The Shadow Between Us

I appeared to be in a room with that gut feeling that something was wrong. I looked around the room until I saw a boy with a knife in his hand. It looked like he was staring at me but I couldn’t tell because his face was all blurred. That’s when the boy screamed “SKYLAR!”.

I woke up and found Lexi with her long black hair beautifully brushed back as always and emerald green eyes, shaking me, frantically. She stopped once she’d noticed that I had opened my eyes. “Get up, we have school!” she said. She started to walk toward my door as I sat up on my bed. “Ok! Oh my gosh Lexi, why do you have to literally stomp on me every time you wake me up, you stupid bitch?!” I asked, angrily. Turning around she says, “Because it works as always, now quit using that kind of language and get ready!”.

I have got to admit that it was a little annoying to have an older sister that always shakes me like I’m a sack of potatoes to wake me up on school days. And unfortunately for me, I get to see her dumb face every morning. I got up and started toward my closet. I open the closet door and look through some clothes hanging on the dresser. Some of them are clothes that used to fit Lexi.

Lexi was only 4 months older than me but we were still in the same grade. She was a popular girl at our school. I never really understood why anyone would find her popular due to the fact that she has a sour attitude with almost everyone. She is overall a pretty attractive girl while I’m basically looking like a crackhead with messy brunette hair and green eyes, not emerald like Lexi’s though. Just a dull green. On top of that however, I always wear a hoodie with baggy pants to school which never made me look cute or pretty in any way. At least that’s what I believe.

I think that Lexi is only really popular because of the fact that she is on the dance team. But what I find funny is that she’s killing the dance team because she comes up with a bunch of choreography. I overhear people talking about her dance choreographies all the time. She’d perform all of her dances with other dancers at school events.

But still doesn’t excuse her attitude. One thing that normally happens 24/7 is the fact that we fight, sometimes verbally and sometimes physically but always ends up emotionally. I’ve been trying to work on not starting fights with her lately because she’s my sister and I need to have some decency to try having some kind of relationship with her.

After a while of looking, I decided to wear this white long sleeved shirt that has a bunch of butterflies on it. One of Lexi’s old shirts. And some black jeans.

After I finished getting dressed, I headed to the bathroom where I’d find Lexi. When I got there, Lexi had already finished getting ready. She was wearing a black headband with butterflies, a black crop top, and baggy ripped-jeans.

“You know that you could get detention if you wear a crop top, right?” I mentioned.

She turned to me,“Have you seen the girls at the school?

“What about them?”

“They wear crop tops to school and guess what? Nothing happened to them except a ‘Hey, I love that top’ from a teacher.

“Does it matter though? Are you really going to risk getting in trouble by wearing a crop top?”

“Who are you to care?”

“Just saying”.

I said as she rolled her eyes at me and left the bathroom to which I assumed she was ready to grab her things and wait for me to finish getting ready. Ugh, she is so frustrating! This is why I am never certain why she is so popular. She’s always breaking the school rules in some way. But I didn’t want to make things go any farther so I didn’t say anything more. I got my toothbrush and squeezed toothpaste on it.

As I started brushing my teeth, I pulled out my phone and took a look through it. Apparently, SnapChat has a new feature where you can turn your tracker on for friends to see where you’re at and they called it ‘Snap Location’.

That’s interesting, I may have to try it out later. It could also be helpful for my family and friends. I slipped my phone in my back pocket as I finished brushing my teeth.

After I was done, I came up to Lexi with my backpack over my shoulders as she looked up at me. “Took you long enough, Now let’s go before we are late”. Irritated as we walked toward the door, I said “I didn’t even take that long to get ready, that was like 5 minutes”. “Yeah and that’s very long,” she said as we walked out the door. The beautiful dusk of cold wind blew through my hair as she opened the door. “Ugh whatever” I said, trying not to start anything as we started our journey to school.

…

On our walk to school, it was quiet. We’ve never been big on talking when we walk to school but against my better judgement, I got quite bored and tried to make some conversation with her.

“Did you see the new snapchat feature?”. She sighed as if I was asking her what brain cells are. “Yes but I haven’t turned my tracker on yet”.

After she said that, I was surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t she at least let her friends track her or worst of all, why hasn’t she let her boyfriend track her?’ I thought to myself as we passed the gas station near us. She was that type of person to let anyone know where she’s at and what she’s doing.

“What about your boyfriend?” I asked her. She stopped and went silent for which I also stopped. The way she reacted to my question had me rethinking what I just asked her. Just when I thought she wouldn’t respond, she said “Things have just been complicated between us” as she looked at me with tired eyes. I could tell there was something sad behind those tired eyes.

“Sorry if anything happened”, I said. She didn’t say anything and continued walking. I caught along with her. We were silent the rest of the way to school.

Soon, we began to approach the school building. I looked up at the school’s front entrance with a sign that read ‘Ollie Middle School’.