I keep in my closet, behind the costumes, expressly hidden from my eight- and thirteen-year-old sisters.
“That stuff is private,” I continue. “You’re not even supposed to go in my room without me or Marisa there.”
The box holds the items most precious to me, and most private. Because with five younger siblings, my parents, and Tía in the house, I’ve come to expect prying eyes on everything. But there are things I don’t want examined and interrogated. And right now, they’re strewn across my sisters’ floor—a scarf Abuela never finished knitting, a dried flower from our apartment in Brooklyn, a letter from Carolyn after she moved to Ohio sophomore year.
In Callie’s hands is my yearbook from last year, open to Matt’s page-long signature. Anabel drops a red marker onto the floor. It’s painfully obvious what was happening here—Callie was reading my private messages while Anabel was coloring on the pages. Coloring.
Tears well in my eyes. The day Matt returned the signed yearbook to me, I was sitting in the wicker chair on the porch reading Anna Karenina. “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content” is the exact line I’d just read when I glanced up to find Matt walking up the driveway, yearbook in hand and a grin forming that perfect dimple on the left side of his face.
He wore his light gray T-shirt and those scuffed Adidas he’d had since freshman year until I finally prevailed on him a few months ago to get a new pair. Even easygoing, confident Matt’s cheeks had reddened when he handed me the yearbook, which he’d worked on the whole weekend. I read it right then and there, feeling like I’d never be that happy ever again.
It was the first time he said he loved me.
I snatch the yearbook from Callie’s hands. “This isn’t okay, you guys. You can’t just take people’s things and wreck them,” I say, hearing the waver in my voice.
Callie crosses her arms, unperturbed. “Did you have sex with Matt?” she asks.
I’ve learned to recognize the attitude she’s putting on. This is her “teenager” demeanor. I first noticed it—without realizing how prevalent it would become in my life—just days after her thirteenth birthday, when Mom offered to have Callie’s friends over for board games and cupcakes. Callie only rolled her eyes like she was too old for such childish things.
“If you tell on us for going in your room,” Callie says, her voice sharp and bossy, “I’ll tell Mom about the ‘life-changing’ night you and Matt had after prom. He wrote all about it.”
I feel flowers of fury and embarrassment unfurl in my cheeks. Without a word for Callie, I collect the other items my sisters have littered on their floor. Anabel watches with concern and curiosity. It’s just like Callie to drop the S-E-X word with her eight-year-old sister listening. “Touch my things again,” I warn once I’ve returned everything to the box, “and I won’t drive you to the winter carnival.” Callie’s face falls. “In fact, I won’t drive you anywhere. Ever again.”
It’s an empty threat, not that my little sisters know that. Tía and my parents are always forcing me to drive my siblings places. I’m the only one with a license—Marisa’s failed her test twice—and since I’m the oldest, the extra parenting inevitably falls to me. Even with Tía helping out, there’s plenty left over. Playdates of Anabel’s to supervise and pre-algebra problems to correct on Callie’s homework. I’m needed to catch whatever falls through the cracks.
After storming out of their room and into mine, I grab my suitcase from the bed and head for the stairs. I carry the box in my other hand. There’s no way I’m trusting my family with it while I’m gone. With incredible fortune, I dodge Tía as I book it to the front door and into the evening cold.
I don’t like the cold. I don’t like the memories that come with watching those little billows of breath in the air. Or the perpetual gray of the sky, or the way winter turns everyone’s yards brown. Fall is my favorite, not only because of school starting, but for the way the tree in front of our porch bursts into flame. The leaves have long fallen now,