Most older siblings are supposed to pave the way for those who follow. My sister is not most older siblings. One, she’s loud. Everything is done at full volume. If you ask her to quiet down, she just becomes louder. My siblings and I were constantly jolted awake from the screaming wars my sister and parents had at 2:00 a.m. over her actions, grades, and friends. Two, she has no shame. When you are embarrassed by something my sister does and ask her to stop, she just does it even more obviously. Three, my sister and I look so much alike that we are often mistaken for twins. When I was younger, each time it happened, I found myself striving to be like her. She had so many friends, boys, cool clothes and crazy stories. I was the quiet bookworm, and she was the girl with "the reputation."
The path that my sister paved for my other two siblings and me just made it harder for us to step out of line. I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall alone with my friends until I was a junior in high school. My sister had instilled too many fears of shoplifting and drug dealing into my parents’ heads, so they couldn’t help but keep the rest of their “perfect” children on tight leashes. We were their only hope in restoring the family’s reputation.
It was her “I-do-what-I-want” attitude that started the trouble. It started off small. She’d break curfew every once in a while, and received zeros in class for not doing her homework. Then, it escalated. She failed a course, hung out with the wrong crowd, and disobeyed everything she could.
At first, I didn’t see any of the bad things she did. She was my older sister, and I wanted to be like her. In my mind, I wanted to be the next Nikki C. I would twist her wrongdoings into something I could aim for. If she was late to curfew, I made up scenarios of good deeds she had done that made her late. Maybe her friend’s boyfriend broke-up with her and needed comforting. When her friend asked her if she could stay, she said yes. The more likely scenario was that my sister was the girl her friend’s boyfriend cheated on her with, and now he was leaving her for my sister, and they got in a screaming fight that my sister won, her loud voice overpowering.
I always took her side of things. When her friends would get mad, I would agree that it was they who were being distant, spending too much time on school work in their honors classes, while my sister tried to coast by in all CPs. I ignored the fact that she would ditch all her friends to get high in the high school parking lot, and drink in the woods on private property in our small town. I spent my weeknights trying to coax her away from her balcony railing and the roof of my garage, convincing her that the boy she was going to meet up with didn’t treat her right, to stay here and talk with me instead. My other friends spent their nights reading "Macbeth" and playing Scrabble with their families.
It wasn’t until I had my first boyfriend during my sophomore year of high school that I realized how much like her I had become. I would lash out at him and say I was going to leave him for his best friends. I would be smiling and in love one minute, but the next - wanting to stay away and not talk because I found him annoying and embarrassing. I acted out for attention, and our relationship suffered. I didn’t want to inherit the bad things from my sister. I looked for the good. It wasn’t until I found myself feeling alone than I realized that I had created the good.
The party was the turning point.
I was starting to feel it. Trying to keep my eyes steady, and my knees from wobbling, I followed my sister as she wound through campus and side streets. Keeping my hands clutched around the water bottle full of rum and soda that she gave me, we trampled the untouched snow, it instantly melting on the warm, bare skin of my legs. “Don’t be the prude girl who wears spandex underneath her outfit to the party,” I heard my sister’s voice in my head as I tugged at the hem of my too tight, too short, borrowed dress.
I squeezed my eyes, hoping it would help fix my blurred vision. My mouth was dry, and tasted of stale spice and flat Diet Coke. I shook my water bottle to see if it fizzed. The light brown sloshed against the clear walls and I could hear the tingling I felt in my palm. I gripped the bottle tighter. My sister’s eyes rolled into her eyebrows as she clawed at my arm and dragged me up the four front steps of a corner house. She talked through the screen to the boy who answered the door, as a drug deal between two hooded figures standing next to an old dirty Toyota happened effortlessly three houses down.
My sister jabbed her head towards me standing next to her on the step, and a tall boy with a muscular jawline wearing a Springfield College Wrestling sweatshirt, followed my body with his calm eyes up and down twice, stopping at the hem of my dress and the half unzipped neckline. “Stop being such a high schooler and unzip this. Tonight you need to look older than you are, like you’re eighteen, not sixteen,” I heard my sister’s voice again, us standing in front of her dorm room mirror. “Show them what they want; they might be college boys, but that doesn’t mean they’re smart. Get a few beers in them and they’ll be unzipping it themselves.”
The foyer reeked of sweat-stained t-shirts and cheap beer. My sister wove me through the crowd of people with two fingers on my wrist, stopping at a shut door. She opened it without knocking and led me down a flight of cement stairs. House music was blaring and the only lights came from a flashing strobe on the DJ’s folding table.
Left to stand against a graffiti-covered wall, I scanned the crowd. Surrounding me was the dance floor filled with people grinding to the music. The flashing lights sent my head whirling, and I uncapped my water bottle and finished its contents. My sister returned with a teal plastic cup. “This is yours for the night,” she said as she handed it to me. “Lose it and you don’t get to drink.” “Also,” she added, “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She turned and disappeared up the stairs, a ray of light illuminating the walls quickly, before the door shut again, returning the room into darkness.
Three minutes passed before I felt the graze of a warm hand across the small of my back. The same boy who answered the door now had two hands wrapped around my waist. “Hey, Nikki’s sister,” he whispered in my ear.
“Hey,” I answered, my voice sounding like it was caught in the back of my throat.
“Wanna dance?” he asked, as he spun me around to face him.
“I’m gonna get a drink first,” I said as I clung onto my plastic cup. On my way to the keg, I heard two male voices calling my sister’s name. I soon realized that they were calling me. I walked over and got the greeting, “What’s up, Nikki C?”
“Actually, I’m her sister,” I replied.
I was unsure what to do in the situation my sister had put me in. I found myself with two options, either to be who she wanted me to be, or to turn and run in the other direction. “There’s no way you aren’t Nikki; you look and sound exactly like her!” one of the boys said. I thought I recognized him from the gymnastics team.
“Well, we’re a lot alike in some ways,” I answered without thinking, “I’m eighteen and people say I’m going to be just like her in college.” I had chosen my path.
“Dude, no way, you’re definitely Nikki the way you’re talking right now.” Looking past my head, locking eyes with someone behind me he said, “Do me a favor and shout, 'Jason!'”
“JASON!” I yelled with a slight Boston accent, just like my sister. Two oversized hands found my waist again. “You called for me?” He was behind me again, his voice just as calm as his eyes when he had looked me up and down. I felt as though his big hands were wringing out every breath I had stored in my lungs. “You wanna get out of here? Maybe go to my car?” He started pulling me towards the bulkhead. I self-consciously pulled at my dress, regretting my choice, trying to plan an escape route. But I was alone. The four cement walls entrapped me, and I realized I had never had a choice. There was nowhere to run. My sister had made the choice for me.
I stumbled outside to the backyard, his hand now forceful on my back. I focused on putting one foot in front at a time, all while trying to sort through whirling thoughts, grabbing onto any images of street signs or campus buildings I could remember. His hand was on the handle of a dark SUV, his finger on the unlock button of his keys, when I felt an arm pull me away. “Kristina, you need to come with me.” I focused my eyes enough to make out blonde hair and a sparkly pink top. It was my sister’s roommate. “Nikki’s throwing up and we need to take her home.” She tugged me behind her, pulling me back towards the house. As we rounded the fence she called back over her shoulder, “And Jason you’re a pig; she’s just a kid!”
I waited crouched against the fence as she went inside to collect my sister. A few minutes later, they both emerged, my sister stumbling behind, her hair stuck to her back from sweat, mascara lines in streams down her face. The walk back to campus felt long, my sister’s roommate and I both supporting her on either side through the trampled snow. When we got back to the dorm, we force-fed her a water bottle and tucked her into bed fully clothed. The next morning as I gathered my things without trying to wake anyone, my sister rolled over in her bed to face me. “How’d it feel to be Nikki C for the night?” she asked, her words still slurred.
“I’m going to stick to being me,” I answered, and shut the door behind me.
Once I decided to stop being my sister, to find myself and be who I am, she started following my example. She stopped partying, and rekindled old friendships. She started dating a guy named Dave, and he’s the best thing that could have happened to her. He keeps her grounded, all the while staying grounded himself, and understands and deals with every personality swing she has. Three years later, my sister is a different person, and I like to think I’m partly the reason. Now instead of drinking beers in the woods with her outcast friends, she and I go for summer night rides and drink milkshakes in the Sonic parking lot. We give each other advice, and stay up all night gossiping, watching romantic comedies and reading Seventeen Magazine.
Overcoming all the wrong decisions she made, my sister figured out what she wanted to do with her life. Children have always been drawn to her. Her wide, toothy smile and easy-going manner is something they would chase after. In college, she took an education class and fell in love with it. She currently teaches fourth grade, and she is changing those kids' lives everyday. In two months, she will graduate with a Masters in Elementary Education, all while coaching a sport she loves along the way.
Now I can call my sister my best friend and strive to be like her. No bullshit, no games, no making excuses. That morning after, I took a stand and never looked back to see if she was following behind me. Three years later, we are both thankful that she did.
