When She Was Me

by Marlee Bush

I watch you because I don’t have a choice.

I wonder who the narrator is talking too

The thing is, I’m not watching you because I want to. I’m not doing it for me at all. I’m doing it because I can’t quite figure it out: What you’re thinking. Who you are. What you’re capable of.

I’ll be with you. After all, you’re my sister.

Wayne

Lenora

Cassie's sister

But sometimes I still touch the trees, if only to remind myself that even the most identical things have thumbprints.

Wayne’s cabin, or what was previously Wayne’s cabin before he went and died, sits at the tip of a triangle at the bottom of a long slope through the woods.

Who is Wayne?

Our dad told us the doctor warned my mother of the dangers surrounding mono-mono twins.

Apparently, Lenora didn’t hold it against me for trying to kill her in the womb. That would become our pattern. She’d always forgive me. I’d always let her. Especially when I didn’t deserve it.

Cassie.

Lenora's sister

On that night fifteen years ago, Lenora and I walked down a hallway together. But when the door opened, the scene unfolded like a sick feature film.

Daphne

Lenora's therapist?

When the truth had the power to corrode my insides, looking away was the only way to save myself.

It’s not my father who’s the problem. It’s my mother.

Lenora

Is this about your mother, Lenora? About not knowing where she is?”

Every time a new crime documentary airs or there’s a newscast on the anniversary, a flurry of tips come rolling in.

Did their mother kill their father?

Like there is a part of her, more dominant than all the more reasonable parts, that cannot see me as poison.

I wonder if Cassie was the narrator in the prologue

Aunt Lisa

C and L's aunt

Cassie’s high-pitched voice from behind me. Lenora, what did you do? And the fear. Burning hotter than the blood on my hands.

I’m not just me anymore. Not just Cassie—a woman who lives in the middle of nowhere, avoiding a sordid past, taking care of her sister. I get to be them.

A hidden motive that borders on exploitive. If I can be them, it means I don’t have to be myself.

“Beatrice Martin

Murder victim

Josh

Beatrice's ex bf

Mark

Wayne's nephew?

Sarah Hill.”

New owner of the campground, C and L's new landlady

Parker

Cassie's bf??

“Tilly.”

Girl staying in Cabin 3 with her parents

“Mom and Dad were complicated.” It must take every ounce of her strength to answer. To talk about this at all.

I feel you before I see you.

Who is narrating and who are they talking to

you

Who is "you"

I’ve admired that about you. Your ability to think on the spot. To smooth over hard situations with delicacy and finesse. Your ability to make me feel like an idiot.

“Mrs. Rhodes is going to be heartbroken.

Owner of the dead cat

Last summer was one mistake. I’m so much more than that.”

What happened the previous summer?

Aswell, Mrs. Rhodes’s prized pet.

She thinks I hate listening to her tell their stories, but really, I just hate that some people have to be the victims.

I want to tell her I understand. I want to tell her it’ll get better. That mothers misbehave too.

Lenora about Tilly

Mud is smeared everywhere. The bed, the ground, my body. I wait for the image to dissipate like the dream I hope this still is. But it doesn’t. Just like I know it won’t. Because I’m not dreaming, no matter how much I wish I were.

Was she sleepwalking?

It’s not that I don’t want Cassie to know I sleepwalked again; it’s that I don’t want her to worry about it. To worry about me more than she already does.

A person lurking in the dark.

I finally identify the weight hanging from me. It’s a secret. And I know Cassie must have one too.

Lenora

Cassie and me

Wait I thought Cassie was the narrator this chapter. This makes it sound like Lenora is narrating maybe it's a mistake

A coin.

Neither of us was hiding. We were just one person the whole time. And I don’t know what made us split apart, but whatever it was must have been against nature. Peeling us away from each other against our will, cell by cell, forcefully, sadistically.

And maybe the last time I really knew what Lenora was thinking was when she was me.

Lenora was in the woods. Lenora was in the woods. Lenora was in the woods. Tilly is still in the woods.

It goes against every protective instinct I have to pull them to the surface. To think about all the things my sister did. When I do that, sometimes the bad overwhelms the good. And I hate that feeling. Especially when none of this is her fault.

Cassie

Tilly was hurt that night, and what do hurt, rebellious teenagers do? They run.

Lenora

This is not a girl lost in the woods. This is a girl who gets away.

You’re hyper fixating, Lenora. Why do you think you do this, Lenora? You can’t go down this rabbit hole again, Lenora.

Tilly isn’t out there, and she definitely isn’t dead. Tilly is free.