Saturday, March 12, 2005

do u guys want my story...well no choice here it is! hope u like it its not that great tho...
Footsteps
She leaned against the wall of the local C.V.S. with her arms folded across her chest with her eyes closed listening to the cars whizzing by in the street just beyond the parking lot. Her dirty blonde hair was down and it blew across her face and its long tendrils reached out into the wind. As she heard the automatic door open she smiled and said, “It’s about time Liza.”
“What can I say Kaja, I wasn’t looking forward to coming back outside. It’s so friggin’ cold!” Liza replied pulling out a pack of cigarettes and smoothly slipping one out.
“No shit. Maybe it wouldn’t be so cold if u were wearing gloves or even a long sleeve shirt under your jacket.”
“Shut up.” Liza said lighting the cigarette with a smile on her face. The family resemblance was noticeable. Even though Liza’s hair was lighter and her big eyes were bluer than the blue green of Kaja’s everyone said they looked just a like. “Let’s start walking it’s not getting any warmer.” Kaja easily fell instep beside her older sister. They were two years apart with Kaja at fifteen and Liza at seventeen. Walking seemed the only time that they were side by side. Kaja always felt one step behind her beautiful older sister. Most took Kaja as the smarter one but in truth Liza was very intelligent herself she just had a different kind of smarts that no one but Kaja noticed. Kaja could always see in her mind being compared to Liza; standing back to back, Liza only coming up to her shoulder she still felt threatened. Competition was fierce between them and it all came down to their need to feel appreciated.
“Do you have five bucks I could borrow,” Liza said taking another drag on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out in a relaxed breath.
“What for?” Kaja asked fearing that she knew the answer.
“Another pack,” said Liza brandishing the cigarette.
“Liza you know I made a promise a while back never to help you kill yourself.”
“Oh chill out one more pack won’t kill me.”
“Yeah but one more is ten times more than you need. Why don’t you just quit already? I’ll help you and then you won’t have to worry about Mom and Dad finding out.”
“It’s my own life and I’ll do what I damn well please miss know-it-all,” she replied looking straight ahead and getting irritated.
“You know I don’t mean it that way.”
“Yeah well it came off that way. You always do this you act like you know more about me than I do. God, all these people telling you you’re smart must be going to your head if you think you can boss me around.”
“I don’t think that way!” Kaja shouted the red of anger flushing her face. Liza always touched a nerve with that insinuation.
“Stop trying to be modest no one is buying it!” Liza replied. Here it was the old competition rising up from the deep to build the wall in their relationship just a little higher. Liza took one more long drag before throwing the cigarette down and grinding it into the pavement. “Lets just get home already,” she said cutting off Kaja’s protest. They cut across the snow in a yard near their house.
“I don’t think that way Liza and you know it,” Kaja said looking down at her feet now that she had calmed herself. She was carefully stepping in the footprints Liza had left. She didn’t have to pave her own path with Liza in front of her. The sun gleamed in her eyes and she concentrated harder on the ground. The long dark shadow of Liza had fallen over her and the breeze blew the branches of trees into her face before she had a chance to push them away. She squinted her already small eyes at the ground as if looking into the snow and Liza’s footsteps would give her the answers she was searching for. The fights she had with Liza ran deeper than they seemed. After each a kind of tension settled into there relationship. Kaja always felt subtle currents running through their fights. She remembered the first time she had seen her sister get drunk. She was twelve and Liza was fourteen. They were at their aunt’s house and her older cousin got Liza a drink. Kaja had watched in horror as her sister drank herself into oblivion. When her aunt came down they managed to hide the fact that Liza had been drinking but from then on Kaja had made a pact with herself. She refused to treat herself the way she saw Liza treat herself. By the end of that night Kaja was half carrying Liza to the bathroom and begging her to come to bed. She would not allow herself to hear her cousin offer her a drink. He wanted to know why she thought it was so bad. She stayed calm bringing up how Liza was underage. Her head had been pounding and was screaming at her to yell “She shouldn’t drink because you just robbed me of my role model! You took away my naïve outlook on the world around me and opened my eyes to drugs and abuse!” She supposed she should be thankful that had helped her make her resolution but she would never truly forgive him for taking away the security she had with Liza. The rift that had been created that night had never truly mended. Kaja had taken the role of trying to protect Liza but Liza refused any type of help fearing to seem weak in her little sister’s eyes. The day after that however she did depend on Kaja to help her through the hangover and save her from their parent’s wrath. The competition was still there and with Kaja trying to be protective Liza just withdrew from her more.
“Yea you do. You think your so great but all you are is a follower. Just wait you’ll be the same.”
Kaja froze for a moment. A beat pulsated in an echo through her body. A memory, a fleeting thought. This is you in two years. That had been her cousin’s promise that night. She had avoided it so far but how long could she hold out. Her hair seemed to swing in slow motion across her face. “Never say that to me again,” she said firmly and coldly.
“Oh don’t be such a drama queen. So what you end up like me is that really your worst fear. God, you really do think you’re damn perfect. Newsflash the world isn’t solid its shattered glass and you can’t go all your life without cutting you foot,” Liza said with disgust and an air of knowing.
“No Liza I don’t fear cutting my foot on the glass I fear seeing my reflection in that shattered glass.”
“Accept it you’re my sister. Move on from it.”
“Liza I will never be you and I never want to be you. Because behind all that makeup and behind all the cigarettes and curses your just a scared kid. You want to hide it. Do you think it’s weakness well it is,” she turned a stare of ice on Liza. “Is it that bad to think that you’re my sister. Why don’t you take off the mask the fresh air is fine.”
It was Liza’s turn to freeze and to feel the same pulse. It broke something in her but it did not set her free only she could do that. She recovered far more quickly her hand shot out and slapped Kaja. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about now get away from me.” Liza kept on the path she had started on leaving her trace in the snow, but Kaja pulled away. When her older sister was far from her Kaja turned around. She saw the two footprints in the snow and she saw were they parted headed in opposite directions.

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