Lies Left Unsaid

Caitlyn

My sister was a pain in the ass, as little sisters often are. But hidden under that annoying little sister exterior was actually a pretty cool little human. I remember the days when we used to have fun with one another, laughing and playing in the backyard, making mud pies and building forts for our dolls out of sticks and leaves. We even shared a room for a few years and even though I was five and a half years older, I remember falling asleep every night to one of Avery's many fantastical stories. While I existed in the practical world, she had a wild imagination and ran free amongst her dreams, instead of feeling the need be "normal." 

When we were young, she was always dressing in crazy outfits, wearing things like her soccer jersey top with a fluorescent yellow poofy skirt, leggings and two socks on each foot, one folded over the other so that her foot was one color and the part of the sock over her ankle was another color. She looked ridiculous. I acted like I was embarrassed when we went out or when friends came over, but in reality, I wished that I felt that comfortable in my own skin, to be whoever I wanted to be. I had this incessant need to fit in, no doubt driven by my mother and her constant nagging for me to look a certain way, act a certain way and be a certain person. But she never did that with Avery, maybe because she knew she couldn't.

Avery may have longed to be me, but the funny thing is, I would have given anything to be more like her. She was such an individual. She didn't care what people thought of her, that is, until they started comparing her to me. Teenagers' opinions and social media posts, have a disgusting way of taking a girl's confidence and tearing it to shreds. It made me sad when I saw Avery begin to change, but unfortunately I was too wrapped up in my own shit to make an effort to tell her not to conform. I have to admit that in some ways, I derived a sick sort of pleasure in her transformation to become a mini Caitlyn Coates. It meant that, just like me, she wasn't immune to my mother's obnoxious meddling to make her children the best, most beautiful, most brilliant girls in all of Highland Park. But in other ways, I resented her for giving in to my mother's backhanded compliments and the pressures of society. On some level, I lost respect for Avery, which was cruel, I know. She needed my guidance, but instead I turned the other cheek. I had bigger issues to worry about.

Things kind of spiraled downhill from there. Our relationship was never fully the same. She began stealing my clothes and make up and snooping through my stuff. For a while I put a lock on my door, but when my parents found out, they quickly put an end to that. Privacy was not something we had a lot of in the Coates home. My life was supposed to be an open book, but if my parents had actually taken the time to read the pages, they would have seen that their little Kit Cat was far from the person they thought she was. Not that I was the only one living a double life. For a house with an open door policy, there certainly was a great deal of surreptitious activity going on. The difference was, that some of us were better at hiding it than others. But my ability to conceal the truth wasn't something that came naturally. That sort of deception has to be taught, and I learned from the best. After all, I had a world-class liar living right under the same roof.