My mother was a highly educated college professor who brought up two daughters all on her own after her husband left her. Until her heart gave way and she died suddenly, leaving us to be raised by her closest friend whom she’d always been in touch with, Leah.
But my mother had been a planner and along with her updated will, she also left us both some money for college.
Sarah is very much like her, actually. Ambitious, driven, beautiful.
Back when we were kids, I idolized my sister.
I idolized her beauty, her straight shiny hair.
I’d follow her around with my toys in tow. I’d ask her to play with me, play with my dolls.
She was my big sister. She was my best friend by default.
Or she should’ve been.
But she never thought so. She always found me annoying, a nuisance. An overenthusiastic puppy, I think. Well, she described me as such to one of her friends because I wouldn’t leave them alone.
That was super hurtful. I think I cried.
But when I grew up, I understood why.
Why Sarah never liked me. It’s because she’s perfect.
She’s beautiful. She’s a straight-A student. She is popular. She is obedient. She follows the rules. She’s smart and intelligent. She’s practical, unemotional. She has a great job.
Whereas me, I’m the opposite of that.
Even though I have freckles and my hair is savage and wild and my golden eyes are witchy, I look exactly like my sister.
But that’s where the similarities end.
I never had a lot of friends. I can barely pass a subject, let alone score perfect As. I don’t even think I’m going to college, let alone getting a great job. My only ambition right now is to run away and live somewhere else so I don’t try to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
Not to mention I don’t even want to be perfect.
I don’t want to be like her or all the perfect people out there. Perfection intimidates me. All the rules intimidate me.
All I’ve ever wanted is to be myself, however flawed and imperfect that may be.
And all I’ve ever wanted is for my imperfection to be somehow perfect for him.
For her boyfriend.
So yeah, why would she like me?
On top of being completely different from her, I’m secretly betraying her. Her hatred for me is totally warranted.
But this isn’t about me and her and how different we are.
It’s about him and her.
So I take a deep breath and dial the number that I’ve memorized because we’re sisters. We should remember each other’s numbers by heart. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think so but it’s okay.
I chew on my thumb – which Sarah completely hates – as I wait for her to pick up.
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
A few rings later, I hear a click and her smooth, sophisticated voice. “Hello?”
A breath whooshes out of me.
It’s my sister.
My sister.
My flesh and blood. My best friend. Or at least, I wish.
“Hello?” Sarah goes again. “Hello? Who is it?”
“Sarah?” I say in a hoarse voice before clearing my throat. “Uh, it’s… it’s Salem.”
For a few seconds, she doesn’t say anything.
But I know we’re still connected; I can hear things in the background, white noise from wherever she is.
“Salem?”
Her voice is full of disbelief and I get that. I’m probably the last person, no definitely the last, she was expecting to hear from.
“Yes,” I say into the phone. “It’s me. Uh, hi.”
I chew on my nail again after that lame greeting. Like things are normal. Like I call her every day and I live in the regular world instead of being at St. Mary’s where they have a hundred pages worth of rules about making a simple phone call.
“Hold on a second,” she says.
Then I hear her murmuring something to someone before I feel her walking. Her high heels click-clack on the floor that sounds tiled until the sounds around her fade and her voice comes out clearer. “How… Where are you calling from?”
“Uh, from a phone?” I say nervously, spitting out the cuticle that I’d accidentally chewed off my thumb.
Again, lame.
But God, she freaks me out. My sister freaks me out.
“Are you trying to be funny right now?” she snaps.
“No, I –”
“Oh God,” she breathes as if to herself.
“What?”
“You’re not at St. Mary’s, are you? You ran away. You finally ran away.”
That was a shock to her, what I did that night: trying to run away with one hundred and sixty-seven dollars.
“Do you have any idea what kind of position this puts me in? That woman is going to be my mother-in-law, Salem. I’m marrying into that family and my sister is stealing from them. How can you be so selfish? So freaking thoughtless. And after everything that Leah has done for us. Everything. You know what, I don’t even care. I don’t care what you do. I’m washing my hands of you.”
I completely understood her anger. I did put her in a bad position, even though I was running away to keep her relationship safe from my witchy presence.
And I completely understand her shock now and that’s why I jump to reassure her.
“No, no, no. I’m at St. Mary’s, I swear. I’m here.” I splay a hand on my chest for emphasis like she can see it, like she can see me standing here, inside this reject, dusty bathroom.
“Then, how the heck are you calling me?” Her voice becomes shrill.
“Look –”
“I know the rules, Salem. I had Leah email me the entire welcome packet. I know you’re not allowed to call so think very carefully before you answer me.”
All right, everyone. This is my sister.
She doesn’t even go to St. Mary’s and she’s read the entire welcome packet. Whereas I never made it past the table of contents.
If there was any doubt in my mind – which there wasn’t – that Arrow and my sister belong together, it would be banished at this very second.
This gives me the strength to push through.
“I know I’m not allowed to call. Not until I earn the privilege by showing up to classes and completing my homework assignments on time. I know the rules, Sarah.”
She scoffs. “If you know the rules, then what’s your excuse for being stupid and breaking them this time?”
I clench my teeth. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About…” Arrow. “Your boyfriend.”
She doesn’t respond to that but I don’t get deterred. This is my only chance of finding out what the hell is going on.
“I know about the breakup, Sarah,” I say with a slight tremble in my voice. “I know you’re not together anymore. I –”
“How do you know?”
He told me.
And I still can’t believe it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, clearing my throat. “I… What happened? Gosh. I’m sorry, Sarah. Are you okay?”
Another stretch of silence and I know I’ve said the wrong thing.
“Is that why you called me? To find out if I’m okay?” She sighs sharply. “You’re… impossible. You steal money from Leah. The woman who was there for us. She doesn’t press charges but takes pity on you and sends you to a school that might fix you, and you’re breaking the rules again.”
“I –”
“I’m fine, all right? It’s a breakup. No one died. Anything else you want from me before I hang up?”
And I know she’ll do it.
She’ll hang up so I blurt out the rest of it. “Is it because of his injury?”
“What?”
“Your breakup.”
I grimace after I say it but I’ve thought about it.
It can’t be a coincidence, right?
I mean, he was fine up until a week ago. He was on track to win the MLS cup even though he’d lost a game. He was on track to propose to my sister even.
And then all of a sudden, he’s injured and he’s here without her.
They have to be connected.
Something happened there and I have to find out what.
I sigh. “Look, I saw the press conference, okay? I know he’s sitting out the season. And I also know that you think I’m stupid and a bother and a hundred different things. But I know these two things are connected somehow. His injury and your breakup. I know it. So just tell me. Please. For once.”
Even then, she doesn’t say anything.
So I go for even more drastic measures. “If you don’t tell me, then I’ll have to break the rules and call you again. And I’ll keep doing it until you cave and tell me.”
A sharp exhale of breath. “You’re such a…”
“Please, Sarah.”
“He’s not injured,” she says finally.
“What?”
“What I’m about to tell you is very confidential. If you open your big mouth and tell this to someone else, I could lose my job, okay? And I’m not losing my job because my sister is a freaking psycho and a loser.”
I’m used to her words by now, her derogatory, insulting words. But still they hit me in the chest and sting my eyes.
Even so, I force out, “I’m not going to tell anyone. Just tell me.”
“It’s a lie they made up, or my team made up. Something to tell the media.”
“B-but why would they lie?”
“Because he got suspended. That’s why.”
“He got suspended?”
“Yeah, he beat someone up.”
“Excuse me?”
She takes in another breath and lets it out. A long, deep sigh. “It was one of the assistant coaches. But they wanted to keep it out of the press so we decided to lie. He isn’t taking time off to recover. He’s kicked off the team. For the time being at least. Until he does his anger management therapy and the doctor clears him.”
I punched a door…
I knew right away that he was lying when he said that. But… Why would he beat someone up?
Why would he beat an assistant coach up?
I ask the same question of my sister. “Why would he do that?”
When she doesn’t reply fast enough, I almost scream into the phone, “Sarah? Why would he beat someone up? He isn’t like that. Tell me what happened.”
“We broke up, that’s why,” she says, snaps actually. “We broke up. We had an ugly argument about it. He was upset. The next day, he went into practice drunk and got into a fight with the first person he saw, which turned out to be Ben. That’s what happened.”
“He was u-upset?”
That’s the first thing I ask. Again, it’s lame and useless.
Of course he was upset.
He is upset.
He broke up with the love of his life, didn’t he?
“I can’t believe he beat someone up. He broke his nose, his jaw, four of his ribs. It took three men, three big muscular men, to pull A off Ben. I saw it all on the tape. I’ve never seen A like that, so furious. Ben was threatening to press charges.”
Sarah has always called him A and I’ve always wondered why she’d choose to do that when she has every right to call him by his beautiful, unique name.
Arrow.
“But we managed to talk him down,” she continues. “And we came up with this whole deal. No cops. No bad press. As long as A does his anger management therapy and stays away from LA for the next couple of months. That was the only way to save his place on the team.”
A breath whooshes out of me.
Thank God for my publicist sister. Thank God that she saved him.
See? He belongs with my sister.
My brilliant, beautiful sister.
“Why did you break up?” I ask quietly then.
Maybe because she’s scared that I’ll bother her again with my phone calls but she answers me without arguing any further. “Why do people break up, Salem? We grew apart, okay? We started leading different lives. I don’t know when but it happened. And yeah, we broke up.”
I swallow down a lump of emotions but barely. “But can’t you work on it? The distance, I mean. You love each other.”
“Look, Salem, you asked and I told you. Let it go, all right? It’s none of your business.”
“No, wait. I…”
I taste something salty on my lips and that’s when I realize I’m crying.
That’s when I realize that I haven’t swallowed down anything.
My emotions welled up in my eyes and are now falling down my cheeks as tears.
It’s so silly that I’m crying because it’s their relationship, their breakup.
But God, they’ve been together for years.
I’ve seen them together and my heart is breaking for them right now.
“I don’t understand, Sarah. You love each other,” I whisper, pressing the phone tightly to my ear. “That’s the most important thing, isn’t it? You love him and he loves you and so you guys can work through this. You guys can overcome this. Love has to be bigger than any problems that you guys have. Love has to be bigger than everything else.”
Shouldn’t it?
Love has to be bigger. It has to be.
Otherwise what’s the point? What’s the point of a girl falling and a boy catching her in his sleek, muscular arms?
Shouldn’t she fight for those arms? Shouldn’t he fight to keep her in his arms?
Shouldn’t they put in everything they’ve got so they can stay together?
“Ugh, please. Can you spare me the bullshit? I don’t even know where you get it from. Mom was never like this. I was never like this. I don’t understand how you came to be this way. So weird and strange. Like an anomaly or something.”
My tears fall harder even as I tell myself that this isn’t the first time I’m hearing this. This isn’t the first time Sarah has called me an anomaly or weird.
It makes sense even.
I’m the only one in our family who doesn’t have any ambitions, who isn’t good at anything and who doesn’t like rules.
I am an anomaly.
But I didn’t call her to talk about my various flaws. I called because I wanted to know why. To maybe make her understand that this can’t be the end of her and Arrow.
“All I’m saying,” I begin with a determined voice, “is that there might be a way to fix this. You can’t give up on a relationship of eight years.”
Suddenly, something occurs to me.
Something glorious and wonderful.
Something that should’ve been obvious but wasn’t because so many things have happened in the past twenty-four hours that I didn’t give it more than a passing thought.
He is my coach now.
My new soccer coach.
“Maybe I can help you,” I blurt out to my sister. “Maybe I can do something about it. He’s here now. He’s my new soccer coach. Which means I’ll see him all the time and I can fix this. I can get you guys back together.”
My mind is racing with possibilities now – racing.
There’s so much I can do. So many ideas I can come up with.
“Salem,” my sister snaps and brings me out of my daydream. “You’re not doing anything. You’re not interfering, you understand me?”
“But –”
“No. Not a word out of you. Enough. You stay out of this. You stay out of my life. It’s my breakup. It’s my relationship. This has nothing to do with you. Do not meddle into things you don’t understand. And please don’t call me again, okay? Do not break any more rules, Salem. If Leah gets sick of you and kicks you out of that school and her house, I’m not taking you in. You’re on your own, you understand me? So please, just follow the freaking rul
es and keep your nose out of my business. And for the love of God, stop wasting your time on soccer. There are girls out there who can make something out of it, but you’re not one of them. Accept that and do something worthwhile for a change.”
***
I write him letters.
I’ve probably written him thousands of them ever since I started, when I was ten.
Because I wanted to tell him so many things.
I wanted to say so many things to him. I wanted to answer the question he asked me in the kitchen. I wanted to promise him that his secret was safe with me.
But I never got the chance and so I resorted to other measures.
Since then, it has become my addiction.
Every night I write him a letter. I tell him about my day, about all the things I did, all the mundane details. Every night, I ask him about his day. About what he did, all the places he went, all the people he saw.
Every night, I talk to him like a friend.
Every night, I call him my darling.
My darling Arrow.
That’s how I start my letters. Not ‘Dear Arrow’ or ‘Arrow’ or something conventional like that.
Because what I feel for him can only be expressed in certain words, in certain syllables and tones and rhythms. And ‘darling’ hits all the right notes.
Darling says he’s adored and loved.
But he also makes me hurt. It says that he’s both a delight to my heart and a needle to it.
Loving him is the most wonderful, most awful thing in the world.
Loving Arrow is my doom.
So he’s not my dear, he’s my darling.
Once I’ve written them, I put them inside an orange envelope, which I then put inside a shoebox that I hide under my bed.
Well, whatever bed I’m sleeping in, that is.
Back at Leah’s place, I had them – the shoeboxes, quite a few of them now – under my twin bed.
The night I was running away, I was carrying them inside my backpack and my little suitcase. The shoeboxes full of letters and the t-shirts that I stole from him. I didn’t want anything else other than those.
When I came to St. Mary’s, I smuggled those boxes inside too.
Tonight, after talking to my sister, I sit in my bed, while Elanor snores away in hers, close to the window, and write him a new letter under the moon that appears to be red.
My Darling Arrow Page 6
