt dirty and disgusting for sleeping with my mother’s husband. I was trapped with no way to get out.
Then when I tried to get out, Ted used to threaten me with Scarlett. He said he’d go for my sister if I didn’t let him fuck me and he’d make sure Mom lost everything, including us, and went to prison for her drug misuse. When he didn’t think I was scared enough, he told me he’d kill my mother or leave her to die. At the time Mom was at her worse and needed a detox almost every week.
When I got a little older and tried to defend myself, he said if I told anyone he’d deny everything and make me look like a liar. No one would believe little old me when he was the States Attorney.
The worse though was what happened after Mom died and he thought the big secret would come out. That was the last push. He sent those assholes after me to kill me. That was how I lost my baby.
I push away the thought of another life lost because of him, but remembering the past weakens me.
Remembering everything weakens me, but what hurts is the fact that my father still doesn’t believe me.
Scarlett told me Ted made Dad believe Mom spent all the inheritance Grandmama left us and her own money on drugs. But we both knew it was lies. She found receipts in his name for the same drugs he gave to our mother and high-end prostitutes. It was only when she showed Dad he got off his high horse, but he still blames me.
I put the journal down and bring my hands up to my cheeks.