I'm Anything You Want Me To Be.

“Where are you going?” I ask Dani.

“Eighty One Twenty Three.” she quickly replies.

“What?” I clarify to her that I didn’t understand.

“Eighty,” She shoves clothes into her suitcase, then she starts zipping it up. “One,” She drags her suitcase off her bed. “Twenty,” She smiles at me sarcastically. “Three.”

8123? Never heard of it.

“Never heard of it?” she verbalizes my thought.

I shake my head.

“I got a job.” Dani proudly tells me. “I’m touring with The Maine—”

“The Maine?” is all I manage to say out of everything that rushes through my head at the slightest mention of The Maine.

The Maine? The band you chose over me? The band you outweighed me with? The band that ruined my life? Fuck.

“Yes, The Maine!” she answers excitedly. “I’m going on tour with them for a few weeks, and then I’m going to go in studio with them, they’re recording a new album and I get to document it and then—”

“Wait.” I hold a palm up to stop her from cutting me off the way I’m cutting her off now. “You mean you’re leaving again?”

She nods as she starts putting her shoes on. She sits on the edge of her bed and laces her shoes as she continues explaining. “Which means I get to see them live almost every night! It’s frickin’ great, Iann, and I get to watch them make new music and—”

“When does this tour and studio thing end?” I cut her off again, reading the excitement in her voice but ignoring it. “And would you be home occasionally or—”

“No.” She looks up at me and stands up. “I won’t be home. I’ll be spending the next couple of months with them and—”

I can’t help myself from walking out and deciding not to let her finish.

“Hey, what is your problem?” She follows me.

“Nothing.” I scoff. “When are you leaving?”

“I’m leaving for Phoenix later.”

“Great.”

“What?”

“That’s great, the sooner you leave, the fucking better.” I growl as I get to the kitchen. I take a knife and grab a random fruit from the basket on the kitchen table and start cutting it in frustration, because this frustration has to be directed at something. Otherwise, it’ll explode. Don’t want that. I’ve been taught about my emotions.

“Are you upset that I’m leaving?” she asks with the biggest tone of curiosity.

“Not at all!” I yell after turning around and throwing the knife down.

I know I should stay calm, but as I look at the fruit in the sink, I decide to let it go.

Dani catalyzed my frustration, she had better prepared herself to get bombarded.

“You’re leaving— But You just came back— And The Maine?!” I stutter for a while, my thoughts getting chopped up in my cracking voice. It isn’t long until I find whatever is closest to actual sense that I can spit out. “Damn it, just fucking leave, Dani, I don’t fucking care! The Maine is all you fucking care about! I thought that was gonna change after you left me for college, but I guess they’re always gonna mean more to you than me!”

“You’re getting dramatic over The Maine?!” Dani yells back.

Now I know we’re both mad.

She just hates it when I say or do anything against The Maine, the band that supposedly saved her life.

I know nothing of this band, and I don’t care. All I know is: They ruined my life.

Ever since The Maine started, they’re all she’s ever cared about.

She drifted away from me. We were, what, 16 when The Maine broke through? What did she even see in them? The Maine is just a band. Their songs? Shit. To say the least.

Or maybe I’m feeling this way because they took my sister from me. They took the only person left that mattered to me away.

I hate The Maine and what they did to Dani and me. They had us miles from each other even though our rooms were just a door and a bathroom apart. They had us having to yell at each other even though we were sitting across each other. They had us completely ignorant of each others’ feelings.

Ever since The Maine happened, Dani’s never been the same. I found it hard to accept, the fact that she was drifting away from me, as if we weren’t far apart enough.

And then she left for college.

So that left me no choice but to accept it.

I decided not to go to college because I wasn’t pressured into doing anything till I was ready. All that mattered was that I finished high school and that I wasn’t gonna go and get pregnant early. Funny how that turned out.

But Dani just came home. A week ago. From fucking college. And now, she’s leaving again. For The Maine.

No, she hasn’t changed a bit. She’s still choosing The Maine over me, her fucking sister.

“Dramatic.” I repeat, calming down. I don’t want a fight with Dani. Not on a night she’s leaving. Not again. “Yeah, sure, if you wanna call it that.”

“Iann—”

“Get out.” I point at the door. “You have your bags anyway. Leave. Now.”

“You can’t tell me to leave, this is my house too—”

“No it’s not!” I scream again. “It’s not! And it hasn’t been for three years of your stupid college and it won’t be for the next months with you bedding The Maine! Go fuck The Maine, I don’t care! Don’t you even think about coming back! I—” I gulp as I cross the line. “I hate you, Daniella!”

Dani furrows her eyebrows in anger and I know she’s offended. Really offended.

She really hasn’t changed a bit.

“Fine.” Her voice shakes. “I’m not coming back. Fuck you, Riannon. I hate you too.”

I turn my back at her direction and I hear the door slam; I hear her car drive off.

I just let her leave me. Again.

Well, this is going to be a great story to tell one day.