Post by JULIA CAOIMHE KELLY on May 18, 2011 18:48:59 GMT -5
julia caoimhe kelly
twenty. the sound. editorial coordinator. erika altosaar.[/center]
[/size]"she stood on her toes, peering out the window, alone in the studio. she watched him get into the car, jerking away when he glanced over his shoulder. he drove away and julia sank to the floor, her head in her hands. she crawled on her hands and knees toward the stereo and removed her black framed glasses, placing them on top of it. julia blinked as the world became a blur to her, and when she could make out the play button, she pressed it, pushing herself to a standing position. she arched her back, her slim, delicate body stretching so that long fingers touched the ballet bar as the other gripped it tightly. as the music began, julia let go of the bar and started to dance around the dimly lit room, the only light streaming, blinding bright from the window julia had looked through before. she rose to her toes and turned away from the light, catching her bright hair.
-----
dear rachel,
remember that one time when we were still living in ireland, when you took alyssa and me to the beach? remember how you made fun of me when my freckles got darker but the rest of me stayed pale? remember i laughed along with both of you? i don't do that anymore. my freckles have faded and i've lost my little girl's face. since you left, i've stopped doing that. i'm taking things more seriously. i'm sensitive to the point where it weighs me down. since you left, i've become a different person than the little sister you used to have.
since you left, everything's been different. because you said you would visit or at least call, but you barely did. when your daughters were born, and that was the extent of it. it's something i will never understand, how you seemed to completely forget about us when you left. how we became nothing to you.
on your wedding day, i was eleven and your youngest bridesmaid, while adam's niece was the flower girl--what i really wanted. i got over that quickly, but that's my last memory of you being here. after that, you moved to kansas. kansas. i'd like to say i left it at that and never thought of you again, but i was only eleven and you were my oldest sister, the one who was like a mother but without the reprimanding or overprotectiveness. since we were so far apart in age, there was never any sibling rivalry like there may have been between alyssa and me. i was eleven and i idolized you. i never thought you would disappear out of our lives altogether just because you got married and moved to the middle of nowhere. i thought you wouldn't get sucked up into married life and forget about your immediate family, but you proved me wrong. i cried for awhile just because i knew you were moving, i was upset for a few days, but soon i got over it because i knew you would call and visit.
but you never did.
i met them for the first time last month, when we came down to kansas for the funeral. a blonde and a redhead--mirror images of alyssa and me--and then the baby. i hadn't known what their names were until that day. if i'd known they were alexa and julianna, matching the sisters you had left behind, maybe i wouldn't have hated you for the past nine years. maybe i would have felt sorry, felt sad when you died while in labor with your son. maybe i would have tried to understand your situation, but that's something i still can't do.
he looks like adam. he has adam's nose, his lips, his dark hair. i ended up naming him after his father. well, i suggested it and they liked the idea. that really sucks that you couldn't meet him, but for some reason i can't really bring myself to sympathize.
if you cared about what what was going on in my life, you would have called. so i know you definitely don't, but i'm going to tell your dead self anyway. i'm twenty years old. i'm editorial coordinator for the sound and it's great. yeah. um. i still dance. i still try to get it in, because i'm a dancer and i can't imagine a time in my life when i won't be. i'm never going to be like you. i don't know how you could have given it up after you'd gotten engaged, but i'm not. it's funny how as a child, i idolized you. i wanted to be like you. growing up, i realized that i wanted to be the opposite.
i ended up dividing my life into the time period you were here, until i was eleven--during rachel, and after you left--after rachel. i grew up a lot after you left. i had alyssa, but she was barely older than me. i stopped looking up to someone and started doing things by myself. i gave up.
i held a boy's hand once. then when he called me, i hung up because i was too nervous to do it. boys make me so nervous. if you hadn't left, if you were alive, you would have fixed that and i wouldn't be twenty and...this. this is what i've become, and it's because you left.
but at this point i've ceased to care. i didn't cry when i heard you were dead. i didn't want to go to kansas for your funeral because i had to miss a performance. i had to, and before the wedding, i was more concerned with what i had to wear rather than what i was going to say.
i don't like to speak. i like to dance on stage, but i don't like to speak. but mom made me do it, and so i got up there and i told everyone how you inspired me to dance when you danced, and how you inspired me to never stop when you ditched everything--not only dance, but your mother, your father, your little sisters, your friends in new york, everything, for a man.
the sister you barely had,
julia."
sienna. four years. sixteen. my aim is loveesienna and i need to stop listening to versa.
