After the man who killed my father didn’t come back for me, I stayed there, searching his room for clues as to where he may have gone because I wanted to thank him. I needed to thank him. He saved my life. He had no idea how close I came to ending myself that day. So I stayed, he never came back, though. I stayed for two whole weeks before I went back into the room Donald and I stayed in and began searching through Donald’s belongings. He didn’t have much, but I knew he kept a small shoe box hidden under his bed. I was unsure what it contained.
Walking into his room, I slid the box out and popped it open. It had papers, bills, and some photographs of him and a young woman. I guessed that was my mother. She looked like me. Long brown hair, big blue eyes, heart-shaped baby face. She looked so much like me it was eerie. I ripped the photograph in half, scrunching up Donald’s side and placing the one of my mother in my pocket. I continued on with my sneaking until I found a letter that was written to Donald dated a few years earlier. It was signed from a Penelope Smith. Smith was Donald’s and my last name, so I assumed she was one of his relations. I scanned the letter that wrote about how much she wanted to get to know Donald. She stamped her address on the bottom of the letter. I folded it back up and placed that in my pocket along with my mother’s photograph before sliding everything back to where it was before packing a bag and leaving that pit of bad memories for the last time.
It turned out Penelope was my aunt, but she was nothing like Donald. I showed up on her doorstep, handed her the letter and I’d stayed with her since that day. She enrolled me in high school, and then when I was accepted into NYU, she paid for that too. She fell sick a few months after I arrived. She told me she’d been fighting cancer for years. I was heartbroken. I had just found family, someone that loved me, and now she was going to die. She fought hard. The cancer didn’t take her until last year. So I have dear memories of her at my graduation, starting my first job, and all the little things that mattered. It was just her, so I left after she passed and to my surprise I was left with her estate. She had a ton of cash and I still had her home. She ordered in her will that I was to sell her house and travel, fall in love, and learn what it was like to have your heart beat and flutter for one man—or many, as she put it. I reluctantly did as she asked and sold the house. A few days later was when I met Phoebe, and we hit it off instantly. She was like the sister I’d never had.
Walking into our apartment, I shut the door and wiggled out of my jacket, hanging it behind the front door.
“Phoebs, you home?” I shouted out, placing my handbag on the kitchen counter and taking a bottled water out of the fridge.
“Here,” she answered, yelling from her bedroom.
I laughed, closing the refrigerator door and making my way down the little hallway and into her room.
Laughing around the rim of my bottle, I pointed to her. “What are you doing?” She’s jumping around the room, trying to pull her pants up, knocking the bottled perfume off her dresser.
“Fuck, I think I’ve gained weight,” she exhaled, yelling out in frustration as she attempted to pull the tight dark denim jeans past her ass again.
“So… thank you for making dinner healthy tonight, then?” I teased. She stopped what she was doing, huffing out, which made her hair fluff up that had fallen around her face.
“Not funny, Meads. I’ve never had an issue with weight gain in the past.” Phoebe was stunning and small. It was obviously all in her head.
“Hmmm, lucky for some then. I’ll get started on dinner. When will Melissa be here?” I stepped around her pile of clothes, picking up my V-necked shirt that was lodged deep with her clothes while rolling my eyes at her.
See… sisters.
“She’s already here. She had to pick up some appliances from the city. Something about it being hard to come by,” she added, taking the top back out of my hands. “I’m not finished with this.” She smiled, walking into her closet.
“Well, be sure to put it back when you’ve finished then.” That’s the best I could hope for. I loved Phoebe, I wouldn’t be the person I was today if it wasn’t for her. There had been times where she had to be the strong one for both of us even though I had never told her about my past, I intended to, though. But regardless of her lack of knowing, she stood by me. Through it all.
“Oh my fucking God,” Melissa moaned, biting into the whole-wheat burgers I’d made. “Jesus, how’d you learn to cook like this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it just came to me.”