I look at my younger sister, and know that her happiness is not only a result of our laughter. I notice the flush in her face, the glimmer in her eyes, and know that she is in love. I can't be jealous - I shouldn't be jealous. But I can't help but wish she were in love with a different man. And I can't help but be jealous, even as I am sickened by my emotions.

I also can't help but want to protect my sister. But she doesn't listen when I say she should stay away from him; she doesn't think I know what I'm talking about. That's my own fault, I guess - I never told anyone what happened to me, what I let happen to me. I loved him. I loved him like we were some romantic, mythical couple. Even now, I think he loved me too, for a time at least, in some twisted fashion. Instead of a consolation, though, that just makes it worse - infinitely worse.

The first time I saw him, something in my stomach clenched and I knew. I knew that this was "the one" - the one man in the universe I was destined to be with. Maybe I was right, maybe not. All I know is that we're not together anymore and no one else has made me feel that way since.

I suppose that's a good thing though - no one else has made me feel the pain of bruises, the violence of welts, the shame of lies and explanations. No one knew - I was very good at hiding my wounds, almost as good as he was at placing them where no one else would see. Even to this day no one knows, though there are too many scars to even begin to count, places of nerve-damaged numbness scattered across my body.

I didn't tell - I'm still not sure why, I guess I'm not really as strong as everyone seems to think I am, or maybe I want to keep up that guise. But I didn't tell, and it didn't stop, not until he was done with me. One day I relented, and we had sex - I won't call it making love, even though he pressured and cajoled me every day with promises of love. It was two days after my fifteenth birthday. The next day, no one answered the phone when I called him. I didn't think anything was strange about that - not until two weeks had gone by and still no one had answered the phone and I hadn't seen him. The bruises, or "love marks" as he called them, had almost completely faded, and I began to worry.

Then I happened to stumble across him one night in the park. And, as he groped at another girl's breast, as she moaned a mixture of pleasure and pain that I knew only too well, his eyes met mine. There was a coldness in them that I had never seen before, and I turned and ran, not looking back once. I hadn't seen him again until last week, when I found him suckling at my sister's neck. Shocked into silence, I backed out of the garden.

I still don't know what to do…I don't want to tell her what he did to me, don't want to see the pity or disbelief in her eyes - either one would kill me. Worse, I fear that she would see the desire that still lingers. I can't explain it, but I want him still. All I do know is that I will keep better watch over Amy than my parents kept over me, and I will notice if he hurts her. And then, I will make sure he is never able to hurt anyone again.

Did I fall in love to look back upon it
as a lesson of how not to live
if living was what I wanted?

I run my hands lightly over my stomach and I want to scream. I want violence - I want to punish someone, anyone, but mostly myself. This is not happening to me. This cannot be happening to me. I am pregnant, and I am scared to death to tell him, and God help me but I did not want this baby. Except that it is more than too late to do anything to prevent her from coming into the world, so I have no choice, and somehow along the way I began to live for her - so much so that without the promise of her I think I would waste away to nothingness.

Chloe hugs me, and she tells me that everything will be all right. I can't help but think that somewhere in her eyes there is judgment. Her eyes ask me questions, even though in her words, in her touches, there are no questions, no judgment, only love and comfort. She holds me close to her and whispers nonsense into my ears, and assures me that I will be fine, my baby will be fine.

I am tempted to beg Chloe to stay with me, not to leave me alone. But a glimmer of sadness, the wetness of unshed tears that I see reflected in her eyes, convinces me to remain silent as she leaves. The door closes behind her, and I can't help but think that she is living for me. Chloe is going to college, leaving the desert for the ocean, doing what I have always wanted to. As the sound of the door closing echoes through my tiny apartment, I think that she is escaping. More than anything, I want her to stay with me, to protect me as she has for so long. But I can't ask her to give up her dreams for me, especially since I know she would, and especially since she needs my protection now more than I need hers.

Chloe thinks I don't know what she did. But I was there, at his apartment that day. I was in the bathroom, trying to work miracles with concealer, trying to figure out how I was going to hide the bruise on my cheek. Usually he was very good at not hitting my face, or anywhere else on my body that people would see. But that day…that day I'd told him I was pregnant, and he'd proceeded to beat the crap out of me. I guess he didn't want to shell out the money for me to get an abortion. I was already five months along though, so I knew I couldn't get an abortion anyway, no matter how badly I wanted one. But standing there in that bathroom, desperately rubbing concealer into my skin and trying not to cry out from the pain, I realized how much I actually wanted my baby. I just had to figure out a way to keep her safe from Ray. While I was thinking how to accomplish that, I heard the knock on the door, heard him tell me that I'd better keep my ass out of the room if I knew what was good for me, and then I heard something that I am sure will stay with me for the rest of my life. "Chloe, what a surprise," I heard him say. I couldn't hear her exact reply, but I knew that it was my Chloe in his apartment…. My Chloe, in my boyfriend's apartment, when she thought he was alone…. I stayed in the bathroom, because I was afraid of him and because I was not sure I wanted to know why Chloe was there.

And then he said something that makes my blood run cold even now, months later. "So, bitch…how does it feel knowing your baby sister got knocked up by your ex-boyfriend? She's not as good a fuck as you were though…."

My mind reeled, barely able to comprehend what I was hearing. Chloe and Ray? When the hell had that happened? I thought Chloe was going to kill him, right then and there. No one talks to her like that…I mean no one. I almost had a heart attack when her only response was to laugh. Seriously, between Ray's ministrations and the shock of hearing Chloe's conversation with him, I am lucky I'm still alive. When I heard her reply…. "Well, seeing Amy with you I got to missing you, Ray," she said, flirtatiously. "So, I thought I'd come over and see if maybe you'd be willing to take me back."

I didn't hear anything else for a while after that - I was too busy throwing up, sure that Ray and Chloe were having sex out in the living room. I wanted to go stop her, to warn her about him…. I wondered if he had hit her the same way he hit me…. I wondered why she hadn't tried harder to keep me away from him, and I almost decided that she deserved whatever he did to her. But she is my sister, and I love her. I had to protect her. I did start to go out into the other room. But, as I cautiously peered out of the bathroom, all I could see was her face buried in his lap, and it was all over. I couldn't move from in front of the toilet for half an hour, I threw up so much.

The next thing I knew, I heard Ray ask her to get him a drink, and I was scrambling to make sure the door from the bathroom into his bedroom, where he kept his alcohol, was closed. I couldn't stop myself from peering around the door though, as if I needed more confirmation that this really was my sister, Chloe, here, with my boyfriend, betraying me. I watched as she readied his drink - Johnny Walker red. I watched as she pulled a vial out of her pocket, and poured its contents into the drink, stirring it with her finger. I gasped when I recognized the vial - just the week before Chloe had been telling me that her Chemistry teacher had told her that tobacco, in its purest form, is both deadly and unnoticed in autopsies, and she had begun experimenting. I didn't really understand most of what she told me, but I remembered that much.

She went back to the other room, and I went back to the toilet to throw up some more. I'm not sure if that was from Ray's beating, or realizing that my sister was going to kill him, or just morning sickness - although it was afternoon. The next thing I heard was Chloe leaving. Once I was sure she was really gone, I crept down the hallway back towards the living room, anxious to leave myself. I stood over Ray, watching his shallow breathing, watching his eyes watching me. He moaned my name, pleading for help, and I walked out the door.

I decided in that bathroom that if my baby was strong enough to survive all that, then she could survive just about anything. I wasn't upset about Ray dying - I was glad. Because I knew that one day he would have beaten me badly enough that I would miscarry, or that my baby would be damaged somehow. His death gave me an out. I didn't have to worry anymore about keeping my baby safe from him.

Still, I can't help but think, if only. If only I hadn't been so stupid, so naïve, so…young. If only I hadn't believed him when he said that he loved me. If only I had listened to Chloe when she warned me to stay away from him. If only things had been different, if only I had been stronger, then I wouldn't be here, alone in this apartment. I have no television, no phone, nothing except my baby and myself. I spend my days making small tacky alien themed things that Mr. Parker lets me sell in their restaurant. I think he pays me too much for them, but I could not survive without that money, so I cannot afford to confront him on it, no matter how ashamed I am every time he pays me. The money from those stupid charms, along with the welfare check, just barely covers rent, leaving about a hundred dollars a month for food and clothes. Chloe sends me money, every once in a while - I have no idea where she gets it from, but she insists that I keep it and I've long since stopped trying to argue with her about it - and I put that into an account for Maria. At night, I sit with her, holding her small, pudgy body close to my own, and I read to her from my favorite book - the only book I have - The Little Princess by Frances Hodgeson Burnett. And as I finish it, I allow myself the luxury of "if only…." I dream of what my life would be like, if only I could go back to that day I first met him and make things different.

But if only things had been different, I would not have the beautiful baby girl I hold in my arms. I watch her sleep, and I promise her that I will not fail her. We may not be a conventional family, I may not be the best mother who ever lived, but I will love her, and pray that love is enough.

***

All of a sudden I am staring at Maria again. I wonder how the baby I was just holding in my arms grew so quickly into the beautiful young woman standing before me, and then I realize that I am not Chloe, not Amy, but Michael, and memories of myself come rushing back. I reach to Maria, wanting to erase the tears coursing down her face.

***