Lost, Broken and Shattered

Erinyes looks over at her twin sister Daenerys; her hair bounces gently as she taps her foot in time with the music blasting from her crappy earbuds. Scoffing in annoyance, she tucks a strand of her dyed platinum-blonde hair behind her ear. It took all of her willpower not to launch herself at the mentally unstable teen sitting beside her. If it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t have had to leave their home-state of Michigan to stay with their father in California. Then again, if she had just left Daenerys when she still had the chance, before she had gotten caught, then she wouldn’t have been wrongly accused of participating in her twin’s antics. However even though Erin often despised her twin, she still felt obliged to look out for her.

“You don’t need to keep acting like you care, Erin,” Daenerys had said, taking a hit and blowing the awful-smelling smoke back into her face. “I don’t need your help,” she added as Erin tried to keep herself from coughing.

But as far as Erin was concerned, Daenerys did need her help. She was always doing stupid things that could get her killed. Like six-months ago, when she accidently took too many sleeping pills; or when she accidently stayed underwater for too long at the lake last summer; or when she found the gun their mother kept for emergencies, and somehow managed to shoot herself in the shoulder, just barely missing her lung. If Erin hadn’t been there all those times, then she was sure to have died.

Funny, though, Erinyes thought, that Dad barely seemed to care when Mom told him. He seemed to have simply just brushed it off, as if it wasn’t his problem; as if he didn’t care.

Now, he had no choice but to care – that is, if he ever showed up. The girls have been sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chairs of the LAX airport for the last half-hour. Erin adjusts herself into a rather awkward, yet more comfortable position, without breaking away from her Samsung Galaxy S-V – the one she had begged her mother and father for weeks for, only for it to show up on their front doorstep the morning after they – no, Daenerys had been caught. She was just thankful that her mother had decided to let her keep it – shortly after Erin’s Samsung Galaxy S-IV had mysteriously shattered.

Erinyes laughs lightly at a text she receives from her best friend, Payton. The two had been best friends since kindergarten; they had never not gone to the same school together, and now that Erin would be completing her junior year at some prestigious private school in Huntington Beach, it was going to be, to put it quite simply, hard for both girls. She hated that she had to be the one who suffered for Daenerys’ mistakes. It wasn’t fair.

Just then, she happens to look up, to see their father walking swiftly towards them. She plasters a big, toothy smile on her face and forces a squeal of delight, hoping that if she kept this “goody-two-shoes/daddy’s girl” act up, that she’s spent years perfecting, then she is hoping she might be able to return to Michigan in time for second-semester.

She jumps up and runs over to him and throws her arms around his waist. He returns her hug hesitantly, which isn’t a good sign to Erin.

When she pulls away, she notices he is staring down at Daenerys, disappointment in his eyes. She avoids his gaze, instead staring down at the frayed ends of her Of Mice & Men shirt, scuffing at the floor with her Converse. He sighs and runs a hand down his face, before picking up the girls’ bags, silently indicating for them to follow.

The car ride to their father’s house is silent, except for once when Zack had to tell Daenerys to turn down her music, only for her to deify him and turn it up even louder, to which Erin didn’t hesitate to turn the car radio onto the local Top 40 station. This causes Zack to roll his eyes in annoyance, though he doesn’t do anything about it.

As soon as they get to the massive house their father has been living in for the past seven-and-a-half years, Daenerys makes a b-line for her bedroom. The door slams loudly, indicating that she had found it, and that she clearly had no intention of coming out anytime soon. Zack sighs again, turning to Erinyes, who decides to take the opportunity her sister’s absence provided.

She follows her father into the kitchen like a lost puppy, jumping up onto one of the stools by the counter. She watches in silence as he gets a beer out of the fridge and sets it on the island just out of reach from Erin.

“Why am I here?” she finally asks, having gathered up enough courage to do so; deciding that it was either now or never. He looks up at her, his jaded-green eyes meeting her crystal-blue ones. “It’s not like I did anything wrong.”

“I know, Erin,” he says, shocking her slightly. She had half expected him to claim that she was lying; that it was clear she had done it as well, since she had been there. That she had given into “peer pressure”. “I know you would never do something like that.”

“Then why am I here?” she asks again and he shakes his head, taking a drink.

“Because,” he states matter-of-factly, “you’re here for your sister. You’re here to provide moral support, so she won’t have to go through her time here alone.”

“But… But that’s not fair!” she exclaims, her voice cracking and tears filling her eyes. “Just because Daenerys was being stupid and I happened to have been there, doesn’t mean I should have to share her punishment!”

“Calm down, Erin…” he tells her calmly, but she blatantly ignores him.

“I had to leave my entire life behind because of her! All my friends, Mom, my school, Josh… everything!”

“Who’s Josh?”

“And what is she leaving behind?” she continues, ignoring her father’s question, not wanting to get into the details of her love life with her father. “Nothing! She doesn’t have any friends. She hates Mom. She hates her school. She hates Michigan. Hell, the only thing she hasn’t left behind that she hates is me!”

“Okay, first of all, calm down,” Zack commands, raising his voice above her. “I understand that you’re upset, but your sister needs you –”

“No she doesn’t!” she all but screams “Do you know how many times she’s told me she doesn’t need me?”

“Erinyes!” She jumps, knowing her father only ever used her full name when he was really angry. “I don’t care how many times your sister claims she doesn’t need you, but you and I both know that isn’t true. She needs you now more than ever – you’re her sister, and quite possibly the only one she’ll ever have. Now, I understand how much it might suck to leave everything behind, but your mother and I did say that, at the very least, you would be returning to Michigan before senior year starts.

“Second, who the hell is Josh?”

With that, she jumps off the bar stool, turning completely away from him. “He’s no one, Dad,” she calls over her shoulder, running off.

Notes