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Evy and Ari

Evy waited on the front steps, itching the little hairs on the back of her neck. She liked how they grew in so pointy. She imagined that her hair would stick straight up like trees reaching for the sky, anywhere to get sunlight. In a year, she’d have a canopy of shade, where monkeys could swing from her branches and birds would thank her everyday for their paradise. Ari always said her hair could have been a nest; it would have been a perfect nest. “Hair grows,” Evy thought. She heard the buzz of a bike chain and looked up, catching Ari pulling up to the stoop.
     
“My backpack smells like cigarettes.” He said, swinging his left leg over his bike onto the pavement. Evy sighed with relief; she was glad that Ari was the first one to come home. Her other hand had been wrapped around her chest, pinching her sides anxiously. He unzipped his bag and pushed it in his sister’s face.  
     
“What?” Evy asked.
“Cigarettes, fucking cigarettes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s my fault.”
“Sorry.”
     
Ari smiled. “Day. How goes?” He asked, nodding his head towards the front door. Evy smiled and adjusted her hat, letting it sit about two inches above her brow. She stood up and followed him inside.
     
“I got an A on my paper in English.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, and we got a new assignment about Marie Curry.”
“Curie.”
“Cure-ee?” She sat down at the kitchen table and listened to Ari find a snack in the kitchen. He settled on a bag of chips.
“Marie Curie—Curie with the cure.”
“Got it.”
“Was that for English?”

“Earth Science.” Evy wrapped her hands around her chest again, feeling the layers of sweaters and skin between her fingers. “I hit Chelsey with a text book.” Ari had been rustling with a bag of chips; the bag was still crackling a little when he turned to look at Evy. She petted the edge of her beanie, right above her left ear, and stared at his bag. Ari looked at her in disbelief. He tried to imagine his baby sister chucking a textbook, hurling it at someone else. But all he could see was her arms popping out of their sockets and clunking to the ground, like limbs on a mannequin.

After a few seconds of silence, Ari understood he should take the reins.
“Was it an accident?”
“No.”
“How bad?”
“Her nose was bleeding, she cried a lot. I kept saying sorry but then I got scared and ran.”
“You ran?”

Evy nodded. Ari shook his head and put his face in his hands, “Evy…”
“I know. She called me stupid.”
“Are you stupid?”
“No.”
“Exactly. What does mom always tell you?”

Evy flapped her lips like a horse and rolled her eyes. “I’m the brightest firefly in her jar. In her jar. In Her jar.” She emphasized the last “her” with resentment. She’d heard this consolation one too many times.

“You know you’re not stupid, I know you’re not stupid,” Ari came out from the kitchen and leaned on the table. “and Kelsey is a little thirteen-year-old shit who doesn’t know you. You can’t swing a Biology text book every time you feel alone.”

She whispered with her chin to her chest, “Chelsey. Earth Science.”
“What?
She spoke softly, “Chelsey, not Kelsey. And it was Earth Science, not Biology.” Ari saw wild fear flash across Evy’s face. When her voice hovered and wavered he knew she wasn’t just angry, she was scared. This wasn’t the first time she had acted out of self-consciousness. She could always put on a brave face but it never stuck—her eyes dilated too much, or she’d cross her arms in that weird way. She could steam quietly for hours before admitting something was wrong, really wrong. That’s how she had ended up alone on that train one day. She just slipped out the door to the apartment and tried to get to the hospital by herself, refusing to trouble him or their mother. He tried to stay patient, making his words deliberate and steady.

“Has the school called mom?” He asked, sitting down at the table.
“Not sure.”
“Has mom called you?”
“No.” Evy stared at a stain on the wall, wondering how it got there.

“We all understood it would be hard for you to go back to school, Evy—”
“It’s walking on coals.”
“But you can’t let it control you.”
“Control.” Evy almost smirked. She shifted her eyes from the wall to the backpack. “Control.” She was almost shaking, itching at the side of her hat more noticeably.
“Evy—“

Evy’s soft whisper had shifted into a cold and firm wind, “It does control me. It controls the way I look, the way I read, the way I talk. It controls what other people—“

“Other people! It shouldn’t matter what Other people think.”

“It’s not what they think! It’s the fact that they even think at all when they see me.” Her eyes started to swell with tears. “I can’t go anywhere without someone pursing their lips, or making that stupid—stupid face. The face that says ‘I’m sorry, but I’m glad it isn’t me.’” She glared back at that stain on the wall, trying to calculate the number of times someone had stared at her file of x-rays, MRIs, and PET scans, and thought to themselves: “Now how’d that get there?” She fought the tears by hunching over and crossing her arms, pinching her sides to feel the skin. The gap between her fingers grew more and more each day, making her feel strong, powerful. But the stain on the wall remained, growing just a fast.

“Evy, you can control how you think of yourself.”
“Don’t talk to me about control,” the crack in her voice almost propelled her body to whip out of the chair. She dug around in Ari’s backpack, her eyes flashing like fire. She found it—“Cigarettes, fucking cigarettes.” She ripped off her hat to reveal her patchy short hair, and shook the pack as she screamed, “I know what irony is, Ari.” The tiny hairs covering her head felt tight and cold, but her face burned as the tears stained. Ari just looked up at her, letting a feverish feeling of embarrassment into his chest. Evy sunk down into her chair, melting. “I’m not stupid,” she was choking on her breath now, ”but you knew that.”

Ari held his breath and watched her cry. As one of her tears actually dripped to the floor, he let out a small wheeze. He closed his eyes and watched that teardrop grow into pool of blood. That’s what they had told him over the phone. He answered the call in the ally next to their apartment, holding a lit cigarette. They stopped the train because a little girl had purged and collapsed. He imagined her hair spread out across the floor of the train, clean and soft, her body curled, her hands reaching, her heart still beating, fighting. “I’m sorry Evy.” He opened his eyes and saw her breathing steadily. He should have been there. “I’m so sorry Evy.” With that, he finally stood and wrapped his arms around his sister.

He should have been there. He had one hand around her shoulders and one rubbing the back of her head gently. He could feel the hairs, sharp, getting stronger.
She had stopped crying. The fire had stopped burning underneath her for just a moment when he held her tight. She never meant to forget. Evy looked over his shoulder at the stain on the wall, shrinking. Her stomach shook but her body was still, and the stain on the wall faded; Ari was always the one that distracted her stains on the scans, always. She never meant to forget. “I know, Ari.”

After a minute, they pulled apart and looked at each other. Ari smiled at her: “You ran?”
She wiped her face, “I ran.”
Evy’s phone rang. Both of them knew who it was.
“Hey Ari—“
“Don’t worry, I can answer it for you.”
“No, Ari?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you help me with my Marie Curry project later?”
“Curie”
“Oh yeah…Cure-ee.”
Written by addyallred
Published
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