won’t see her. He won’t see.
* * *
Stephanie stays in her room for almost an hour. I listen to her laughing and talking to her friends on her phone. She sounds happy, as if she’s had a really good day. I know what that means. It means that someone else must have had a really bad day.
But to be honest, I don’t care. I’m just glad it wasn’t me.
As the minutes tick by, I begin to relax a little. I sit on my bed and I try to concentrate on my schoolwork. But I’m too tense to really focus and my whole body is sore from trying so hard to be quiet.
And then, after a while, I hear her bedroom door opening and her footsteps coming down the hall. She stops outside my room, just like I knew she would. She tries to open the door. When the door won’t open she starts rattling the handle. I feel sick.
“Dillan!”
I don’t answer and I don’t move from the bed. Instead I bite down on the one side of my cheek. The inside of my mouth is always raw. Biting your cheek is better than biting your nails because nobody can see the blood.
“Dillan.” Her voice sounds entirely reasonable. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
I curl myself up into a ball. I pull a pillow over my head.
“I said open this door.”
The pillow doesn’t really work. I can still hear her perfectly. A few seconds pass.
“ Dillan”. She’s using one of her fake voices. The concerned one. Like she’s just a normal, worried older sister. “Why are you doing this? Open up.”
There are two more hours before dad comes home. That’s too long. I close my eyes. I try to think of a song. Sometimes if I sing a song in my head, I can block her out.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone
I pull the pillow tighter over my ears, and sing the same words over and over in my head.
What doesn’t kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn’t mean I’m over cause you’re gone
Time slows down, the whole world becoming smaller and smaller. And then it becomes smaller still, until it’s only me. In my head, where I’m safe.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone
A part of me still hears her voice outside my door, but the sound is far away.
What doesn’t kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn’t mean I’m over cause you’re gone
I sing the song over and over. Over and over.
But then I lose my concentration and suddenly the world is back.
I have no idea how much time has passed. Stephanie is hammering on the door now, and she’s angry, because she’s using her real voice. The hatred in it makes me shrivel up inside.
“Okay then, you little piece of SNOT! I am counting to TEN. And if the door isn’t open by then, you will be PUNISHED!”
A wave of blood goes up to my head.
“Do you hear me? I am talking about a real Code RED Punishment.”
My whole body flushes in fear, and disgust, and terror. Stephanie’s punishments are graded, in the same colours as a traffic light. Code Green means it’s bad. Code Yellow means it’s worse. Code Red means the worst of the worst.
“One.”
She sounds calmer now. Almost reasonable.
“Two.”
But I know this isn’t really a good sign.
“Three.”
All it means is that she’s starting to enjoy herself.
“You know how bad it will be, Dillan. And every second is just making it worse.” Her voice is back to being “concerned”. She’s in control again. Playing her favourite game. “Four.”
I try to sing the song again, I try to make time stop, but the magic is gone.
“Five.”
I pull the pillow from my head. I sit up on the bed. I look around my room.
“Six.”
This is my life. There is no escape.
“Seven.”
I stand up. My body does not feel like my own.
“Eight”
I walk to the door. My feet move, and I look down at them, pretend they’re someone else’s feet.
“Nine.”
Now my hands are moving. They are turning the lock. They are opening the door.
And then the door is open, and I am looking at my sister. Her eyes are the eyes of a tiger: cold and cruel and strangely, horribly joyful.
I know I should be afraid. But I don’t feel anything.
This is my life.
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