Amanda

Amanda sat in her chair, watching her television. This was everyone's room, but it was her domain. Dare changer her chanel and you are sure to recieve a glare, followed by a heaping dose of attitude. Her pretty green eyes become venomous slits and her voice whispers threats just below the hearing level of her parents. Even five year old Cole can not escape her wrath. He comes into the room, vringing with him one obnoxious toy or another. Immediately she's shooing him. "Go play in your room, Cole," she tells him, her tone warding off any objections.

A drawing pad sits before her, and durring commercials quick gingers stained with ink and lead trace a picture. Her shoulder length blond hair is tied back in a ponytail , but whisps of loose hair fall across her eyes. Light tracks of smeared lead show the path of her furtive attmepts to brush them away. She is kind when you are on her good side, but boy does she know how to hold a grudge.

She is my opposite. Loud and outgoing, she loves the things that I hate. At times she is my confidence, pushing me to leave my bubble, my comfort zone. Sometimes it's because she knows I will regret it if I don't. Sometimes it is because she loves the fight. Loves to watch me squirm. But only I know what she fears, what suddenly makes her weak and frightened. Then things that make us switch roles, if only for a moment.

Stand us together, and some would call us twins. Others would say we look completely different. We share the same nose, and the same eyes. Her eyes, however, are green where mine are blue, and where my skin is pale hers shows our Native American blood. Though younger then me she is still taller and stronger with large hands and feet that suggest she is growing still.

Suggest we look alike and my sister's eyes flash. "No," she will bark. "No, we look nothing alike. Look at her, and look at me. Look. We are different." Never threaten her individuality. Little scars line the back of her hands where she used to take sissors to her skin. That year had been a had time for everyone. Displays of strength in the form of hole punched walls were not uncommon and our tears could fill a swimming pool.