Day 12 ~

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    When I was little my sister drew a mustache (in ink!) on my most beautiful doll.

    We both cried so much my dad didn’t know which one to comfort.

    My sister hated social activity, and would cry inconsolably if she had to go to school, learn to swim, read, anything.

    My mom would bribe her to do the very activities I never got rewarded for.

    My sister had a problem with lying, sometimes for no reasons she would make up falsehoods about the things around her.

    I still can’t lie without either crying or laughing.

    She was always so sickly and frail as a child, multiple infections, doctors’ visits. We were born the same weight, but I was always so much taller, so much more “filled out.”

    Now the same height, the same weight, the same to the point strangers will stop us “near identical twins” as we go about in public. (She says she doesn’t want us to be twins, but who keeps buying us matching pajama sets and the same shirts in different colors? )

    My sister used to throw away my clothes while I was away. She told me I wasn’t allowed to wear red sweats and t shirts anymore.

    Every little while since I’m handed a new dress, a new skirt, a new shirt, that’s exactly my style, while she rolls her eyes and says it didn’t suit her but she thought it would me.

    She became popular in middle school, but still says she was forced to make friends because I cared more for books than her.

    I scoff in reply, I read aloud to you from my books often enough, didn’t I?

    I planned to spend this Valentines’ Day with her, I bought us tickets to a concert for Christmas and we planned it for months.

    She canceled on me the other day.

    Yesterday and the day before and the day before she knew I would be having hard days and texted me encouraging gifs. I called her as I drove home this morning, and she sleepily accused me of waking her up.

    She had told me to call as I drove since she was concerned over how tired I was yesterday. She stayed on the phone for half an hour that she didn’t have, giving me practical encouragement as I whined.

    We take turns being the practical one, the inconsiderate one, we are collectively the lazy ones.

    Last summer we went on a sisters’ trip to Europe, and didn’t talk to each other as we sat drinking coffee and people watching. We fought and made up and chased each other as we lost each other in the countryside.

    She knows me the better and the worse of me. We both have tempers we try to control. We’re old enough now to know we never want to lose the person who doesn’t pause as we each insert asides and sings along to the chorus a statement reminds us of before calmly continuing the story. The person you don’t have to explain yourself to, but still do because you need to rant. And who still listens, even if they do house and run errands while they do.

    Love, February

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      Sisters are amazing and difficult and wonderful and basically very hard to put into words. But somehow you did, Coco. Wow.

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