The Missing Half

by Ashley Flowers

But more than that, I learned years ago that numbness is better than pain. I’ve been not talking for so long, I’m not sure I’d even know how to start.

My fingers tighten around my bike handles. Most people’s reaction when they’re confronted is fight or flight. I freeze. And I hate myself for it.

People thinking they can empathize with my pain because they listened to a fifty-five-minute episode about it once.

This is why I didn’t want to talk about the past. My emotions get too heavy to hold.

There was a look of fear in Kasey’s eyes when she told me to be careful that night. For some reason, late that summer, my sister was scared.

Patience, as people have told me throughout my entire life, is not my strong suit.

“Does the name Steve McLean mean anything to you?” For a moment, he’s so still, I’m not sure he’s heard me.

It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve seen his cheerful façade drop. It’s the most I’ve liked him in years.

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.

They didn’t seem to understand that everybody’s an idiot when they’re a teenager. Most people just have the good luck to stay alive long enough to grow out of it.”

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