The Other Sister by Sarah Zettel

Author:Sarah Zettel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

2.

The lake is still here, and it still doesn’t ask any questions. I strip down and step into the water up to my ankles.

GOD! That is COLD!

It shocks every nerve to life, and despite everything, I laugh. This is real. The water laps at the tops of the straight, white scars on the inside of my pale calves. I’m up to my knees, then my waist and my breasts. I duck my head under and toss my hair back. I throw myself forward and I start swimming. Cold washes like a blessing over the cuts and bruises on my face.

I am crazy. Marie is crazy. I am frightened. Marie is terrifying. I am bad. I am lonely. I am doing awful, terrible selfish things to people who have never hurt me. I am breaking open my fragile sister because she has asked me to, and because inside, I hope to find my forgiveness.

The water doesn’t care.

At last, when my lungs are gasping, I roll over onto my back and float and spread my arms and legs out starfish style. My body is my own. Nothing can touch me here. I am clean and cold, and I am strong.

I roll over onto my belly and start swimming toward shore. The sand seems farther away than I remembered, and the cold is starting to hurt, but I wash up eventually, clumsy and heavy, struggling through the breakers.

There’s somebody there. My eyes are full of lake and I can’t see clearly. It’s a dark, blurred human shape. A man, I think.

The silhouette takes a cigarette from its mouth and tosses it into the sand. I shove my hair back and knuckle the water out of my eyes.

It’s not David. It’s a ghost. Or a dream.

Because it cannot really be Tyler standing here.

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