Broken Compass

He glares at me.

I glare right back.

“She never wanted you, you know,” he mutters as he turns to go. “From the beginning. So fussy, and difficult, and messing up her life.”

The anger in my blood turns to ice. “What are you talking about? That’s not true!”

But he doesn’t reply and leaves me there with a hole in my chest.

My sister thought that? No fucking way. He’s just trying to get a rise out of me. He hates me. And I know she doesn’t like me. Okay, maybe she hates me, too, but I thought that hadn’t always been that way. I thought that when she was well, she didn’t mind me so much. That when I was younger, she cared about me.

Guess I was wrong.

Or else Grandpa is trying to drive a wedge between us.

Another one.

As if it’s needed, but he’s a contrary old man, bored with life and full of bitterness.

Della moans softly, shifting on the bed, and I pull the bucket closer, in case she gets sick again. The stink of booze and sour vomit hangs so strongly in the air it’s all I can think of for a moment, and it’s strangely

a relief.

“Drink some water,” I tell her, and pick up the glass from the nightstand, but she shakes her head, her face pale. “If you don’t, I’ll have to take you to the ER.”

She makes a face. Turns her back to me.

Awesome.

I let out a quiet sigh and rub my hands over my face.

Then I lower them and find them shaking.

This is crazy. And it’s messing with my brain. Right now I should be running with Nate. I should have finished my homework so that when I got back home I could do some push-ups and curls, and then go prepare dinner. Change the burned-out bulb in the hallway. Clean the bathrooms.

Run the household.

Instead, I’m stuck here, in Della’s room, by her side, and it feels… wrong. It’s all wrong. All the things I didn’t do, the things I won’t do, the things I’m doing.

Taking care of my older sister, reassuring my grandfather everything will be all right. Such déjà vu. It keeps happening.

I wonder sometimes if this is how other sixteen-year-olds live.

But it doesn’t last, because I know they don’t. Nate and Sydney don’t live that way. They have fucking parents who fucking take care of them.

My hands are shaking harder.

I shove them under my armpits. I can’t be cold. Outside it’s warm and summerlike. How can it still be winter in here?

When the doorbell rings, I jerk, panic gripping me. Who can that be, what if someone finds out, what if…?

But then I see a text message blinking on my phone, and I know who it is. There’s a slight release of pressure inside my chest, and without a word I get up and go get the door.

Nate is here.

“Drank herself unconscious?” he asks, coming out of my sister’s bedroom.

“What gave it away?” I mutter.