Children of a Soldier

         Michelle was a soldier. She had stiff posture and haunted eyes. Michelle had perfect composure, she never had a single hair out of place. She was strict. The other adults would jokingly call her Drill Sergeant Michelle when she wasn't around. Elizabeth found it a rather fitting title. Eve would tell her to stop thinking ill of their mother. The pair never really could see eye to eye when it came to their opinions of their parent. Well, to be fair, they rarely agreed on anything. Elizabeth was older. She was harsh, made that way by the world. Eve was younger. She was soft and sheltered from the world. The girl was by no means naive, but she certainly had a much kinder way of interacting with the world than her sister did.

         Elizabeth hated how similar she and Eve looked. They shared the same dark brown hair, the same pale skin, and even the same eyes although Elizabeth's were far colder and her face always seemed to be set in a fierce scowl. Elizabeth was far more like her mother than she cared to admit. Eve was nothing like their mother and it was almost infuriating for the elder. It was an internal battle for Elizabeth of wanting to hate her younger sibling for getting the chance to be soft and kind versus her wanting to be grateful that her sister got the chance to see how good the world could be. Their mother always favored Eve. She made no effort to hide it. Elizabeth was her first child, the practice child for her to screw up so that she could get the next one right. Eve was the baby of the family. She was loved from the minute she came into the world and yet from that moment on Elizabeth lost almost all love from her world.

         Eve always wanted her sister's approval. She knew her mother had little love for Elizabeth so she made it her mission to give her older sibling as much love as she could give. She knew her sister saw their mother in a far different light from how she did and to her, that was okay. Eve could never pretend to approve of the way Elizabeth spoke of their parent sometimes, but she could understand the origins of where the hate came from. She knew how her mother acted toward her sibling. Eve wanted to hate her, she really did, and yet she could never manage to make herself feel that same burning hatred for her mother that Elizabeth so clearly had. It made it difficult to connect with Elizabeth. She knew that deep down Elizabeth was simply hurt that everyone chose Eve over her but knowing that did not mean that it hurt less whenever Elizabeth ignored her or snapped at her for doing even the smallest thing wrong. Eve hurt. Not because her sister lashed out at her, but because she knew that deep down Elizabeth was hurting far worse than Eve would ever be able to see. eve loved her sister, but she just wished that there was some way for her to repair the rift between them created by their mother's favoritism.