Always Summer (3 page)

Sally.

Just
don’t... don’t touch me... only she can touch me, so just fuck off!

Summer.

The police
are here now... the paramedics too.
 
They
are trying to get me to stand away from Sally, and they are trying to touch
her, but she is behaving all feral... she is actually snarling at them!

A female
police officer... um... maybe... she has a badge on her dressy pants like the
cops have on their uniforms, but she isn’t dressed like a police officer.
 
She is telling the other cops to leave, and
they do.
 
She is dragging a female
paramedic in by the arm.
 
I am watching
them, and I am looking at them with what I hope is dangerous eyes.
 
I want them to be careful, because right now,
I am getting pretty sick of people trying to get my sister to stop feeling like
she does... if they knew what happened, maybe they’d leave her alone and give
her some space.

“She can’t
help it!” I shout at the lady officer.

“We’re
trying to help.” She says, “My name is Kerry.” She offers her hand and I look
at it, but I don’t touch it.

“Are you a
cop?” I ask.

“Yes, I’m a
detective.” She says.
 
She says it
nicely, and she is pretty, not like Marjorie... and all of a sudden I’m
wondering where Marjorie is.

“Where is
Marjorie?” Sal asks, muffled because her face is in her hands... she must be
wondering too.

“Marjorie?” the detective questions.

A male cop
is standing at the door warding off other people.
 
He turns his head.
 
“The female passed out in the living room,
Detective Hunter.” He explains, before turning his face away again.

Kerry looks
at me, kindly.
 
She watches as I pass my
hands over Sal’s hair.
 
Sal’s arm is now
protectively wrapped around my waist as I kneel over her.

“Is
Marjorie your mother?” she asks.

“Humph...”
Sal releases a grunt, “she gave birth to us, but that’s it... she’s a whore!”
Sal spits out her answer.
 
And then she
does spit, really spit...
 
a huge gob of
spit on the man whore, who I now know is dead, beside her.
 

“This is
her latest fuck buddy.” She sneers.
 
I
haven’t ever heard her speak like this before, although the word fuck isn’t new
to me... Marjorie says it all the time.

“Okay, I’m
going to leave you two here for a minute, but I need to get you out of this
room when I get back.
 
If you can, please
try to walk away yourself.” She says.
 
She puts her blue gloved hands onto her knees and pushes up.

Walking
over to the female paramedic, she talks quietly to her.
 
I’m scared she is talking meanly about Sal; I
seriously don’t think she understands what has happened here, and where does
she expect us to go?
 
This is our
room.
 
They should be taking him
away!
 
I want to shout at them... I want
them to understand... so I stand up abruptly to tell this Kerry what she needs
to hear.

“That guy
hurt Sally...” I begin shouting, and pointing at him, “he pulled her pants down
and hurt her... and she didn’t want to; and he made her bleed... a lot!” Sal
was trying to pull me back down, but I was slippery and determined.
 
The detective lady was looking at me with
sadness.
 
I still didn’t understand why
she wouldn’t take him and leave us entirely alone, so I added
(pulling my shirt open for emphasis)
,
“and he was going to do it to me too, so Sally stopped him.
 
You should leave now...” I say, beginning to
settle back down, but instead standing up abruptly again to request, “But make
sure you take that piece of shit with you, he isn’t allowed in our room.” I
finish; Marjorie swears frequently.

Sally
sighs, a big defeated sigh.
 
“Sit down
chicken, and stop talking!” she croaks.

“But I’m
trying to help Sal... I love you!” I reason.
 
She begins wailing all over again.

Sally.

The lady
detective and paramedic are actually really nice.
 
I don’t have to give a statement, not yet
anyway; and they are going to let me take
Summer
with
me to the hospital, she’s riding with me in the ambulance.
 
The detective, Kerry, has told me that I
don’t have to talk to Marjorie.
 
I told
her I don’t ever want to see her again.
 
She had nodded.
 
The stretcher is
here.
 
There are only girls in the room
right now, apart from the asshole lying dead on the floor.
 
I get on the stretcher, still naked from the
waist down.
 
They cover me with a sheet
and strap me in.
 
Summer is holding onto
my hand, and even though we are going to go down stairs she has told them that
she will not let go.

Summer.

We were
really lucky with our foster care parents.
 
I mean, everyone hears the bad stories about the foster care
system.
 
I knew kids were frequently
separated, abused and neglected.
 
But this
wasn’t our experience.
 
Max and Debbie
were awesome!
 
It helped that the social
services chick was actually a friend of Debbie’s, and that she’d successfully
convinced them to take us in.

I didn’t
see Sally for three months after that first night at the hospital.
 
She had to have surgery, and although I
stayed until she came out, so I could say good bye and tell her I loved her; I
wasn’t allowed to stay there.
 
We kept in
touch via telephone, while she recovered.
 

Apart from
Sally’s hospitalization, she needed lots of intense therapy.

I was
living with Max and Debbie for almost two and a half months before Sally finally
joined us.
 
Although it wasn’t all fun
and games throughout that first year, Debbie and Max were determined people,
and slowly we made it through.
 

*

I had
recently completed the 8th grade at Northport Middle School, and summer break
started two days ago.
 
I was 14 on the
11th May, so of course, I knew everything!
 

Sally, now
18, was already preparing for college, since she wanted to be a nurse.
 
Her boyfriend Henry was also going to
college.
 
He wanted to be a radiologist;
so obviously, they were both into the health sciences and all that.
 
They were both going to be heading to
Columbia University, which is a great school.
 
Sally got a part scholarship, and she and Henry were going to be moving
in together, although I didn’t know how they were affording to do that; but
Sally’s smart, I was sure she had it all figured out.
 
Max and Debbie had offered them both help
too.
 

Apparently,
Sally and Henry were off to get some stupid blood tests today, to check on
their immunity levels and so forth.
 
It
was important in their fields to have their immunizations up to date, in order
to reduce the chances of getting infectious blood born diseases from other
people... you know, hepatitis and stuff.

Max and
Debbie have two grown up children, both of them lived in Manhattan.
 
They’re both girls too, so Max and Debbie
knew girls!
 
Max worked as an accountant
(boring), and Debbie was his secretary, however, she stayed home to be a
domestic goddess (her words) once we came to live with them.
 
It worked out okay, Max was in partnership in
a large firm, and he took care of some pretty big clients, so financially we
were okay, but it wasn’t like we went from poverty to rolling in riches either,
they liked to teach us the value of a dollar... we earned our pocket money.

What was
really nice though, was once Sally turned 18; Debbie and Max informed her she
was still their responsibility.
 
Unlike
those horror stories where foster kids got tossed out of home after 18, but
then, Debbie and Max had always introduced us as their nieces... we weren’t
foster kids in their eyes... we were family.

I had my
own room, and I shared an ensuite with Sally.
 
Sally and I were still tight, very tight!
 
We were more like friends than sisters.
 
We shared pretty much everything; at least I
did.
 
She had tough times sometimes, but
she shared those times with her psychiatrist.
 
Those times came and went, but mostly they were gone now.

*

It’s
Monday, and I’m meeting some friends of mine today, Blake and Julie.

Current
speculation amongst our year group is that Blake is gay, and that he just
doesn’t recognize it fully yet.
 
The
three of us have been joking about it for the past 6 months, he jokes about it
too, playing it up to us.
 
But Blake and
I hang out more often than the three of us, since Julie and Blake don’t always
see eye to eye, being twins and all that.
 
Plus, Blake and I have more in common than Julie and I, since we share a
love of English literature and music.

Last year,
I was reading through interviews on the internet, with
Dave Grohl
, front man for the
Foo
Fighters
(yes, I am one of those totally freaky fans!), and I came across
quite a lot of references to an Australian radio station.
 
I was intrigued, so I looked them up, began
streaming them live over the internet, and became a fan of
Triple J
; an Australian national youth radio station that had
seriously cool music... indie, alternative, hip hop and different to all the
pop shit playing on the stations around here.
 
I like different.
 
So, at home, I
listen to them, although their breakfast programs are at night and vice
versa... I mean we are on opposite sides of the globe.
 
I stream them on my iPhone too, and listen to
them frequently.
 

Blake
listens to them too now, and so together we detest the crappy pop music radio
bullshit. We like to think we have good taste in music.
 
We like to be different from everyone else at
school, including Julie.
 
Did I mention
we like being different?

Julie and
Blake are hilarious!
 
They fight over all
sorts of stupid things, and yet they have a close friendship that is palpable.
Their parents are old, like my foster parents; but they’re their real
parents.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Austen got married
early, but they went and established their careers first before starting a family.
 
Then, they couldn’t have a baby for years,
despite trying... and then they did IVF.
 
IVF didn’t work for the first 6 goes... but in the end, they had twins,
a boy and a girl (or two girls, since Blake is apparently like a girl... I’m
still not convinced, although everyone else appears to be sure).

*

I rushed
into Sally’s room to go through her clothes.
 
Since she and I are the same size, despite my height.
 
I’m half a head taller than her, so despite
her clothing fitting me perfectly (and vice versa), I look skinnier.
 
At 5ft 8in, I could just see over her 5ft 5in
frame.
 
She looks healthier, more
athletic than me, but I liked having the height over her, and we still got to
share clothes.

Recently, I
had been eyeing off her bras.
 
She had
some really pretty lacy bras she had been buying for herself.
 
I was wondering whether they’d fit me, so I
decided to check them out.
 
However,
while looking through her bra draw, beside her bed – I found a box of condoms…
Pleasuremax
… to
fit…

 
“Eww…” I flinched back, dropping the box on
the bed.
 
I did NOT need or want to know
the size of Henry’s dick.
 
In fact, now
that I thought about it, I didn’t want those bras after all.
 
Knowing Henry had been eyeing Sally in those
bras, touching her and… eww… entirely too much for me to process.

“What are
you doing in here?” Debbie asked from the door.

“I was
thinking of pilfering a bra, but then I found these.” I stated, boldly holding
out the condoms, and giving Debbie a disgusted glance.

“I think
that’s a draw you should avoid at all costs.” Debbie said, coming in, grabbing
the condoms and shoving them back into the draw before I could comment further,
“Your sister should be allowed to have some privacy.” She chuckled, steering me
towards the door.