To Stay Or To Leave
Ethel Hallow had grown up a lot in the last few years. In fact the girl was now sixteen years old and had recently finished her last year at Cackle's Academy. Ethel had grown and matured a lot as the last two years of her schooling life had been without her older sister. The teenager was all set to start college in the new term but she had been thinking a lot and had come to a decision.
Today was one of those rare days where Ethel was alone in the mansion the Hallows owned. Her parents had gone to some business meeting, her fifteen year old sister Sybil was at a sleepover and her older sister, Esmeralda who was now eighteen had gone to the the cinema with a friend.
Ethel took her suitcase from under her bed and started to put all her belongings in it, mainly sentimental things, she can always buy clothes later after all. She picked up her photo album and put it in the suitcase along with her old teddy bear. This had been her favourite when she was younger she could never sleep without it, she only managed to break the habit because she was starting at Cackle's. She put the toy in the suitcase too.
After she had packed her suitcase she put her cat Nightstar, into her carrier and then opened her bedside table drawer taking out her passport and a plane ticket. She walked down the stairs slowly and was just about to leave when she remembered something.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small white envelope which said the name 'Esme' on it. She had written her older sister a letter. She did not have the best relationship with Sybil and definitely not her parents but Esme had always looked out for her so she needed an explanation.
Ethel took the envelope to her lips and kissed it before placing it on the mantelpiece knowing her sister will see it there as that is where the family checked the mail. She then picked up the suitcase she had put down and started to head to the door when the door opened from the outside before she could reach it.
Esmeralda the eldest sister walked in. The girl was now eighteen, she had always been mature and serious for her age so that had not changed much but she certainty looked older than she had in school. Esme closed the front door humming to herself as she hung her keys on the keyholder not having noticed her sister yet. She then turned around and saw her sister.
"Oh Ethie I didn't realise you were home." Esme said as Ethel had lied and told her sister she was going to spent the day at the library.
"I…the library was closing early for staff training or something." Ethel lied to her quickly. She was mentally hitting herself for not leaving quicker, if she had left a few seconds earlier she would not be in this situation.
Esmeralda took in the fact that her sister was holding a suitcase and had Nightstar in her carrier.
"Are you going somewhere?" Esme asked raising her eyebrows.
"Oh...yes going for a sleepover at Drusilla's." Ethel said creating another lie quickly.
"Drusilla is in Germany, you told me she went with her parents and are you really telling me you are taking a suitcase and Nightstar when it is only a sleepover." Esme replied not fooled. She knew exactly what her sister was doing and felt really upset.
"The thing is..." Ethel started to say before Esme interrupted.
"Don't lie to me Ethel, I am not stupid you are running away." Esme said the last two words hurting her chest.
"Okay fine I am, just let me go before mum and dad get here." Ethel said trying to push past her.
"So you are just going to leave without even telling me why?" Esme asked hurt her sister would just walk out on her and not give any explanation.
"No...I left you a letter." Ethel said picking it up and giving it to her sister.
Esmeralda looked at her before ripping the letter up angrily.
"You think you can explain this in a stupid letter? Don't you think you should at least tell me in person?" Esme replied the corner of her eyes sparking with unfallen tears.
Ethel sighed and put down her luggage knowing her sister was right. She went and sat on the sofa in the sitting room and Esme went and joined her.
"I have been thinking a lot recently and it is time that I leave home." Ethel said simply like it was no big deal.
"You are sixteen! How is it time for you to leave?" Esmeralda asked confused why she thought that.
"You know mum and dad have never cared about me and for many years I had to pretend not to care...but I always did care...it always hurt...and now I am old enough to escape from it." Ethel said looking at her knees as she said this.
"Ethie I know what you mean but..." Esme started but Ethel interrupted her.
"No you don't." Ethel said standing up and facing her sister. "You don't know how it feels, you can imagine it but you don't know, mum and dad have always loved you and Sybil, you have no idea how it feels waking up everyday and it coming back to you that you will never be good enough and you will never feel that ache when you realise once again your parents don't love or care for you and that will never change." Ethel said walking away from her sister because she had tears falling and did not like to be seen crying.
For a few moments the only sounds in the room were Ethel's occasionally sniffling. Esmeralda sat there her head in her hands as she took in what her sister had just said and how bad she had been feeling for so many years but Ethel was not entirely right in what she had said. Esmeralda had some idea how it felt even if it was not as deeply or exactly the same.
"You are wrong, I know how it feels to wake up wondering why someone you love so much doesn't love you back or why they push you away, or why they hate you." Esmeralda said sharing that she gets it. At these words Ethel turned around and looked at her older sister.
"We are really close but remember your first year of Cackle's? You pushed me away all the time, you would never let me help you with anything. I started to think you hated me, it hurt so much, I have some idea how you feel." Esme replied hurting and expressing her feelings and how she knew what she was going through.
Ethel went and sat back down feeling really bad now.
"I am sorry I made you feel so bad, I never hated you. I hated you for being loved by mum and dad, but I never hated you." Ethel admitted sharing how she felt at the time.
"Don't you think I hate it when they push you aside? I hate it so much, it hurts me seeing you suffer but I can't do anything about it, I don't know why they treat you different." Esme said with a sigh.
"I know...I don't blame you...but I need to be happy Esme. Mum and dad make me so miserable I feel like two families live in this house, mum, dad, you and Sybil as one family and me as another. I want to feel comfortable in my own home." Ethel said expressing her deepest feeling over it.
"But where will you go?" Esme asked worried where she was going to go.
"I am going to go stay with Grandma Josephine." Ethel said already having it planned.
Esme's eyes widened at that statement. She had not expected that she had expected her sister to go stay somewhere fairly local with a friend or something.
"You are going to Australia?" Esme asked shocked hearing that.
"Yes, Grandma Josephine has always been nice to me." Ethel said with a shrug.
"But you are coming back?" Esme asked hoping her sister was just planning on going for a few months.
"No, obviously I will for visits and things but I am planning on staying." Ethel said sharing the plan.
Esme's chest tightened in pain at this statement. Not only was she was about to loose her little sister but she was going to be on the other side of the world.
"And Grandma Josephine agreed to let you lie to us and escape when no-one was here?" Esme asked angrily.
"No, she doesn't know but she can't turn me away when I just turn up." Ethel replied seriously.
Esmeralda suddenly broke into a smile as she remembered something.
"You can't go, you don't even have a passport." Esme said as it had expired a few months ago and she had never got a chance to renew it.
"Actually." Ethel said as she reached into her bag and took out her passport showing her sister.
"I used your birth year sorry." Ethel said simply saying how she'd gotten one. The two girls looked an lot alike it was not hard to fool anyone.
It was at this point Esme realised she was deadly serious.
"Don't go...please." Esme said begging her sister and letting the tears she had been holding in finally fall slowly down her face.
Ethel looked away. Her sister did not cry much she could not handle it seeing her so upset.
"I am sorry Esme, this is nothing to do with you, but I am sick of it. Acting happy everyday when I am not, I will see you sometimes." Ethel said trying to reassure her. Her sister shook her head as more tears fell and Ethel touched her back.
"Don't cry, you have Sybil to keep you company." Ethel said bringing up their younger sister.
"But she isn't you." Esme said putting her head in her hands again.
"Exactly, she is a better person than me." Ethel replied knowing Sybil would be better company for her.
"No...I was always closer to you." Esme said through her hands.
"And we will still be close." Ethel said reassuring her.
"What can I do to convince you to stay?" Esme said wanting something, anything to keep her sister around.
"You can't...I can't stay with mum and dad anymore." Ethel told her, having already thought of the options before she planned this.
"What if I told you you don't have to?" Esme asked hoping it would work.
"What do you mean?" Ethel asked curious what she was going on about.
"I wasn't going to tell you yet." Esme replied not making much sense.
"Tell me what exactly?" Ethel asked curiously.
"I wasn't at the cinema today, I lied." Esmeralda said confessing what she doing.
"So you are trying to convince me to stay by telling me you lied to me?" Ethel asked really confused.
"No, here have a look at this." Esme said reaching into her pocket and pulling out a piece of paper.
Ethel unfolded the piece of paper and looked at it really confused.
"A picture of a house?" Ethel asked still not getting what her sister was trying to say.
"It is not a house it is a flat...my flat." Esme said sharing what the picture was about.
"Huh?" Ethel said in response.
"That is where I went today to meet the estate agent, I have put down a deposit on it. I move in next month." Esme replied explaining everything.
"So you can move out but I am not allowed? You were going to leave me anyway!" Ethel said her voice raised in anger.
"No the thing is..." Esme started to say but Ethie was not listening any longer and interrupted.
"I can't believe you, all those things you said were lies!" Ethel said angrily.
"Ethie." Esme tried to butt in.
"Don't bother trying to make me feel better I am going to Australia you are worse than mum and dad because you pretend to be nice." Ethel replied hurt and upset.
"Will you shut up for once in your life?" Esme asked raising her voice a little. It worked though Ethel fell silent.
"You didn't let me finish what I was saying." Esme said wanting to get the rest of the details out. Ethel sat back down deciding to give her sister a chance as after all she had a tendency to overreact.
"I was never going to leave you here, I was going to ask you to move in with me." Esme told her what she wanted.
"What? Why?" Ethie asked not understanding.
"Because you are my little sister and I love you and I like taking care of you." Esme replied simply.
"But why do you even want to move out? You and our parents don't have any problems?" Ethel asked not understanding.
"Because I can not stand watching them pretend they only have two daughters anymore, it makes me feel sick when I see it." Esme replied explaining why.
"But what about Sybil?" Ethel asked confused still.
Esme sighed as she knew what Ethel was asking. She was asking if they were going to leave her behind.
"Sybil has always been so attached to mum and dad, she wouldn't want to come even if they let her. We can still see her and everything but we just won't be in the same house." Esmeralda replied thinking it was the best solution.
"But mum and dad will be really upset." Ethel said not wanting to be the one responsible for her parents losing their eldest daughter.
"They will get over it, so will you stay and move in with me?" Esme asked wanting the answer to be yes.
"No I still have to see them." Ethel replied with a sigh.
"Not often, only Christmas and Birthday's you probably won't be able to get out of but you don't have to see them any other time if you don't want too." Esmeralda told her really wanting her to stay.
"I can't stay...you have looked after me a long time...you have been burdened with me a long time...you deserve a life for your own now." Ethel replied a tear falling as she spoke.
"Ethel Hallow look at me." Esme said seriously. Esme rarely said Ethel's full name so she knew whatever she was going to say was important. She turned to look at her.
"Let me tell you something, since I was tiny, Grandma Josephine says pretty much since I learned to talk I asked for a sister constantly. I must have driven everyone insane with it, then finally you were born, my little sister finally, and I made a promise when I was a bit older that I would always look after you and love you and that promise is not one I plan on breaking. I want you to move in with me not out of pity or because I feel I have to let you move in but because I really love you and I love looking after you. I have never thought of you as a burden and now I want to look after you properly away from mum and dad's ill treatment of you." Esme said passionately sharing all her feelings with her sister.
Ethel sat there looking at her sister letting the tears shamelessly fall down her face.
"Please don't go to Australia, come live with me." Esme said practically begging now.
Ethel really thought about it. Esmeralda seemed to have always seen the good in her even when other people didn't. She knew she loved her, she had proved that on more than one occasion. Her sister had always tried to make her birthday and Christmas enjoyable and she never gave up on her even when she was being a huge pain. Even after she treated her so badly in her first year at school.
"Well let's be honest I probably would not last long in Australia anyway, you know how I am with spiders, as soon as I saw one of their giant ones there I would be running back home." Ethel said with a laugh.
"So you are staying?" Esmeralda asked hopeful.
"Yes, I am staying." Ethel said honestly.
The sisters hugged and exchanged kisses between one another both crying silently not wanting to lose each other. Esme kissed Ethie on the head whilst crying and heard Ethel crying too.
"Oh for goodness sake, I am supposed to be the one comforting you but I am much worse of a wreck." Esmeralda said confessing about the situation they were in.
"Lucky neither of us wear make-up, our mascara would be all down our face." Ethel replied as Esme laughed happy she was not about to lose her sister.
"I really do love you, you know Ethie." Esme said using the special nickname only she used.
"I really love you too." Ethie said with a smile hugging her sister again.
A month later Esmeralda and Ethel were in their new flat settling in.
"You have to remember the time you pretended you couldn't speak English because that man kept trying to sell you a product." Ethel said reflecting on an older memory.
"I seriously don't." Esme said taking a bite of her toast and moving a box out the way that needed unpacking to fit her plate on.
"Well I do, though you totally messed up you pretended to be French with a German accent." Ethie said laughing hard.
"Enough bullying thank you, eat your breakfast." Esme said shaking her head but she was smiling.
Ethel laughed a bit more before eating her cheerios before remembering something she had wanted to say.
"Oh Esme I wanted to say something to you." Ethel said starting what she wanted to say.
"Mmm what is it Ethie?" Esme asked interested in what her sister wanted to share.
"I wanted to say thank you." Ethel said shyly playing with her spoon.
"What for?" Esme asked unsure what she needed thanking for.
"For always loving me even when I was a right brat, you could have given up on me but you never did, why did you not give up?" Ethel asked.
"Because I know you are an good person, I have seen it before and you needed someone fighting for you" Esmeralda replied truthfully.
Do you know what I realise now?" Ethel said.
"What do you realise?" Esme asked intrigued.
"All these years I was so desperate for mum and dad's love and approval, it was an obsession I had to do whatever I could to make them notice me, to make them love me but I realise now I am not the problem they are...they are the ones who have the problem with me. Of course it is always going to hurt but now I realise, I should not have been only focusing on the people who don't care but the people who do care...I guess what I am trying to say is well I am never going to push you away again, I will finally accept your love." Ethie said blushing and looking at her spoon again.
Esmeralda put down her toast and walked around the table to hug her sister with a smile. She had wanted to hear that for years so started crying again.
"Esme I think you have cried more in this month than you have in the last sixteen years!" Ethie said seriously with an laugh as she hugged her sister.
In that moment both sisters felt like they could face anything. As long as they were together there was nothing that could stop them.