Chloe De Lancie

Seven years have passed and I am still ashamed. It is one of those moments that I have always longed to take back, to simply efface from time, to pretend was merely a nightmare—an excruciatingly long and real one. But, of course, that is impossible, and I have learned from this experience to always think about what the consequences of my actions will be. Although I may have been forgiven, the scar on my sister’s forehead will always be a reminder of my violent actions, and, like that horrible moment, it can never be erased.

Although she denies it, my older sister Olivia enjoys teasing other people and putting them down. A lot. It is hard growing up when the only words you hear from your sister are put-downs. When we were kids, everything I did was wrong, while everything she did was right. I was the stupidest; she was the smartest. And, apparently, she still thinks she is. Even now, away in college, she manages to squeeze an insult or two into our very rare phone conversations. And my parents wonder why we rarely talk?

For years, I would typically respond to her provocations in the form of a hit or two, or maybe even with an insult such as “you’re ugly.” Creative, I know. My dad used to tell me that the best way to deal with her, since time-outs were clearly not working, was to ignore her. He told me that if I ignored Olivia, she would eventually get tired of irritating me. Unfortunately, my dad was wrong. Very wrong. The insults continued even when I used this special trick of his, until one day I responded with a little bit more than an innocent hit.

I seem to manage to sprain my ankle at least once every few years. The only silver lining to this dark cloud is that my chiropractor gets to use a cool machine that senses when a muscle is strained, something that gives him pure joy.

Most of the time, my ankle sprains happen during a soccer game or practice. This time, however, I am at school, kicking a red bouncy ball with one of my friends against the frightfully repulsive gold and purple wall of the building. Every time I look at that wall, I feel nauseated and wonder who could have possibly thought to use such ghastly, blinding colors. The ball is quickly rolling towards me and, since it is my turn to kick it, I lift my leg, but somehow instead of kicking the ball, I step on it and fall, my ankle twisting in a direction it was certainly not meant to be in. A stinging agony rises up my leg, a sensation I know too well but will never get used to, and my brain only allows the thought of pain to enter. It feels like someone has taken my foot and ripped it from the rest of my body. Again.

I get home soon after my dad is called to pick me up. I put an Ace bandage around my foot and ice it every twenty minutes, just as I have always done. Since it is difficult for me to walk around, I decide to use my yellow rolling desk chair to ride around the house. It is kind of like a wheelchair except with much smaller wheels and not as easy to maneuver. I am pretty pleased with myself for having had such a clever idea. My house is definitely not the biggest on the block, making it easy to find objects off of which to propel myself in order to slide from one room to the other. It is actually quite fun, and even distracts me from the pain, which by now has died down to a bearable level.

I’ve had it. I can’t take it any more. I stand up briskly, forgetting all about my injured ankle. I don’t feel the pain in my foot; all I can feel is anger burning inside me. My quick movement catches her off guard. She sees the fierce rage in my eyes and starts running. That’s right. RUN AWAY! I dart after her, icepack in hand. She dashes into our bedroom and jumps onto her bed, arms and hands raised over her face to protect herself. I reach the doorway seconds later, and before I realize my arm has moved, I have thrown the icepack in her direction with full force. Shit. I knew the moment the icepack slipped past my fingertips that I had made a huge mistake.

The next thing I know, she’s crying. She grasps her face with her hands, which suddenly have a dark red liquid dripping down them. Oh my god. What have I done? Take it back. But I can’t.

For a moment, she lifts up her hands away from her head, revealing a bloody face no longer recognizable. A shiver runs down my spine. I am planted to the ground, in complete shock and guilt. It doesn’t make much sense, but I am so guilty that I can’t find a way to apologize. I try to think of a word strong enough to show just how remorseful I am because “sorry” doesn’t quite do it. However, I am unable to and don’t say anything and I hate myself for it.

I hear heavy footsteps coming quickly in our direction and my dad walks in. “What’s going on?” He sees Olivia and immediately the expression on his face changes from confusion to worry. There’s blood all over her clothes and the green sheets are now stained red. He runs up to her and investigates her forehead; there’s a deep wound from which the blood is seeping. He looks at me with his eyes full of disappointment and anger, and I don’t blame him.

“Go get some towels.” I run to the bathroom to get two washcloths, which I pray to myself will be more than enough to stall the bleeding. I rush back over to the bedroom and hand them to my dad. He takes the washcloths and wipes Olivia’s face, then puts pressure on her forehead where the cut is. “We need to go to the Emergency Room.”

When we enter Kaiser’s Emergency Room, the smell of sickness is suffocating. The building’s sterile white walls enclose us and I can hear the sound of ambulance sirens coming from outside.

“What can I do for you?” comes an unfamiliar voice from behind the counter. Let me tell you what you can do for me. You can build a time machine so I can start the day over. You can take away what I’ve done. You can make sure my family doesn’t hate me forever. You can promise me my sister will never be in pain again. That’s what you can do. But, of course, she is not asking me, and I remain silent.

“Hi,” says my dad, “my daughter has been hurt on her forehead and I think she needs stitches.” He is too ashamed to mention that his own daughter is the one who did this.

We sit down in the blue chairs that surround the room. The bleeding on my sister’s forehead has calmed down slightly. Her head is swollen and her eyes are red and puffy from the crying.

I look around the room. All these injured and sick people make me feel uncomfortable. I notice one guy in front of me whose whole arm is covered in bloody bandages and can’t help but wonder if, like my sister, he was attacked by an uncontrollable wild beast.

My mom joins us in the ER soon after. We all wait patiently for hours, the three of them huddled together, and me, isolated and alone—for good reason. I occupy myself by reading the various posters mounted on the wall. I quickly run out of new ones, so I start reading the same ones over again. After what feels like days of reading about the risks of smoking, STDs, and heart disease, we finally hear the words, “Olivia De Lancie, please follow me.”

A shot and five stitches later, my sister is finally able to go home with my dad. I, on the other hand, go home with my mom to her house. Silence envelops the car and I am left to my own disheartening thoughts. I try to think of things other than the fearful look on Olivia’s face before I threw the icepack at her. A building. Oooooo. Look Chloe, airplane lights. Is that billboard new?.... But my efforts are futile—her fearful face continues to haunt me and the feeling of regret is inescapable.

By the time we get home, it is very late. All the lights on the block are out, leaving only moonlight to guide us to the front door. I am so exhausted—all I want to do is just go to bed. I rush upstairs and, since my mom’s not talking to me anyway, I go to sleep without saying goodnight.

The first sign of morning trickles through the cracks in my shades. I look over to my clock, which reads seven o’clock in bright red numbers. Nooooooo. Time to get up. Those first few minutes of waking up are always the hardest, especially after such a long and emotionally draining night. I feel exhausted, but the idea of a new day brings hope that things will go back to normal. I sluggishly step out of bed. Oww. Among all the chaos last night, I had forgotten about my ankle. I drag myself over to the closet, limping. Hmm…what to wear…

I am ready to leave at about seven-thirty. The ride to school somehow feels much longer than usual. The thick silence is discomforting and I want to ask my mom to turn on the radio, but I don’t even dare. We arrive in the drop-off zone and I get out of the car. Before I close the door, I turn around and, for the first time since the incident, look my mother straight in the eyes.

It is October, 2007, and I am on the phone with my sister. She is in her dorm room at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and I am in my room in front of my computer, writing a memoir. It has been years since the icepack throwing episode, which has not been brought up in a long time. Since that night, there have been innumerable moments of wrestling, hitting, kicking, biting, pinching, hair pulling, and, of course, insulting. However, I think that at this point I have come to accept her for who she is. Perhaps the physical scar I gave her is just repayment for the emotional scar she has given me. Nonetheless, this does not take away from the shame and guilt I feel about what I have done. Although I understand why I was angry and reacted to her, I know I should not have responded to her pathetic taunts in that manner and hurt her so badly.

“So Olivia,” I say, a little hesitantly, “I’m writing this memoir for my English class and I was wondering if you remember exactly what happened after I threw that icepack at your head?”

“Oh, yes,” she responds bitterly. “I remember that we wasted hours in the emergency room. I also remember that I was really late to school the next day. I was so embarrassed of my bandages because I was worried that people were going to think that I was a war victim.” The tone she is taking with me is not a nice one. “What have you written so far?”

I can’t count the number of times people have told me that, when Olivia and I are older, we will be very close to each other and won’t fight anymore. So far I am not convinced, but I still have hope for us in the future. Maybe it will just take far more time than anyone predicted.