When She Was Me

by Marlee Bush

Cassie has a theory that we were the same person in our mother’s womb until some unseen force broke us apart. But I don’t buy in to that. In my eyes, Cassie and I were always separate. She was the thriving one. The one our parents looked at with smiles on their faces. She was the one they wanted and planned for. I was always the one behind Cassie. So dim that no one could see me past her shine. The one without a purpose. So small, I was whisked to the NICU as soon as I was born.

Lenora

“Probably found something of hers,” Sarah murmurs. “If you ask me, I think she ran away.”

I’m in the hallway of our childhood home.

Is Lenora dreaming here?

I shake my head of the thoughts, the memories, and I search for her in the haze, allowing her to untangle me.

Lenora was daydreaming, a memory

“I think she got away when I never could.”

Lenora about Tilly

She doesn’t know that coming here wasn’t a choice. It was the only way we could save ourselves.

Lenora

“It’s Tilly,” Cassie says. “She’s dead.”

I swat mosquitos away every few seconds, and somehow, I’m still covered in bites.

Narrator?

You should be here with me.

Who is you? Which sister?

I’m determined not to define you by your past mistakes, but at the same time, how can I protect you if I don’t expect the worst?

Is this Cassie narrating here?

She’s been taking on more shifts at the hospital since Dad left.

So their Dad left? He wasn't killed?

My heart pounds in my chest as I think of the last time I saw you with a girl. What that led to. It’s not about her or the fact you’ve made a new friend. It’s that I don’t know if you can handle this.

“You’re late,” I say, unable to hide the vulnerability creeping into my voice.

Hmm though this seems like Lenora since she doesn't go out

The gentle wave to your long brown hair. The glint that usually lingers in your eyes but is gone in this moment. You are killing me, and you don’t even care.

Lenora? She has long hair in the present day

His arms are still wrapped around you. I haven’t missed this man at all, but you have.

Hmm okay I think Cassie is narrating here - we already know Lenora loves their dad and the narrator here doesn't seem to care

And you, you’re just a breakable egg. Dad cracks you without remorse over and over. You let him, and I can’t stop it.

Our bathroom, like our bedroom, is decorated in your photos.

Didn't Lenora have a camera in the present day?

“It does sound like Mom is getting murdered.”

Eugh

When my mother was baptized, she was reborn a hypocrite.

I only see what I did to help you. Me. No one else. And really, isn’t that what friendship is? Everything we are.

Possibly Cassie saying this?

Dad will take care of himself. You will do something you shouldn’t. And then I’ll do something even worse.

A dream. It was all a dream. I was sleepwalking, and no one was out there with me. They couldn’t have been.

Lenora

But how can I tell her that I’m afraid? How can I tell her that it feels like I’m watching my body from the third person, and sometimes I don’t know what’s real or what isn’t? How can I say I’m a good person? I know I am. Even when I don’t feel like it.

L

There’s someone with me. A person in the woods. But it’s all so blurry. And I’m so tired.

L's memory?

When the detectives introduce themselves as Detective Eubanks and Detective Harrison,

When I think of my past, it all comes back to one night. The night Dad died.

Karen

Tilly's mother

It’s not until she’s gone that I finally place the look on her face, and my heart feels like it might pump right out of my chest. Guilt.

She knows I’m not brave or stupid enough to switch places.

Lenora about Cassie

“Rob.”

Tilly's father

But no one ever warned me about the dangers of my own thoughts. No one ever told me that there could come a time when trusting myself would be difficult and hating myself would be easy. What to do when the monster is you.

Quote? Lenora

“I thought so, with your short hair, but…”

Cassie has short hair

I also know one of her secrets. Her relationship with her mother.

Okay but Lenora had one interaction with her, she is kind of stalkerish

That first day was the first we’d been placed in different classes. Lenora was sitting alone at the lunch table, looking like she’d been crying.

The bang of that boy’s head against the table.

Did Lenora smash that boy's head on the lunch table?

“You think Karen and Robert brought her here to kill her?”

Cassie

A memento of this moment will surely mean more to me than those stubs do to her.

Both sisters are very odd

But how could I put them before Lenora?

Death has objectified her.

“You’re apologizing because of what happened to me?”

I think their mom killed their father...unless it was one of the twins

A person we’re running from. A person who finally caught up to us.

Their mother?

Our mother. Even if she’s not here, it’s her fault anyway.

Reality is a fickle thing. My reality is of a mother who wasn’t unkind. She yelled sometimes and could be slightly aloof, but she wasn’t a bad mom. Not until that night.

Cass

You were obsessed with him.

So L has a pattern of being obsessive

She’s one person. And every time I put her back together, it’s not that the pieces aren’t fitting; it’s more that I don’t like the picture she makes.

C about L

I know Lenora. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. But the words are hollow even in my head, where the sound of that boy’s head slamming against the lunch table still reverberates. I guess Lenora isn’t the only one who lies.

He only smiles and turns back to his task. “You’ll always be my baby doll.”

To bash my head against the wall. Bash his head against the wall. Because after he left last summer, that’s when it all fell apart. That’s when you did what you did.

Monica,”

The friend that the narrator's sister has in the "Then" chapters

And I want to strangle her. Pick her up off the ground by the neck. Slam her into table four’s all-day breakfast special.

Hmmm so that sounds like L