I’d always thought she was still a baby before she vanished into thin air. The truth is that she was an adult even then, but now she seems older. More woman than girl.
“I can understand that. But…you should still make the trip. It won’t matter what you say to them. They’ll just be happy to see you alive.”
Alexis walks across the bar, eyeing me carefully out of the corner of her eye. She goes to stand in front of a canvas that’s been erected in front of a window, where the tables and chairs of the bar have all been pushed back to make room. “Aren’t you going to give me hell?” she asks. She picks up a paintbrush and slowly draws it over the material in front of her, though I can tell she’s not really paying attention to what she’s doing.
“No, I’m not.” I surprise myself when I say this. The whole journey here, I’ve gone over everything I want to say to her. How badly I want to tell her she hurt me. How badly I worried. How sick and twisted my head got when I used to lie in bed at night and imagine what was being done to her. And lastly, I thought about how I would tell her all about what I gave away in order to get her back.
But now we’re here and Alexis is standing in front of me, I don’t want to make her feel bad. I just want to understand, and I want to move on. Desperately. I want to shelve the toxic anger eating away at me, and I want to stop feeling so betrayed.
Alexis places the tip of her paintbrush handle into her mouth and turns to face me, drawing in a deep breath. “I can understand how you feel. And I’m really sorry for keeping things from you. You deserved better than that. You know...” She sighs, apparently struggling with her words. “I always loved you, Sloane. I do love you. I didn’t want what happened to me, and once I found myself in a situation I couldn’t get out of, I didn’t want you to be dragged in or harmed in any way, either. I did what I thought necessary to keep you safe. And I know it backfired. I know you ended up in danger anyway, and I know you nearly lost everything because of me. You’ll never know how sorry I am for that.”
“You should have trusted me,” I whisper.
“I did trust you. I did. I just didn’t trust other people to keep their word. That’s what it all came down to in the end. It was very, very complicated. I couldn’t explain that to you or Mom and Dad back then.”
“Well, how about now? Why not explain it to me now? I just drove all the way here, little sister. I have nothing better to do, and I’d love to hear this story, I really would.” I try to keep the bite out of my voice, but it’s hard to do. Alexis slowly nods her head. She places her brush down on the lip of the easel, and comes toward me.
“Alright,” she says. “I’ll start at the beginning, then.”
Alexis tells me the story of a young woman going to her parents’ house, only to find herself kidnapped and sold twice over. She tells me a story of a girl who falls in love with a boy, even though she knows she shouldn’t. She tells me a story of insane DEA agents and Mexican cartel members, intent on finding and destroying her. And I begin to understand.
I don’t like it, but it starts to make sense.
By the time Alexis is done with her story, I don’t hate my sister anymore. I’m not mad at her. I’m still angry, though. After holding onto that emotion for such a long time, letting it consume me from the inside out, there’s no such thing as just letting go. It’s still with me, though I have no real focus for it anymore. I’m just angry. At the situation Alexis found herself in. At the situation I found myself in. At all of it.
Alexis tells me she loves me, and I find it easier than I thought I would to tell her the same. We’re hugging when Rebel comes to find his wife.
“God, I thought you’d be killing each other by now,” he says, leaning in the doorway. He is arrogant and cocky, and does multiple things in a day to make me want to smack him, but I understand him a little better now. And I’m glad my sister has him. “The boys will be here soon, Soph,” he tells my sister. “Better get your canvas packed up before it get trashed and someone shoves their boot through it.” I watch as he helps her pack up her paintbrushes and pots and between the two of them they carry her art equipment out of the bar. I’m handed a small wooden box filled with tiny paint-encrusted tins, cloths and jars of different fluids. I catch sight of Alexis’ canvas, carried carefully by the frame in Rebel’s hand, as we leave the bar, and the painting it bears makes the breath in my throat catch. It’s me. A young, smiling, happy version of me, from before all of this madness.