Points Of View

A sharp crack of lightning split the sky and hot summer rain began to cascade from the deep, purple clouds swarming above. Flecks of water spat through the flyscreen and spattered my clammy skin. I sighed, filling my lungs with the entrancing scent of wet soil. Miami didn’t want me to leave. I didn’t want to leave Miami. So what exactly was I doing packing my things?

“Hey, Meg.”

I closed my eyes. Footsteps scuffled across the carpet and the bed sank down as she plopped herself beside me, springs squeaking beneath the extra weight.

“You got everything?”

I scoffed, exhaling sharply through my nose.

“Everything but your blessing.”

Except for the patter of rain on glass and the light tinkle of wind chimes on the porch, the condo was silent. It was just me and the house and Miami on my last night at home. Then she sniffled, and I cursed, and the moment was ruined.

“For Pete’s sake, Mischa!” I growled, sitting up abruptly. “Blow your fucking nose!”

I turned my blazing gaze to the trembling figure that I hadn’t realised had been trembling because I was so completely self-absorbed. Her eyes were blood shot, her front teeth chattered against her bottom lip, her cheeks were puffy and pink- the way marshmallows get after a minute in the microwave. As I put an arm around her, I prayed to God I didn’t look like that after I’d been crying.

“Mischa,” I stammered, scooting closer. “What’s the matter?”

She sniffed again and I cringed.

“K-K-Kylie!” she wailed, heavy droplets spilling down her face. Thick spit collected between her lips as she looked up at me, jaw trembling. “She dumped me!”

My heart leapt. I couldn’t stifle the ear-to-ear grin that broke out over my face, nor could I hide the hysterical giggle that convulsed my body and shook Mischa from my embrace.

“What-” She warbled, frowning. “What are you laughing at?”

I snickered, an ugly sound grating up the side of my throat.

“Thank the Lord!” I exclaimed, thrusting my hands into the air. “About fucking time!”

The tears came to an abrupt halt. She moved back, staring me down, eyebrows scrunched into a caterpillar across her forehead.

“Come again?”

“Kylie- she’s a heifer,” I reasoned, giving her hand a squeeze of approval. “It was embarrassing. You’re better off without her, Misch.”

“She’s a plus-size model,” Mischa deadpanned, glowering. I withdrew my hand, her skin got so hot. “She’s beautiful.”

I threw my head back and laughed.

“She looked like a man!” I sniped, “What’s the point in being lesbian if you’re gonna screw a chick that looks like she has a cock anyway?”

Mischa gaped and her eyes narrowed into slits.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” she said lowly. Her gaze clouded with hurt and I felt the cold weight of my heart dropping. “You’re such a fucking bitch.”

“Mischa-”

I groaned as she got up and left the room. Rolling my eyes, I stood and scampered after her down the hall. She was slumped on the floor with her head resting against the frame of her bed, a box of tissues balanced in her lap and her eyes glued to the blank TV screen in front of her.

“Mischa, I’m sorry.” I sat down next to her, flexing my toes against the plush purple carpeting. “I was just trying to say that you’re way too good for her, but because I’m a cow it came out all wrong.”

She was silent as I brushed away the hair stuck to her damp cheeks.

“You’re right,” she sniffed, running her bottom lip through her teeth. “You are a cow.”

“And you are too good for her,” I smiled softly, wiping her cheek with my sleeve. “I was right about that too.”

I pulled her into my chest and pecked the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her kiwi and lime shampoo. It took a few minutes but she finally relaxed against me; her breaths came out in short hiccups and hot tears soaked through my thin, cotton wife beater. And for once, I didn’t mind. I didn’t push her away or call her gross or ask her if I looked that repulsive when I was crying. She was my twin sister and she had a way of making me care, of making me empathetic; she had a way of making me a better person. And, as I watched her drool and snot all over my clean shirt, as her sobs went dry and her voice cracked weary and raw, I realised that it wasn’t really Miami that I was so reluctant to leave.

“You know what you need, Misch?” I said softly, wiping the sediment from her eyes. “You need a change of scenery.”

So at six am the next morning I ripped up my non-refundable ticket to Arizona and climbed into the passenger side of Mischa’s Camaro, because she said a road-trip would be fun. I said that free champagne and endless leg-room would also be fun, but she was adamant.

“It’ll be a bonding experience, Megan,” she chided, heaving her third Louie Vuitton suitcase into the back seat. “Don’t you want to bond with me?”

“Of course I do,” I snapped, kicking my feet up onto the dashboard, “Because nine months sharing a womb and eighteen years sharing a life wasn’t enough!”

Mischa, being the happy-camping-early-riser she was, overlooked the bitter bite in my tone and chuckled, reaching over the console to ruffle my hair. I flinched away from her, glaring.

“Don’t be gwumpy,” she pouted.

“I’m not gwumpy,” I sneered, gagging at the excitement in her giggle. “I’m pissed off!”

If I was pissed off then, there were no words to describe how I felt when the car broke down just short of the Alabama-Mississippi boarder.

“You and your stupid, motherfucking vintage car!” I screeched, throwing my hands into the air. “Let’s go on a road trip, it’ll be fun!”

Mischa didn’t look at me. Her eyes were glued to the road and her hands were still positioned at ten o’clock and two o’clock on the steering wheel. Her face was expressionless and after eighteen years of living with her, I knew very well what that meant. But I kept taunting.

“Well, Mischa, are you having fun?”

“Is this the bonding experience you were hoping for?”

“Are you glad we-“

And then she punched me; the girl knuckle-sandwiched me straight in the jaw. An explosion of pain erupted in my gums and the taste of hot iron seeped between my teeth and puddle under my tongue. Gasping for air, I flung open the door and fell out onto the sand, blood dripping from my mouth, spilling over my hands and onto the tarmac.

I heard a car door slam and the crunch of footsteps as Mischa scrambled to my aid.

“I am so sorry-”

“Get the fuck away from me!” I gargled, spitting blood into the shrubbery.

And as if things couldn’t get any worse, it started to rain. At the end of what would have been the driest summer in twenty five years, it started to rain. Just drizzle at first, but by the time Mischa scribbled a giant SOS on three white t-shirts and hung them from the windows using butterfly clips, the sun had set and it was absolutely pissing down.

Mischa was sitting on the roof and I was sprawled on the bonnet, reclined against the windshield, when a car finally stopped. Two guys stepped out and introduced themselves as Ben and Josh, students at NYU. They helped us stack two of our bags in their trunk, because that was all that would fit in their little green Gremlin, and promised to call a tow-truck once we reached a point with mobile coverage. Then they complained that we’d get their car wet, and drove away- with all our stuff.

“My GHD’s were in that bag, Mischa!” I cried, cradling my head in my hands. The swelling on my jaw had finally gone down, but a small poppy bruise had begun to surface and the whole left side of my face ached.

“Oh, shut up! One of these days, your whining is gonna make me kill myself,” Mischa hollered, flinging her soaked cardigan at my back.

I was soaked to the bone, my face throbbed, my throat was hoarse from yelling over the rain, and she had the nerve to tell me to stop complaining?

I swung around, fuming. “Well, why don’t you do me a huge favour and make that day today!”

Headlights flashed in the distance and we both stared in awe at the colossal vehicle speeding down the highway. Mischa’s face was illuminated for a brief second, and I saw her expression tighten and snap.

“Fine,” she said.

And then she threw herself into the middle of the road.

I couldn’t hear anything over my own scream; the breaking of bones, the dismemberment of limbs, the shriek of death, I didn’t hear any of it. And as a pair of hands tightened around my shoulders and shook me to life, I realised it was because none of it happened.

“Hey, it’s ok,” he pulled me up out of the dirt that I couldn’t remember falling in, and brushed the sand from my shaking knees.

As he sat me back on the bonnet and gently probed at my limbs, and cupped my face, and looked me in the eye and told me I was alright, I spotted Mischa lying on the other side of the road. She was lying on her back, her stomach was heaving and her chest was shaking. Another boy was helping her to her feet and as she stood up, she winced. He helped her limp across the road, past where a massive black bus was parked bordering off the empty highway.

“Don’t worry, I think it’s just a sprain.”

“What?”

And then I looked up and met his eyes, and there was something in them that just beckoned me.

“Don’t worry,” he smiled. “You’re alright.”