The Sister Language

We have a language that no one else speaks. It's made of: the look across the table when Mom says something we'll discuss later in the car. The specific laugh that means I'm not laughing at the joke, I'm laughing at the fact that you're laughing. The text that says nothing but means call me. We fought like animals. Hair-pulling, name-calling, the nuclear option of telling Mom something the other one said in confidence. But when the boy broke my heart in tenth grade, you sat on my bed and did not say he wasn't worth it. You said: I'll hate him forever if you want me to. And you meant it. You still bring it up. He's married now with kids and you still narrow your eyes when his name comes up because a promise is a promise. Sisters share a closet and a bloodline and a particular talent for saying the cruelest thing with the most love. You know every version of me that existed— the braces version, the bad perm version, the version that cried at a commercial for long-distance phone plans. You have seen me at my ugliest and your response was always the same: move over. I'm getting in.