The Language of Us
By Christine Roland
What was that word for when we braided our pigtails together so when my mom picked me up she’d bring you with us? We slept at different houses because we were brought into the world by different parents. Remember that photo of us at our kindergarten play? You were a duck, I was a cat, and I had a line that I was so nervous to say I almost puked. But you were there and that made it all okay. That’s when it happened. When people started thinking we were sisters. I became you and you became me and that was how it seemed, to us, the world was meant to be.
What was that word for when we spoke in nonsense tongues that meant everything and nothing at all? Your tongue said I was your best friend and I said you were mine. The playground was our territory. We swung so high we swore our feet would fly off. I preferred the playground of your house. We plundered the palmettos, clothes damp, and bellies hungry. Remember when we found that old pig pen deep in the brush? Remnants of your dad littering your life even though he’d left a decade before. We cleaned it up, made it our own, and tried to cleanse him from that place. Our place. That was the first time I felt there was a part of you I didn’t know—that I could never know. Your history before I was your history. After, we picked the ticks off our bodies. Bits of nature suckling the youth from our blood.
What was that word for when you would hang out with other girls that didn’t like me? Remember that group photo where she had her arms around you, and I was off to the side? Me. The afterthought. She called you her best friend. Called me a goody-good and you said nothing. You went out there. Got a pixie cut. Spoke the language of other people. Didn’t call at all. What was out there in the world where I was too scared to go? In that world where you became you. Where there were girls whose glares pinched a nerve that told me not to trust them. Why couldn’t you feel that? Why did I?
What was that word for when you came back time and time again after sampling other people? Were the other girls too bitter? Too sour? Remember when we sat in the bleachers and in their peripherals, everyone knew it was us because you without me and me without you was a reality they didn’t want to know? Like, if it weren’t us together, always, the earth’s axis would tilt in a different direction, everything all topsy turvy. Perhaps that was just the way I saw it. I’m not sure if the same thing could have been said about you.
What was that word for when we dreamed of giving our sons matching names? But first, we’d have to date. Get married. Be each other’s maid of honor… this is where we got it all wrong. You ran off with him so, I went and did the same thing. When I caught the attention of him, I preferred the attention of you. For a moment I felt what it was like to have something other than you. But it never felt right. Like wearing someone else's jeans. Like trying to wear yours. A little too long. A little too tight.
What was that word for when you strayed too far for too long? You got married. So, I did too. I became me without you. And when you tried to put me on, I would pinch. Remember when, for the first time, you felt there were parts of me you could never know? There were arms without your freckles holding me in photos. You. The afterthought. And when my phone rang, it was with the language of other people I spoke. Now, we live in a world where I am me and you are you and no one gets that tragedy except us. We must die never knowing the word for when, despite it all, we gave our sons the same name and still wake dampened from dreams of palmettos pulling strands of each other's hair from our braids.
THE END
Author Bio: Christine Roland is an undergraduate at the University of North Florida majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She particularly enjoys coming-of-age tales and themes surrounding self-agency. Beyond the sphere of literature, she has two little Mogwai she must keep away from water, sunlight, and midnight snacks lest they turn into Gremlins (this is a full-time job in itself, expectedly).