From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 8

Content Warning: Candid reflections on childhood trauma, adolescent sexuality, blurred boundaries, and inappropriate adult behavior.

She couldn’t hack it. School wasn’t really something she was encouraged in. Becoming anything other than a breeder, some man’s obedient and submissive wife someday.

Her social skills are strong, whereas mine are blunt and sharp as needed, while still being pleasant enough for teachers to like me and help us stay out of trouble and go unnoticed.

I only knew of her and me.

Now, I’ve gone back and forth, back and forth on whether I’m an angel or demon because I seem to stay right smack in the middle. She’s a demon though, and we hold close to each other and bail each other out.

Doesn’t really matter to me. I’ll be either to keep her safe.

I excelled at school and understood that “try your best” was all that was required there. Try your best. Be interested in what the teachers said. Look studious and get it done.

The problem was, she had every type of friend and I prefer casual or none at all. I do things on my own. She thrives in contact with others. I lost all our friends easily, as soon as they became issues for us. Asking too many questions or not understanding that home life wasn’t universally the same.

I watched her being emotional, fantasizing about vampires and watching scary movies we weren’t allowed to watch. She was hypersexual and aware when attention became sexual. Male teachers sometimes took too much interest in her. I kept us out of that.

I dressed in jeans and T-shirts. She dressed in hair twists, glitter, black mascara and eyeliner, bell-bottoms from the thrift store and tight shirts. A strange aesthetic. Or brown ’70s floral from top to bottom. I left my hair down, straightened, and she put hers up with glittery butterfly clips. Her nails always painted, mine left bare. Her lip balm we could agree was tasty. Melon-flavored or tingle mint.

Her head full of music, mine like a horse with blinders, focused on forward movement.

I can be cold and detached.

Because of her, I learned I can be warm.

-Raven