Finding Freedom by Letting Go

Finding Freedom by Letting Go

This house is not a home. That’s what the lyrics said as I screamed them as loud as I could. The room was swaying back and forth, my mind, poisoned from the fumes I had just inhaled. All of my anger was barreling through my body, making me flail my arms and whip my head violently. The chorus ended and I tried to stop moving. I looked up at myself in the mirror as I fell to my knees. My face looked pale, a monster I had not seen in a while. My hair, matted with tears and my eyes like black holes growing rapidly told me that I was losing control. I hugged my knees, rocking like a chair as the chorus came on again. I tried to scream the words but only breathless cries came out. At that moment my sister threw the door open and came into the room only to see me on the floor. She wrapped her arms around as I cried.
“I hate this! I hate this!”She said nothing
“Get off me! Get the fuck off me!” I protested and still she said nothing.“Angel,” I whispered, “I think I’m crazy.”
She held me tighter and I fell silent; the music still blaring out of the speakers. That was the only time I felt helpless. It was also the only time that I felt like my sister loved me.
Four years later, I thought of this moment as I smashed her face into the stairs. Thinking about how many times she had thrown my melt-down in my face. How many times she told me that I was crazy because of it. I always regretted taking solace in her arms that day. Minutes before my hands were around her hair as I ripped it back and forth, I heard my mom scream. My mother fell down the stairs as my sister grinned and pushed her down. Rage took over and I flew up the stairs to defend my mother. My sister, eight inches taller than me didn’t even see it coming. When I started to hit her I couldn’t hear my mom telling me to stop. I couldn’t hear my sister pleading with me to let go. I didn’t realize what I was doing until the house was filled with the sound of my sister’s head hitting the wood. I recoiled from her and looked at my hands. Horror blinded me when I turned to see her bruised face. My parents did not say a word for a long time. My sister whimpered below me. When asked about what I was thinking, I really wanted to say, “I wanted to destroy her, take away any beauty that could fool people into thinking that she wasn’t capable of what she had done.”
For a long time my sister feared me after what I had done. When she got out of control and I challenged her to a fight and she would back off. I felt a sense of superiority over her and took full advantage. When she attacked my mother with her words, I would come to my mother’s defense and try to intimidate Angel into shutting up. But then, one day she came home with cigarettes and got into an argument with my step-father. I tried to make her stop but nothing I said would calm her. No threats I made would make her run to her room in tears. That was the first day that she ran away. Gone for about a week, I began to feel like a new person. I was depressed, but happy that she was gone. I searched for her but to no avail. I thought I would never see her again.
Seven days later I caught her. She held a drill in her spider fingers and stared at me. Her face was void of emotion. I was frozen in place and tried to hold my fists tight. For a long time we stood staring at one another. My mind was racing and I tried to think of what to do. If I pursued her aggressively she might fight back, but if I was too nice she would get away.
“Wow! You scared me!” I finally gasped. She relaxed her hand around the drill and nodded. She was trying to open up the crawl space that connected the garage to the house.
“Angel, we’ve been looking all over for you!” I said, “Come on inside, let’s go.” I took the drill from her and urged her towards the door. She entered without protest and I followed her towards the hall. I told her everything was okay now, and that all I wanted was for her to stay with me.
“Wait!” she stopped in the hall. “I’m not staying here!” she sneered. I smiled, trying to be patient with her and pushed her onto the stairs lightly.
“Go to your room. I’m calling our parents.” She looked at me and said okay. I turned to go and grab the phone and I heard the door beep. I spun around, only to see her taking off out the front door! I screamed her name and took off after her. I was too late. I stood in the middle of the driveway and broke down. I screamed her name again; hollered at the top of my lungs for her to come back.
“NO!!” I bellowed, wiping the tears and snot off my face. I tried to control myself but the pain was too much. I screamed again and kept screaming until my neighbor came over to see what all the noise was about. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was to trust her to go up to her room. For the rest of the time that she was missing I thought of millions of different ways that I could have kept her in the house. Having her run from me was like hope slipping through my fingers.
I battled with my mother endlessly about the worst case scenarios. I spoke passionately about how I would take any children that Angel had and raise them as my own. I spoke angrily about how I did not trust Angel to come back and live with my parents. I was afraid that she would hurt them while I was at school. These arguments haunted my dreams and I became obsessed with being my sister’s savior. I don’t know why but I felt like if I could save my sister I could save myself. I was unhappy, afraid and out of control. I couldn’t sleep without having a nightmare of my sister sprawled on a public bathroom floor. Her eyes glazed over and her clothes torn from an aggressor who took the life from her. I couldn’t eat without thinking of all the fights I had with her about my weight. So, one day I stopped eating. I went the whole day with my stomach crying out for food but my mind rejected its pleas. Two days passed and I wasn’t hungry anymore. My eyes were heavy but my heart felt light. I was free from all that bound me to this world. I was in control of what happened to me. Four days went by and I was dizzy. I was floating through the day, smiling at everyone and indulging them with whatever conversation I could think of. My hands were shaking but I ignored them. I was fine, I told myself. This is what self-control costs. At the end of the school day I drove home and drank as much water as I could. I had to fill my stomach with something; I knew that I couldn’t go on without it. That’s when I decided on three things that I would allow myself to ingest: water, coffee, and apples.
For weeks that was all I ate. When dinner came around I would push my food around my plate and put on a performance for my parents. I would cry and say that I was too upset about my sister to eat. That worked a couple of times, and then it was that I had a late lunch and I was still full. That excuse worked twice. After that they started to get concerned. I dropped seven pounds in a week. I felt victorious while they felt troubled. I ran every day despite of my bad knees. When I hobbled around the house, I was filled with satisfaction; the burning in my legs told me that I had worked hard. It wasn’t until my brothers came home from college for the holidays that my parents said anything about how I was behaving. I think it was because my brothers had noticed. They would watch me heat up countless glasses of water and refuse food when the offered it to me. They would poke at my ribs and crack jokes about them sticking out. My parents sat down with me and asked what was going on. I said nothing, I was happy and fine. They told me they noticed that I wasn’t eating. I got angry and said they did not see me every waking moment so they couldn’t know if I was eating. The discussion turned into an argument and ended with a deal that I would go back to see my counselor.
Three months passed and Angel was either in a group home, juvenile detention or on the run. I jumped every time the phone rang; scared that it would be the police saying that she was gone again. I hated her for causing so much drama. I took my anger out on my stomach; she became my inspiration to be thin. Every time I got hungry I looked in the mirror and thought of the nasty words that she said about my weight. This helped me lose another seven pounds. I wanted to waste away. She was all I thought about during the day. I thought of all that she had done and how her hair felt between my fingers. I replayed the episode on the stairs over and over in my head. It was like having revenge all over again. School wasn’t important, friends weren’t important, only she was. When I had a writing assignment, I would write about her, when I played sports I kicked the ball as if it was her. She was the driving force in my life. Absent but always present. My parents began to despise my company. My lover despised me too. We fought over food and choices that I was making. He screamed that I was hurting him. I told him to leave me alone. I couldn’t stop what I was doing. Food just didn’t do it for me anymore. The smell, the taste, even the commercials with food in them disgusted me. I began to hate eating in front of people because I would take two bites and be full. I was the outcast now, never had I felt so alone. I surrounded myself with beautiful people, and casted away any of them who judged me. I made up lies to cover the fact that I wasn’t eating. I assured them that I wasn’t that stupid but really I was that stupid. I was trapped into the control I thought I had. Again, I felt bound to the world and these chains that held me were worse than the ones Angel had clipped to me before.
There air outside the juvenile detention center that Angel was staying in bit my cheeks. Ominous clouds hung over the building and I crossed my arms uncomfortably as I walked up to the stairs. The guard took all of our belongings and escorted us to the visitation room. I sat coldly across from her and my parents. She was giddy, happy almost. I wanted her to die. How could she be so happy with what was going on? I wasn’t happy. I wanted the same for her. She chattered about how things were in juvenile detention; about how she was ready to change. Never did she say I’m sorry. She was happy that she was being moved to Virginia and hoped that she could come home soon. She just spoke as if nothing was wrong. My parents spoke softly to her. They filled the time we had with advice. I sat quite looking at her hands shaking. The shake in her hands was captivating. It did not match the calm tone in her voice. It was the shake of evil, the shake that filled my hands when I was finished destroying her face. She asked me how my day was and I gave her one word answers. My voice said all that needed to be said and she stopped addressing me. My mom asked her why she runs away so much.
My sister replied, “I don’t know! Because it’s fun, there’s a thrill about being chased.” I blew up and screamed at her. I said nasty things casting tears into her eyes. She didn’t weep like she used to. She just let the tears drop onto her cheek and rolls down. My parents looked at me, shocked at how I was behaving. An awkward silence spread a sense of hostility as the guard said the time was up. My parents hugged her and said goodbye. Everyone was looking at me, expecting me to do the same. I did not hug her that day. I like to think that it hurt her, and that she remembers it always.
It took her less than a week to escape Virginia. She had climbed a tree and jumped the fence. Again she was on the run but I was stronger now. The therapy had helped, and I began eating again. I did not eat unless I had to of course, but I no longer wanted to starve. My first year of college was about to start and I was determined not to let her control me like she did. I realized that what I was doing was not righting any wrongs; it was not proving I was in control. So I laughed when I heard she escaped. I did not have the aching in my stomach and the sickening dreams anymore. She had been gone for so long it was like hearing about a stranger.
Recently, I went to visit her again, this time in Natchogue Health facility. My mom and her are getting along better. She has hope for my little sister. I didn’t decide to go and visit her because I missed her. I went only to see her fat. The medicine that she is on makes her gain weight so now she is the one struggling with it. Even though I don’t have trouble eating anymore, the obsession and addiction to weight that came along with that problem still thrives in my mind. So I went, and indeed she was fat. I watched her carefully, observing and taking in all the moments that she showed how weak she is. She crossed her arms around her belly, trying to hide the weight gain but I noticed. My mother caught me noticing and pulled my attention away from it. I talked about nothing, but Angel seemed to like my company. I wore her favorite zip-up that would no longer fit her just to show her how thin I was. My knobby wrists lay on the table and my collar bone was exposed just enough to get noticed. She didn’t say anything to me about how I looked but I could tell she knew my intentions. After, a couple of minutes I was bored. This girl sitting next to me meant nothing. I needed to know what she looked like now. I needed to see if I would feel anything for her. I was happy that all my feelings were gone. Finally, I could move on and away from this creature that caused me pain. This fowl monster, who haunted me couldn’t hurt me anymore. When I left that day, I gave her a hug. I hugged her not like a sister would but as a winner who beat her in a terrible game. I vowed silently to myself that I would never go back there. I smiled and held back the tears. My house is my home, and without her it is complete. Her death grip is gone and finally I can dance and shout and scream that I am free.