The World That Was Mine (Part I & II)

Part II: XII

There was a time when I wanted to know everything. When I believed that knowledge was power. I used to think living in the dark was something to be feared. Something to dread, and to hate. But now I see that the dark is bliss. Not knowing is a gift. People like to think the truth will set them free. Honesty and transparency is the key to solving all of life's dilemmas. And sometimes, it is.

But not always.

Sometimes, the truth is detrimental. The truth is the cause of the pain we try to free ourselves from. Because there is no escape from the truth. No distortion or relief from its weight, or its sincerity. None that I have ever found. And I spent the better part of my life searching for one. The truth is poison in the wrong situation. And this situation could not in any form be considered right.

They haven't said a word. Logan and Tyler were sitting in front of me, staring at my face with forlorn looks, not saying anything. I'd come out of the bathroom only a few minutes ago, but it already felt like a lifetime. I wanted them to begin. Needed them too. I couldn't be the one to start this when I knew I wouldn't be the one to end it. I'd just be the one to be hurt by it.

My brain was pounding. Like a sledgehammer was being taken to my cranium, and this time it wasn't because of my hearing aids. They had been the least of my problems today, and I wasn't planning on ditching them anytime soon. I needed all my senses for this conversation. I needed every advantage I could get this time. Logan was fumbling with his fingers in his lap, his eyes trained on my face as he sat in front of me. He didn't know what to say. Or he didn't know how to say it. He looked at Tyler. My oldest brother looked back.

"You wanna start?" He whispere.

Logan looked back at me for a second, a strangely hollow expression reflecting in his eyes, then shook his head at Tyler and waved him off. "You start. I don't know what to say."

Tyler nodded tentatively and took in a slow, deep breath as he turned his full attention to me waiting patiently in front of him.

"Well, where do we start? What do you want to know?" Tyler asked me.

I hesitated for a second. In truth, I wasn't sure what I wanted to know. It had been so much information at once, it was hard to pick out which part I needed to be clarified first. But every time I thought about this conversation, only one thing came to mind as a topic of discussion; My best friend. She was all I'd been able to think about for days, now, just in a very different capacity, and I knew I needed to know what there was to know about her for even the littlest bit of peace of mind. Not for me to be found. There never had been.

"Marley." I signed simply.

Tyler nodded and sighed again like he was working up the nerve to start this talk. We all were apparently.

"Well, we met Marley when she was 13. I was 21 at the time, in college, so not living at home but-but I was home for the summer when she came and that's when we met."

"Did you know she was your sister when she came?" I signed slowly.

Tyler shrugged. "I did. Dad told me before she came who she was but-"

"But he didn't tell the rest of us," Logan sounded bitter about that fact. "He didn't tell any of us who she was for almost the entire time she stayed with us, but...but you can only hide the truth for so long."

The truth was poison. The truth was pain. It was true for almost everyone, and I could see it in Logan's face that he thought so too.

"Marley did know, in case that's your next question," Tyler continued. "She knew the whole deal, and helped Dad keep it a secret for the summer, but yes, he uh, he kept most of us in the dark about who she was."

"Because he was ashamed?" I signed with furrowed eyebrows.

Tyler frowned and shook his head. "No-no, that's not why, it was because he thought-"

"Ty, don't bullshit her, that's exactly why he kept it a secret. He didn't want anyone to know he'd been unfaithful. Marley was the product of his mistakes."

"She was not a mistake." I found myself jumping to her defense, almost instinctively. Logan's eyes widened a little at my quick rebuke but nodded slowly in what I chose to take as agreement.

"No, no of course not, Izzy, I would never, ever think about her like that, she-she was not a mistake, I just meant that he thought of her like that, which is very, very wrong, and-"

"She not anyone's mistake." She was my best friend. My lifeline. My saving grace. And I needed to keep that image of her in my head as untainted by other people's truths as humanly possible. She was not his mistake. She was not something to be ashamed of. And I couldn't let myself allow her to be referred to as such.

"Right," Logan agreed. "Right, of course not." A long pause followed his words. Tyler was studying me carefully but seemed concerned and apprehensive about what he was going to say next.

"No one thinks of her that way, I promise Izzy, and I don't think our father thought of her that way either. I think he just- he didn't know how to handle it, so he decided lying was the best way to go," Tyler sighed. "He had that philosophy about a lot of things."

"What did you know about her?" I asked to move the conversation forward.

Tyler shrugged. "Not much to be honest. I mean, she was a kid when she was here and I didn't talk to her much but, I knew she was nice, I knew she was funny. She was...rough, for lack of a better word, and had a bit of a temper but she got along pretty well with everyone in the house and she was...she was great."

The best, if you asked me. I remembered Marley at 13. I was only seven then, and I spent most of my time following her around like a lost puppy when I could, always acting as her shadow close behind, in my world, but in hers too. Then, she had been my protector against all things she deemed evil.

It was one of the only years we went to the same school together, and she'd spent the entire year going out of her way to take care of me and keep me safe from the bullies that'd begun picking on me the year before-they called me short. They called me dirty. They called me stupid. They called me everything and anything that made them feel superior and made me feel lesser. Some Things never changed-no matter what it took.

I remembered her walking me to class every morning, and holding my hand on the way to lunch. I remembered her yelling at anyone mean to me, and telling me that I'd always have her. That was one of the best and one of the worst years of my life because of Marley. She often was the defining factor in the determination of the year; good versus bad. It all revolved around her. Even now. Tough was a good way to describe 13-year-old Marley. She was tough to the core. Or that's how she'd presented herself as.