My Sister's Keeper

It’s the Tuesday before thanksgiving and ava is double checking, she has everything she needs for Thursday. At the staff meeting on Friday she had to tried to sneak past Mr. Greene on her way out but of course with her luck she couldn’t get by him. He started talking about Thanksgiving and not having anywhere to go and all the sudden Ava’s mouth took off without her brain and she invited him to their dinner because she is an idiot. As Alex has reminded her multiple time over the past couple of days. All the sudden the front door swings open and a little girl comes running in. Dark hair in pigtails, A cute holiday sweater on over a dress with leggings. “Auntie Ava.” She rushes into the kitchen and meets ava who has bent down to hug her and lift her onto her hip. This three-year-old always made Ava smile.

“What are you up to peanut?” Ava was all ears just for her.

“Momma is coming to get me soon. So, I wanted to make sure I gave you bug hug and a kiss before I left. We are going to vernmont.” Ava laughed at the way the three-year-old said the state name wrong.

“Vermont” Ava corrected.

“That’s what I said vernmont.” Alex is over her shoulder now mouthing no use don’t try.

“Well where is my kiss then.” Ava asks and the little girl pushes her lips to Ava’s cheek and blows a raspberry on her cheek making Ava laugh. At as Ava starts to tickle the little girl and blow raspberries on her cheek there is a knock on the door. And Alex clears her throat.

“that’s probably Mamma time to go sweetie.” Ava gives her a proper kiss on her cheek before handing her to Alex as she makes her way to the door with the little one in her arms. Ava looks down at her list to double check it. When Alex comes back in, she looks sad. “I hate that she won’t be here with us. She loves spending Thanksgiving with you.”

“I know Alex, but we will have big Christmas dinner for her okay.” She moves over towards Alex and gives her a hug knowing she needs one. As they break from there hug Hannah comes crutching in and looks around for the little girl. “You just missed her she already left with Maggie.”

“Well that sucks!” Hannah walks over to the table and sits down. Alex joins her and they nod knowingly at each other. “Hey, Ava, I forgot to mention I invited someone over for Thanksgiving.”

Alex turns to Ava to see her eyes go a little wide in awe. “Technically we invited someone to dinner.” She looks quickly over at Hannah and back to Ava.

“Who? And is it someone who can keep Gary green busy because I’m already regretting that invitation myself.” Ava is poking around in cabinets double checking ingredients. Hannah closes her eyes and the words are out of her mouth and she is waiting for death before she knows it.

“Captain Lance.” Ava drop the can of vegetables she has in her hand on the ground and it makes a thud and she quickly picks it, but Hannah and Alex are both looking at her. “And her sister is coming too.” Hannah adds just to get it all out in the open. Ava is staring at the can she just dropped in her hands trying not to freak the fuck out. Maintain your composure. FUCK!! What the actual FUCK!!

“Ava?” Alex says to try to get her too look at them. Ava slowly puts the canned food away and calmy closes the cabinet. She is fine she is perfectly fine; she stands there for a moment trying to compose herself. Not sure what to say and or how to react she turns to face Alex and Hannah who both look like they are waiting for her to go off.

“You know what, I don’t even know what to say.” Ava calmy blurts out as she continues to stare at them.

“They didn’t have anywhere to go, and you always make enough food for like thirty people. So, I thought a few more people wouldn’t hurt.” Hannah hoped that wasn’t the nail in her coffin.

Hannah stood up and grabbed her crutches and looked at Ava. “I know your probably mad at me and that’s fine but, I wasn’t going to let her, and her sister be alone on Thanksgiving. You and Alex always make sure I’m not alone. So, it’s done it’s too late to retract the invitation. I’m gonna head back to my room.” She looks at Alex and basically sends her a mental message of talk to her before she kills me in my sleep. And crutches away into her bedroom.

Ava lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and places her fingers to the bridge of her nose and just stands there not saying anything. This prompts Alex to finally speak up and find out exactly what is going on with this Captain Lance. “So why don’t you come sit over here and tell me about Captain Lance and what the hell is going on.” Ava looks over at Alex who almost seems pissed off at her. Why does she get to be pissed off, she is the one who should be pissed off? Ava makes her way over to the chair that Hannah was just in and sits down. “Talk.” Its not a question from Alex it’s a demand, Alex can see right through her. She has known her for too long to not be able too.

With Alex staring at her she knew there was no lying her way out of this. She would know if she was lying, Ava slowly shifted he body towards the table and leans her head down on the table and starts to talk. “I fucking made an ass of myself. I walked into a wall a fucking wall Alex. First, I was watching everything through the glass like all the people doing physical therapy all the soldiers working through whatever physical ailments they have. And I noticed her she was…her smile… I don’t know what it was but once I saw her, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I stared like an idiot, a weird stalker like idiot. And I’m pretty sure she noticed it, but not one hundred percent sure. So, then they called us back and we went to the meeting room and of course she was the one in the room we were going to. And I froze I completely froze I had no idea what to say or do or its like my brain just went haywire. And then she mistook me and Hannah for a married couple and Hannah couldn’t stop laughing that just didn’t help, it really didn’t help at all. Then my brain was going all haywire and I was trying to figure out how to explain we weren’t married but Hannah was getting a kick out of it. And when I finally did manage to speak the words came out like a fucking freight train. Loud and obnoxious and almost like how dare you think I’m married to a woman. But really it was supposed to be like that’s my sister gross. All the while Hannah is still giggling at this point and I’m so annoyed and she starts to apologize saying we don’t look like sisters and then Hannah whips out the picture of us from when she got back from her first deployment. And she starts talking about how cute our dad is and beautiful out mom is. And that’s when I just finally gathered my thoughts and asked in a stern voice if we could move on. Then she says sure yeah. You know me and Hannah are going to work out a plan you can go wait in the waiting room and I said okay and then I literally walked into a wall.” When finally gets it all out she keeps her head on the table she is waiting to hear laughter come from Alex. But so far, she hasn’t made a sound. So, Ava slowly lifts her head up and see’s Alex look at her with a soft expression on her face one that she rarely sees.

“So, you have a crush.” Is all that Alex manages to get out, causing Ava to roll her eyes and put her head back down on the table with a thud.

“I don’t know I barely talked to her I was too busy making an ass of myself.” She turns her head to the side, to look at Alex but not raise her head. “Now I have to spend hours with her here in our home and try to figure out how to function and talk what am I going to do?”

“You know what there is going to be plenty of people here as buffers so you’re going to be fine. Knowing you, you’ll be in the kitchen most of the time anyways.” Alex has no clue how this is going to honestly go but boy is she ready to see that Ava she remembers from long ago.

“I don’t even know if she is into women. How stupid is that? Ava laughs at her own statement.

“Well that’s how we approach it then, you don’t even know if she likes women or if she is in a relationship. You could be freaking out over absolutely nothing. She may not even be available.” Alex smiles at her “But, if she is into women, and she is available are you wanting to maybe pursue this? Like see if you maybe could ask her out.”

“That’s a great idea Alex, let me ask out a woman I can’t even form a full coherent sentence around.” Ava turns her back down towards the table and closes her eyes. “She makes me nervous. She smiles and my brain just stops working and I just stare. What if that happens on a date. She would totally run away from me because I’m a freak.”

“Hey” Alex put her hand on Ava’s shoulder, “Why don’t we try and get through Thursday first and then we can figure out the next steps okay. Let’s get it to where you maybe feel more comfortable and can talk to her and then go from there.” Ava nods her head still on the table. “Great okay you got that grocery list lets get going.” Alex and Ava stand up and get ready to head out to the store.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and Ava is a nervous wreck. She is in the kitchen trying to pre-prepare all the food. Hannah is there with her although she is just sitting at the dining table watching, Ava has spoken to her much since the day before. As she is mixing the stuffing together and chopping vegetable multi-tasking Hannah decides it’s time to break the silence, so she makes her way into the kitchen and props her crutches out of the way and takes over at the cutting board. Ava just watches her and doesn’t say anything as she chops and thinks of how she wants the words to come out.

“I know you’re mad at me.” She sighs, as Ava just continues to mix the bowl full of dressing. “And I know I should have asked or maybe told you sooner that I had invited Sara and her sister over, but then you would have backed out or found a reason for her not to come.”

Ava stops what she is doing and turns her body slightly to face Hannah. “Why are you so hell bent on her coming over? Is it just so you can laugh at me some more?” Ava was serious she just keeps flashing to the meeting where Hannah had a good laugh at her expense.

“No, why would you think that?” Hannah stops what she is doing and looks to Ava.

“Well I just don’t understand. She is your physical therapist? I mean who invites their physical therapist to a Thanksgiving dinner?”

“I did it for two reasons, one I really like her she is super nice and had no where to go for the holiday. And two.” Hannah waits before her next words as she doesn’t want to mess up the next statement. “umm… and two I did it for you.”

“What?” Ava has now fully turned towards Hannah and is in shock she has no idea what that is supposed to mean. For me?

Hannah turns fully towards Ava now, so they are facing each other she needs to tell Ava how she feels and now seems to be the best time to do it. “Ava you have spent the last three years taking care of me, you have put your whole life on hold for me. You rarely date, I don’t even think you look at people anymore. You took this job at the school so you could be close to home and be able to get here if anything goes wrong.” She takes a deep breath while Ava eyes start to fill with tears. “I don’t want you to look back and realize you have missed out on life because of me. I don’t want to be the reason you miss out on anything; I want you to be able to find your person. And I’m not stupid I saw what happened when you saw her, I don’t think I have ever seen that happen to you before. And I’m worried if I don’t push you a little your going to end up regretting it and hating me for it because I’m this huge burden that you stupidly chose to take on because you hate mom so much. And…” Ava cuts her off by hugging her Hannah leans into the embrace and tears start to fall down her cheeks. Its been a long time since Ava hugged her, the safety she feels in her big sisters embrace allows her to let go and cry. They just hold each other and cry for a while not sure how much time is passing neither says anything they just hold onto to the embrace and let it all out. Ava pulls out of the embrace and she leans her forehead on her sisters so they can see eye to eye.

“You are not a burden; you have never been a burden. I didn’t choose to take care of you because of mom. I chose to take care of you because I love you and you’re my sister. And I honestly did trust anyone to protect you, and I couldn’t risk the chance of loosing you. I almost lost you once and ill be damned if that happens again.” Both still have tears rolling down their cheeks.

“Ava, I want you to be happy and I don’t know if you are?”

“Do you want to know why I don’t date?” Ava leans back a little and motions for Hannah to follow her to the table. They sit facing each other. “When you were deployed, I was dating Allison do you remember me talking about her?” Hannah nods because she vaguely remembers her, she never had the chance to meet her though. “When I got the call that you were hurt and I needed to fly to Germany I rushed home to pack a back so I could jump on a plane and when I got home..” Ava is slightly struggling but takes a deep breath trying to steady herself. “When I got home, there she was on the couch completely naked with Lauren. I don’t think I ever told you who that was, but it doesn’t matter now. Anyways I just stood there frozen it was like all of these things were happening that I couldn’t control, you were somewhere hurt and they wouldn’t really say how bad over the phone just that I needed to get on a plane and now her was my girlfriend of seven months having sex on our couch with the fucking piece of shit that was dating Alex. And then after them just staring at me standing there like a complete and utter statue. It dawned on me I had to get to you, and I wasn’t thinking about how could she do this? How could she cheat on me? I literally thought of you being hurt and how bad Alex was going to be hurt. And I realized maybe I didn’t really love her you know like maybe I had built our relationship up so much in my mind that when it came crashing down it didn’t really hurt. It was more like a load lifted off my shoulders. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it felt, I mean sure I was pissed you know. If she didn’t want to be with me and wanted to be with someone else well, she should have said something and let me know I wouldn’t have stopped her. But instead she did it behind my back with my best friends’ girlfriend and that just pissed me off.” Ava took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. “So I came back to reality and told her you had been hurt and I had to go to Germany and I ran into the room packed a bag and when I came out they were both scrambling to put on their clothes and I said..” Ava chuckled at herself before her next words which confused Hannah a little. “I told her that I was going to tell Alex everything I witnessed and that she might not want to be here when she came to collect my things. Because I knew once I told Alex everything, she was going to kick someone’s ass. She tried to say something to me, but I threw my hands up telling her I basically didn’t want to hear it. Because I didn’t want too, I just wanted to leave and get on that plane because I was so worried about you. It took me a while to get over being cheated on. Not getting over Allison but her betrayal, and I did one-night stands for a little while there while you were in recovery. But that just isn’t for me you know like it’s fun don’t get me wrong, I just haven’t found anyone that I want to see again. And since I’m being honest, I have no idea what happened that day I met Sara I can’t explain it literally just froze. But I felt drawn to her too like my body wouldn’t move but my head was saying go and everything was just swirling around in my brain trying to connect the dots.” Ava stopped after that statement and put her head down on the table. “I walked into a fucking door!” Ava started to laugh which then caused Hannah to laugh, Ava reached out her hand on the table and Hannah met her hand with hers. Ava gave her hand a squeeze and she looked up at Hannah who wasn’t crying anymore she had a smile for the first time in a few days. “I love you Gidget, you are not and never will be a burden to me. You are my family forever you know that.”