It was silent as I pulled the dish out of the soapy water, watching the tiny suds slip off of the plain, white dish and back into the water-filled sink. Just as I slipped the plate into the rungs that jutted out of the dishwasher, my phone began to ring. The loud ringing pierced the comfortably silent kitchen with the lyrics of The Spice Girls. I dried my hands off quickly and reached into my back pocket that contained my phone. The image of my sister popped up on the screen of my iPhone. My thumb drifted over the wide-screen. Or at least it tried to. My thumb wouldn't move. Suddenly I was frozen in place. My abrupt happiness of my sister's name on the screen turned into the deepest sorrow imaginable. Tears started streaming down my face as I regained control of my body. Except I didn't answer the phone. I finished the dishwasher.

I watched the image of my sister's face turn to black screen once more. I listened as the kitchen that once filled with upbeat music slipped abruptly into silence again. All the while, my throat constricted with pain, my eyes blurred with tears.

I still didn't answer the phone.

Unlike most nightmares, this one ended softly. I'd like to pretend I woke up similarly to Sleeping Beauty. My hair glowing and soft, even after years of laying on it (which would have had to result in some sort of bed-head, let's be real). In reality, salty liquid was still coming out of my eyes at an irritatingly constant stream. My hair style would have more easily resembled Medusa's than Shay Mitchell's. My clothing turned and twisted in places that I wasn't sure should have been so easily reached. I hadn't even looked in a mirror yet, so how would I know that I looked like roadkill? Easily answered question.

I've had the same dream for a year now. And no, I don't need a therapist's number, or sleep interpreter to tell me what my dreams about. I know. I know because the reasons are obvious. The only traumatic thing that's happened in my life occurred in the past year. And that's when my dream started.

My sister, Megan, died.

She committed suicide. I always heard 'suicide' when they talked about Megan. Not really 'dead' or even 'passed-away'. I heard it everywhere I went. Like my shadow. The word itself is full of judgement. I'm not sure why, maybe it's just because people like to point out the worst in the individuals of their own race. Maybe people just like to blame everyone but themselves. Maybe it's because suicide is no one else's doing, and that makes it wrong. Who else can you blame besides the person that did it? They didn't fall into a bullet or a rope circle. And no one wants to blame themselves for the death of someone else. No one want to take the guilt and shame of death with them.

The thing about your sister dying is that there's no real way to deal with it. No stupid book that you can buy on Amazon titled, 'You're Guide For When Your Sister Dies' with an overly happy author on the cover. Not many people can even understand your pain. You're always alone when it comes to death. Death just likes to be alone, I guess.

Thirty minutes later, I was up and out of bed, freshly showered and feeling surprisingly less depressing. I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. My mom was up and reading the news paper. She smiled at me and I glared back. Her face fell but I was just too angry to care.

It's not that I'm a normally argumentative teenage brat, I have my reasons. Pretending like my family was perfect before my sister's death would have been so far from right, the thought was almost laughable. My parents argued all the time. It's not that they were just two bull-headed people which they were it's that they literally disagreed on everything. And I know that you're probably thinking, 'what an exaggeration'. But by, 'literally everything', I mean it. One of their first disagreements was on my name. On my birth certificate, my name is 'Annabelle Rae Lynne Kelley'. Yes, the two middle names have a ring to it, but that's not why they're there. They're there because my parents fought so much on my middle name, they almost divorced because of it. It took Megan, (two at the time) to give the idea of brilliance to use both of them, for the fighting to stop. To this day, my dad calls me 'Anna Rae', and my mom, 'Annabelle Lynne' when they're angry

When my sister died, they stopped. Granted, they also stopped talking to each other much past, 'Will you pass the salt? Thank you'. I think if I had been able to think over my grief at that time I would have seen the dysfunction and weirdness of it all.

The summer of that year, my mother suggested I get out of the town for I while. I whole-heartedly agreed to spending my summer in Mystic Falls. At least there I could pretend to forget. I was set up to stay with my cousins Elena and Jeremy, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, considering Megan had died the month before, in May. Sometimes I smiled and laughed, but most of the time I was left alone. I appreciated it. Elena knew what the loss was like, and though we were really close and I could tell she was happy to see me, she gave me space. In that time span I learned to like everyone there. I liked how small it was. I liked how everyplace had it's own nickname because there wasn't anything remotely having to do with chain-restaurants in the small town. Despite all the healing I had accomplished in between the laughs and smiles, I wanted to go home at the end of the summer. I could think about Megan without curling up into a fetal position to try and control the pain in my chest. I was ready to remember her for the good things, and not the bad.

When I got back to my house I was too excited to notice the 'For Sale' signed staked in my front lawn, or the moving truck parallel-parked on the street beside my house. I wasn't in too much of a hurry to notice that my furniture was made up of boxes labeled 'Kitchen Supplies', and 'Books' though. That's when my mom told me that my Dad had moved out. She told me that she bought a house in Mystic Falls. She told me it was in the same neighborhood that Elena and Jeremy lived in. She told me all the new things will be exciting and fresh. She told me I'd make friends and a new me. She told me she packed my stuff. She told me I'd be happy.

I didn't believe her. I still don't.

I sauntered around the kitchen. Pouring myself coffee in a blue mug, I added absurd amounts of sugar and milk, because, who even drinks coffee for the taste? I decided to skip breakfast, mostly because I wasn't hungry, a bit because I was protesting staying here in Mystic Falls, and a small part because I didn't want to bloat. I had to look perfect for the first day of school. Which is why I was up at five a.m. when school started at 7. Beauty took time. That's what Megan taught me.

I hadn't really cared what I looked like or how popular I was for most of my life. My sister was the drop-dead gorgeous one, the one everyone wanted to be. Unable to compete with her, I didn't really consider trying. I floated around on my sister's popularity, not because I cared, but because I think everyone wanted me to be a little her. Even though I wasn't. Even thought I didn't want to be.

Now that she was gone, the pressure was on to be pretty, popular, and liked. I felt like I owed it to her. To Megan. She always accepted me for who I was. Megan always made people think that she knew them, knew everything about them, so, being around her made me think I knew too. She had confidence in me that I didn't have for most of my life. I lacked that confidence not because I was ugly, or bullied into thinking I was, but because I was always a little off beat, looks and otherwise.

I was never really ugly, but my face had been a bit to round for my neck most of my sophomore and junior year. My eyes a little to large for my face. My legs and arms always gawky as they hung out awkwardly from my body, more like foreign appendages than limbs. I'm not sure I understood what changed over the summer Megan was gone, but guys started looking at me when I walked by. My breasts grew into a C-cup and my body wasn't gawky anymore, but willowy and graceful. My face lengthened and I learned how to do my makeup with Elena around. I think the biggest difference was that I started thinking like Megan. I started thinking like everything was important. From grades to the amount of foundation she put on, Megan was a perfectionist. It showed to everyone, me included. I wanted people to think of me like that.

What better time to start than now?