Our Sick Inheritance (editing)

Chapter 9 - Right Before My Eyes

Jake stepped away from Stacy's bathroom convinced nobody was in there hiding behind the shadows. He didn't doubt what he saw, but he couldn't deny that nobody was in the room. Jake turned with his back to the door and looked at what changes his sister had made to her room of growth since he had been home a few months ago. He stood in the middle of Stacy's domain to look at the person she was and was becoming in what seemed like such a short time.

Stacy's collage of pictures had covered almost a full wall of her room and had expanded twice the size as the last time he had seen it. The first few pictures of outfits she had made were taken by him. Jake was happy she kept them so that she couldn't forget him in her world. In her four years of high school, the transition of preteen to young yearning adult was evident as the pictures displayed her change in taste. Even her sewing area was organized with a structural design that any adult would envy.

Stacy's hobby of sewing became obsession once she found her own niche in fashion designing. She took good care of herself, dressed the best, and started to make much of her own clothing pieces that her peers adopted. Being a trend setter excited her. Stacy wants the world to know who she is, and she worked hard to get what she needs to make that happen.

Once Stacy got involved with competing in designing that their private schools offered, she didn't even think of turning back. She would design anything she could get her hands on. Stacy had made quite a name for herself in their community by working in a modeling agency as well as with their mother.

Alicia used Stacy as a model for wedding and party gowns to encourage sales. It was Stacy's thirst for information and desire to make everything personal that drove her. Jake's sister learned early what people liked to see to make them feel perfect. She had an eye for detail like their father, but her taste in making life a lovelier place to expose beauty and comfort was like their mother. It gave Stacy an edge into her career because of all the people she met, as she had gotten to know all the right people in the city.

It had almost made Jake nervous that Stacy was exposed to designers with opened doors for her to step through. He had started to see what kids did the moment they left their homes to college with no parental or sibling supervision. Everyone's freak side comes out and he didn't want Stacy to discover hers. Everything was happening too fast for Jake to handle mostly because he had been in another state in college for the last few years and couldn't be around to watch her grow and protect her. It was lucky that she had the upper hand of Alicia's teachings, so that she felt a need to be proper in public, which is why her choice in party wear surprised him.

Even though she had more stuff on her walls, her room always looked bigger. Jake was impressed. Her room also looked a thousand times more mature than the house he shared with a roommate in Colorado. The differences between his room and hers was immense. Hers was of growth, his was of change.

Besides Stacy's obsession for fashion, Stacy enjoyed designing spaces as well. For a while Jake got tired of returning on breaks from college to find his whole room was changed around according to her view every three months. It took him an hour to locate his things. Now he just takes her beginning tour when he first arrives home. It's good practice for his sister and Jake really didn't mind since he had most of his personal stuff with him at college. Anything he had to hide from Stacy was stored in a secret place she couldn't break into without a code under the floorboard beneath his bed. The wood was perfectly blended, so you couldn't tell which plank was looser than the others unless you knew which creak in the board was more solid. It was where Jake kept Brittany's love letters from high school. Not that Stacy would care about those anyway, but they were private none-the-less.

A cringe was hidden behind Jake's smile as he watched his sister study herself in the mirror. He hated that she knew she was pretty. It made his stomach sick. Of course, Stacy was a beautiful girl, but he couldn't ever imagine anyone touching her. It gave Jake a feeling of panic. He waited patiently as she modeled her creative wears along the tall mirrors that covered her closet doors. The stupid ugly short show-all skirt wasn't even her style, so it confused him why she was wearing it. Jake could hear his teeth grind in frustration. He knew she was so much more than this.