The Missing Half

by Ashley Flowers

But the swampland was deceiving at night,

She thought about the way it felt to make her sister smile and realized that even if she was caught tonight, at least she’d lived a life with some small, happy moments.

There’s something off about the gesture that makes me think she’s nervous, like a bad PI going for casual.

People are always taking care of me—Brad, my lawyer, my probation officer—but they seem to do it more out of obligation than affection. I haven’t experienced Jenna’s kind of generosity since before Kasey went missing.

I can feel his gaze on my face, my neck, my mouth. It makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.

“God, the world can be so fucked up. Here our sisters were murdered all because they were women, alone on the road at night. Then this asshole is groping girls in a back alley and he still gets his name on a goddam plaque.”

“Meanwhile, the media literally commodify Jules and Kasey for being young women who died.”

When the police came to us for a photo, they told us to choose one that didn’t have much significance, because by the time everything was over, we’d never be able to look at it in the same way again. But we had no idea how much the media would fabricate Kasey’s entire personality based on one fucking picture of her.

I’ve never said this much to anyone before, not to my parents or any of my friends, not to Brad or Sandy. It makes me feel naked, but also lighter too, so I continue.

Two branches of the same tree, two pieces of a soul. Where one sister goes, the other will be, for she is but half of the whole.

Do you remember the picture of her they used? She looks like a girl from no money who grew up to be a bartender, which she was. She wasn’t beautiful like Kasey, she never had braces, she looked like a smoker, which, again, she was. But nobody cares about that girl. Whenever the TV anchors mentioned her, they had this tone—it was so messed up—like they were all surprised Kasey was taken, but Jules, you know, that was kind of to be expected.”

But up close, even I can see an objective sort of attractiveness in his face. He has a sharp jaw, bright blue eyes. I can see how he’s lured women in. But there’s something else just beneath the surface that gives him away, a too-eager glint in his eyes.

I know he’s lying. I can see it in every line on his face. I want to hurl myself across the table at him, use my fingernails as claws.

Despite loathing this man, despite knowing he’s a liar and a misogynist, I don’t believe he’s lying now. He hardly seems to be thinking before he speaks, let alone using artifice.

“She was so feisty, you know? That kind of thing tends to leave an impression.”

Then I spit in his face. Jenna is shoving me toward the door, but just before she turns me around, I see the moment my saliva hits McLean’s skin. His laugh dies in his throat. His eyes turn cold.

My adrenaline slowly fades, leaving shame in its wake.

For the millionth time in my life, I wish I were a different kind of person. A better kind.

So, what do you do now? they ask with amnesiac smiles. These are the people who don’t know what real loss is, don’t understand how it worms into your brain and infects your blood.

They wouldn’t understand how nighttime turns every stranger into a stalker, a predator, someone to both fear and despise. Even now, I’m a hornet’s nest of anxiety, a knife’s slash of pain.

When he talked about Kasey, he was crude, careless, mocking. But when Jenna brought up Jules, he got quiet, and for some reason, this was the reaction that sent a chill up my spine.

A bubble of dread fills my chest. I love my dad, but I don’t love talking to him.

I am my father’s daughter—but his grief is so big and unruly, it leaves no room for me.

Everything inside me drops. Angry tears sting my eyes. I’ve been mad for years, mad at the man who took Kasey, mad at God or the universe or random fucking chance for allowing the person he chose to be my sister.

‘If you have to keep it a secret, it’s probably not a good idea to be doing in the first place.’

She rolls her eyes. “God, sometimes you can have serious little-sister energy.” The words swell inside me, warm and golden.

but I don’t know how to behave in the face of her grief. Probably because I’ve never dealt with my own.

I’ve been just like my dad too: content to hide my wounds from myself so long as it meant I never had to examine the pain. But all that does, I realize now, is make the sores fester and grow.

I can’t keep living like this. I can’t keep avoiding my pain by drinking myself to sleep and hoping someone else will come along and clean up after me. I can’t keep bailing when something starts to get scary.

She wouldn’t tell me she was raped because it would’ve hurt me too much to hear.

Me, me, me, me, me. I want to be angry at them for their lies, but instead I just feel sick. If I’d been better, stronger, more capable, they wouldn’t have felt the need to keep me in the dark.

Too late to wonder what the fuck I’ve gotten myself into.

I am a mess. I am a walking wound, a collection of pain.

“You’re still trying to shelter me. And you know what? I always thought the reason you did everything for me when I was younger was because I couldn’t take care of myself. But it’s the other way around, isn’t it? I couldn’t take care of myself because you did everything for me.”

“You’re the reason I’m like this. You’re the reason I’m such a fuckup, because you babied me and then you abandoned me.”

sisterhood is knowing someone fully and loving them anyway.

Two branches of the same tree, two pieces of a soul. Where one sister goes, the other will be, for she is but half of the whole.