35 | Prem

I’m not sure why Kiki finally decided to tell everything. Maybe she needed all those people around her to soak up the hurt she felt. Or maybe she just got tired of carrying it around inside her for so long. She thinks these people she’s living with are special. She never gets annoyed even though she’s with them all the time, day and night. And she’s much nicer about sharing the bathroom with them than she ever was with me. But as far as I can see, they’re just like everyone else: they still worry about fitting in with the group, and the guys still fart in their sleep.

Kiki doesn’t really seem like the sister I knew. I’m not sure I like this new person, but the truth is, everybody else in the world keeps growing and changing while I stay the same. I don’t know how I would have changed during the past six years if I was still alive. Maybe I’d have glasses, or braces, or I’d even be publishing my first graphic novel now. This makes my family the saddest, when they think about all the what-ifs and how I would have turned out. They imagine only the best things happening to me, and feel cheated.

But as I watch my friends grow up, I know it might not have turned out all good for me. I could be like Tommy, who punched a hole in the wall and got sent away to military school. Or Brendan, whose parents yell at him every time he gets a B, so he chews his fingernails until they bleed. Or I could just be like everyone else my age, embarrassed about my pimples and nervous around girls, and frustrated when no one understands what it’s like to be me. It’s not right for my family to play the what-if game, so I don’t either.

Even though I don’t grow any older, I watch everyone else and I’ve learned a lot. Dad still thinks of me as being eight years old, and Mom looks for me everywhere. Karina was growing me in her mind for a while but now she’s stopped.

I don’t get what’s so important about growing up anyway. All that worry and work. Maybe I’m kind of lucky I get to stay my favorite age forever.

I try to imagine how we would all be together as a family if I hadn’t gone swimming that day. The thing I loved best about my family was the togetherness. Like the time we went to a drive-in movie for an old-fashioned experience (according to Dad). The radio was crackly, and Kiki and I were fighting over the pillows in the back seat, and I spilled vanilla milkshake all over myself and was sticky the rest of the night. All those things went wrong and we still had so much fun. I remember laughing at the movie and resting my head on Kiki’s shoulder when I got tired, and Dad carrying me out of the car and up to my bed. Those times the four of us were together, that’s what I miss the most.