"Do you ever think about it?"
I turn my head and see Alice lying beside me on the quilted blanket our grandma had given us for Christmas.
"Think about what?" I ask her, my shoulder softly pressing into hers as we lay here looking up at the starts over our heads.
In the distance crickets are chirping and the light rustling of the leaves in the wind whispers through the clearing around us.
We sneak out here every evening after our parents have gone to bed and assume we are tucked away in our own rooms as well.
It's a summer tradition.
Star gazing with my sister.
We wait night after night, eyes glued to the sky looking for a shooting star.
"What it would be like if we really saw one." She says. Her voice is low, controlled. Like it always is when she's taking her pills. She sounds like her words take her a little longer to peel from her consciousness and place out of her mouth.
A stark difference from when she isn't taking them.
The words come fast and loud. Like the firing of an automatic weapon. Her words spring free and wild and strike.
I chance another look away from the sky to glance at Alice.
I find her already looking at me.
"Isn't that what you want?" I ask her, pulling my brows together as the corners of her lips turn down.
"Maybe." She whispers. "What if I don't like myself when I'm fixed?"
"Do you like yourself now?" I touch the tips of my fingers to hers, trying to show I don't mean any harm in the question.
She slowly rolls her head away, looking back up at the sky. I watch as she blinks and one fat tear slips from the corner of her eye, leaving a shiny trail of sadness down her cheek and neck.
"I know myself." She tells me. "I won't know a different me."
Her hand reaches for mine in the dark, her fingers lacing tightly between mine. She squeezes so hard my hand hurts but I let her hold onto me.
Yesterday had been so bad.
My cheek still stings from the cut across my face I got when she threw her fish bowl against the wall and a piece of the glass flew towards me, slicing my flesh.
I can still feel the way that warm blood oozed and spread.
I can still hear Alice screaming.
"They won't stop telling me to do things!" She'd said when our father ran into the room. "They aren't normal!"
"You're not normal!" My father had shouted back, looking between my bleeding face and Alice's wild eyes.
Alice froze in her spot.
Her arms went slack at her sides and her head slumped slightly to the side. She blinked hard, staring at our father.
Mom had rushed over, grabbing hold of Alice and tucking her against her side. "He didn't mean that." She whispered to Alice, but I looked at my dad.
He was looking at Alice like he was afraid of her.
I can admit I sometimes felt that way too.
When I'd hear her voice in the bedroom next to mine getting louder and louder. The agitation in her becoming more and more apparent.
I'd feel my own heart start to race just a little faster when I'd hear her bedroom door creak open in the middle of the night.
