Gillian

     Key hit lock. I turned the metal, pushed the wooden door, and stepped inside. I kicked my bags into our living room and ran my fingers through my hair. It was greasy, the strands melting together in bits of oil, and I tried to think of the last time I’d showered. The past four nights were a blur—I had stayed with different friends, one night camping under the summer stars, another staying out late and walking home at three in the morning, and I was exhausted. I thought about my schedule for the day: shower, eat, hydrate, nap, repeat…

     “Oh. Look who decided to come home.” Her voice was dead, flat.

     I looked up. She lay on the couch in Abercrombie capris and a pink tank top, hair cropped short. Her piercing blue eyes stared straight ahead. She wasn’t reading or watching TV or listening to music. She just lay there.

     “Hey, Gillian,” I said carefully. “What’s up?”

     I wanted to keep the mood light, like we hadn't grown apart, like we still knew everything about each other.

     She laughed. My arms crawled with goose bumps.

     “Like you care.”

     I grabbed my bags. Pulling my stuff upstairs, I called hello to my dad. I walked down the hall. I tried to breathe. I slammed my door. I tried to breathe. I missed the way things used to be.

***

     Mouth full of water, I sang. Notes of “Here Comes the Sun” bubbled in the chlorine, and I could feel chemicals filling my lungs. Our hands were clasped tight, and our feet dangled above the cold concrete, hovering, weightless in the clear azure pool. I kept my eyes open, lashes fluttering in the water’s ripples, and I watched our hair combine, my brown swirling into her blonde. As I forced out a few more notes, which wobbled together, screechy and reminiscent of old Donald Duck cartoons, we began to drift up towards the surface. Our hands hit air first, pulling our bodies back into reality.

     “What were you singing?” sputtered Gillian, gasping for air.

     “You couldn’t tell?” I pretended to be hurt, but after a few seconds of wrinkling my forehead, I grinned. “Well, I guess I’ll have to sing it for you again.”

     My mom, splayed out on a rusted hotel lawn chair, put down her mystery novel, which was stained with watery fingerprints. 

     “Girls,” she said, smiling. “You’ve been in the pool for four hours. Aren’t you ready to get out soon?”

     We turned to each other. Our fingers and toes were like prunes, wrinkled and gray, and water clogged our ears. We hadn’t eaten in hours, and at ages seven and twelve, food was usually our main priority.

     “Nope!” we shouted simultaneously, giggling. We grabbed hands again, and, without a word, dove back under the envelope of water.

***

     Yellow plastic hair dripped wet as I combed and styled and cut. The sink, raspberry red with bits of white toothpaste encrusted on its smooth surface, was filled with my Barbies. Their arms and legs tangled together, bits of flesh-colored limbs sticking out of the pile, and after I finished beautifying each girl, I reached into the sink and grabbed another. I’d stuck a stopper in the bottom, and lukewarm, cloudy water sat still, acting as my Barbies’ Jacuzzi.

     I stood taller on the toilet, arching my feet like I’d learned in ballet. My yellow sundress rose behind me as I leaned over the sink, dipping my pink fingernails into the warm water and grabbing another doll. As I maneuvered my scissors around her head, framing her face with my jagged haircutting, I glanced across the bathroom and saw my makeup kit sitting on the hardwood floor. I hopped down from the toilet, grabbed the flowered cigar box with my wet hands, and returned to my miniature salon. I opened the kit, ready to see my matching blushes and eye shadows and lipsticks, shiny in their pastel-pink cases. I glanced inside.

     Where my makeup had once been, there were now carcasses. Ripped open, each case was smeared with red lipstick fingerprints, and I could see where she had ground one of my eye shadow brushes into each eye shadow block.

     “Gillian!” I shrieked, tossing my dead makeup onto the splintering floor. I flew towards the door and pulled it open, screaming her name a few more times.

     “What?” she asked, innocent, sitting on her bedroom floor across the hall. Wearing her soccer jersey, shorts, and shin-guards, she used crayons to fill in a coloring book, the sun hitting her blond hair. I waited, motionless, for her to look up. Configuring my face into a furious glare, I said her name again, my voice sharp like barbed wire. I waited.

     She looked up at me and froze. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her four-year-old voice soft and sweet.

     “Did you steal my makeup? Be honest,” I said through clenched teeth. Just last week I’d found her in my room twice without permission, once looking through my paint set and a few days later sorting through my ballet drawer. We were four years apart, which meant that I wasn’t interested in her things—most were hand-me-downs that wouldn’t fit me—but she was constantly taking mine.

     She shook her head, eyes flickering away from me. “Nope,” she said, still moving her head back and forth.

     “Gillian! Stop lying!” I stomped closer to her, my white Norwegian clogs clanking against the floor as I approached. She hopped to her feet and pushed me with her skinny, spindly arms.

     “I’m not lying!”

     I pushed her back—hard. She fell onto the hard wood floor, yelling, her voice carrying through the walls of our house. I heard my dad coming upstairs. I heard her fear. But more than that, I heard my anger pulsating in my ears, and without thinking, I stepped down on her ankle, hard, in my clog. Wood hitting skin, I ground the shoe into her bone.

***

     Steam clung to the yellow dish. Towels wrapped around her hands, my mom dragged the casserole dish out of the oven, the smell of chicken, tomatoes, and onions filling our kitchen. We all grabbed porcelain plates, clanking them together as we seated ourselves at the candle-lit dinner table. It was rare for my mother to cook a meal like this anymore—with everyone’s schedules and work, dinner was usually lukewarm pizza or some sort of other freezer food. But today, Sunday, she’d spent all day in the kitchen, creating stews and mixtures that smelled like the restaurants of Italy—homey and full of garlic.

     We filled our plates, foods bordering each other like messy countries on an old map. Gillian only grabbed a potato and a small spoonful of stew, ignoring the salad. We sat.

     Over the din of forks scraping against plates, my father’s new “experimental discovery,” some sort of Brazilian electronica group, and my mom’s stories about work at the hospital, there was a strange sound vibrating through the room: Gillian’s silence. Normally, we would hear about the last sixth grade dance or the test she’d just taken or whatever was going on in her life. Decked out in a homemade, belted dress and lots of eye shadow, she was usually the quintessential middle school girl. But tonight, she wore sweats, a bare face, and her silence.

     “Hey Gillian, you okay?” I asked as I chewed on a hard piece of baguette.

     She didn’t seem to hear me. Her graying eyes stared off into the distance, thin body slouching, and she didn’t eat. Her food lay cold and limp on her plate.

     Sometimes, she seemed fine, happy. And yet, there were days like this, when she would retreat to her room and watch TV for hours, or sit at dinner and space out, not hearing a word anyone said. Like tonight.

     I stared at her. I suddenly lost my appetite as well. My stomach bubbled and my heart hurt. I didn’t know what to do. If I hugged her, it wouldn’t help. If I forced her to eat, she’d just become angry. Surrounded by my family, I felt alone and helpless and scared.

***

     Shaving cream dripped down our arms. We squealed, the cold white goop dribbling across the bathroom floor. My dad pushed down on the can’s little switch and released more of the soap-smelling foam. Gillian, still in pre-school, was in awe of the shaving cream. She rubbed it into her arms and wiped it on her face in swirling patterns.

     We threw the cream at each other, wet mounds forming on our matching, pink and green, watermelon-print dresses. My dad just smiled and flicked little bits of foam off of his shirt. He was usually disciplinary, making us clean up our activities before we were even done playing, but with Mom gone for the weekend, he was less strict. He laughed at our foam-covered faces and arms, and we giggled, spreading the white across our bodies.

     He leaned over the bathtub and turned off the running water. The window pane was covered with steam, and the room smelled of shaving cream and cucumber melon bubble bath.

     “Bath time!” announced my dad, ready for us to get cleaned up and put to bed.

     “No!” we shouted. We held hands and felt the foam run between our fingers. It seemed like we would always be covered in shaving cream, like the moment would never end. We wanted this to last forever.

     He grabbed my sister, who was two, and pulled off her dress and diaper, plopping her into the water. I stripped down and stepped into the hot bubbling water, which was slightly green from the bubble bath. The white, which had hardened slightly, fell off in chunks, my skin fizzling as the water cleaned the soap away. As we splashed about in the bath, I missed the carefree feeling of playing with Gillian and the shaving cream. It was already gone.

***

     The clock ticked, echoing in my brain. My pillow stuck to my neck, moist with sweat, and my hair felt scratchy against my skin. I flipped the pillow over. It was cool and soft, but now I was too cold. The breeze from my open window brushed across my clammy skin, scattering goosebumps across my body like the stars in overhead constellations. I slammed it shut. Now my blanket felt heavy with warmth, like a large body dropping all its weight on top of me. I turned onto my right side. My shoulder ached. I flipped over. I tried not to think about how late it was, how soon I’d have to wake up. It didn’t work.

     This was the fifty-fifth night of insomnia. Each day of ninth grade, I was exhausted, living in a dreamland that didn’t feel real, and then at night I thought and wished and worried, spending the night completely awake. Tonight was no different.

     I hopped out of bed and opened my door, peeking outside into the dim hallway. I tiptoed through the flickering darkness towards her room. There she was, splayed out in the moonlight. Her curtains danced around her in the wind, but I could still hear her breathing: a slow in-and-out, in-and-out.

     “Gillian?” I whispered, soft and slow. No response. “Gillian?”

     Her eyelids fluttered and suddenly her bright blue eyes stared up at me, confused.

     “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

     Without saying a word, she lifted her flowered duvet and let me in. The bed was warm. I snuggled down, my head on her shoulder. Her fine blonde hairs tickled my forehead. I relaxed into her pillow, released the tension in my body, and let her breathing lull me to sleep.

***

     Crumbs clung to our fingers. We grabbed each cookie from the Tupperware, bits of red and green icing dripping together. A warbling “First Noel” crackled on my Dad’s old record player, static in our ears. We arranged. The reindeer plate, which had a crack down the middle and was slightly coated with attic dust, was piled with cookies. I wanted to eat one, but I knew I couldn’t. They were for Santa.

     Milk was poured, cloudy white glittering in the fire’s warm glow. We pushed the plate of cookies to the corner of the red tablecloth, which smelled of honey baked ham and butter from our Christmas Eve dinner. Along with the milk, Santa’s meal was ready.

     As we brushed crumbs onto the floor, Gillian turned to me. “Did you write your letter yet?”

     I glanced over at our stockings, wool hanging above the fireplace. Gillian’s had a nicely folded letter inside. Mine was empty.

     “Um. Not yet. I’ll do that right now!” I’d forgotten about writing letters to Santa. Gillian was twelve, I was sixteen, and she still believed.

     I pulled out a piece of construction paper from our kitchen’s junk drawer, which was stuffed with broken pencils, faded rubber bands, and dull scissors. Grabbing a dried-out purple marker, I began to write. Gillian watched me, reading over my shoulder. Dear Santa, I began. I’ve been really good this year. For Christmas, I would like to have...

     When I finished, I rolled the letter and stuck it in my stocking, wool scratching my hand as I carefully pushed it in as deep as Gillian had.

     “We should go to sleep now!” she squealed, ready to awaken to presents and plump stockings.

     “What about carrots for the reindeer?” I asked, smiling. We ran to the refrigerator, pulling the white door open and pulling a plastic bag full of carrots from the vegetable drawer. The skins were icy and wet as we put the carrots in a wide glass. Gillian carried it carefully to the dining room table.

     “Okay,” I said, grabbing her hand. “Time for bed! Let’s give Santa a chance to come visit.”

     As we switched off the lights and started walking towards the stairs, I paused in the doorway of the living room, which smelled of pine. The tree was huge this year, covered in trinkets and strings of white lights and glowing glass ornaments. Gifts spilled out from under the branches, overlapping on our wood floor. It seemed just like always.

     Gillian and I continued on upstairs. Her eyes were full of stars, her body bursting with sugar, and her hand intertwined with mine. As we ran past my dad’s study, which was banned while my parents did last-minute gift wrapping, everything felt okay. We were together. She believed that Santa was coming. And it was time to go to sleep, to fall into dreamland under the bare moon and the imaginary pitter-patter of reindeer hooves on our shingled roof.