I hate her. For what she did to me, for what she still does to me.

My life was torn apart, my innocence taken before I was even old enough to realize what I was missing. My mother, there's a horror story in and of itself. So there I was, a thirteen-year-old adult, trying to come to terms with the Awful Thing (not that the name was ever spoken aloud, what had been done to me) while holding my family together. I was a zombie, moving from one responsibility to the next. Home, school, the part-time job I got by telling them I was sixteen...

I sat in the front of every class, obsessed with my books, ignoring the chit-chat from the kids on either side of me. The movies they saw, the TV shows they watched, the books they were reading... I had time for none of it.

As I got older, the books and movies turned into boyfriends. Girls talking about who was with who, who put out, who was cheating on who and the like. Relationships were a foreign concept to me, their stories of disastrous meet-ups like tales from a forgotten age that I devoured every Monday morning.

When I was sixteen, Christina came into my bedroom and crawled under the comforter next to me. She was sobbing, so I stroked her shoulder and told her it would be all right. All the while, underneath, I hated her. What did she have to cry about? What responsibility did she have to worry about? I was lying awake because I was worried about not making the light bill that month, of being short on the grocery bill next Saturday. What the hell was she crying for?

After fifteen minutes, I covered her mouth with my hand. I told her to stop crying and pressed my face against the back of her t-shirt. I couldn't stand to hear her sobs anymore. "Just be quiet," I whispered. "Don't cry."

She thought I was trying to comfort her and sobbed harder; I was furious.

I crawled on top of her, trying to squeeze the air out of her with my thighs. "Stop it, Christina."

She fought against me, my thin panties brushing against me like a caress. I growled and grit my teeth, holding her down with one hand while keeping the other clamped over her mouth. "Christina, please, stop!"

She wriggled out from underneath me, biting my fingers. Before I knew what was happening, she was on top of me, her tiny body across the small of my back. "You're not the only one hurting," she hissed, slapping my ass with each word. I howled. She pushed my face into the pillow and slapped me again. I fought against her, crying myself now, cursing at her to stop, that she'd be sorry. She moved so that our heads were together, burying her face in my hair and kissing the back of my neck. "I'm sorry, Lilly, I'm so sorry."

"Get off of me!" I screamed, red-faced with humiliation and fury. She moved off and I pounced on her, pounding her shoulders with my fists. "Don't do that ever again! Don't do that ever again!"

She kissed me then and I slumped. Her tongue was in my mouth and I fell against her. She put her hands inside my panties, the first touch I'd had their since... the Awful Thing. I swallowed hard, I bit her bottom lip and pinned her to the mattress. In the darkness, I looked down at her eyes through her curls; those beautiful curls that I wished were mine. She was breathing hard, lips parted and eyes so bright in the night.

"You can take me," she said softly.

"You're sick," I said.

"You want me."

"You're sick!" I repeated, disentangling myself and struggling to climb off of her. I was halfway across the room before she softly said my name. I turned, shivering in my t-shirt and panties, hair limp and in my eyes. I was sweating, my heart pounding, my knees weak. I was wet between my legs and it made me remember the Awful Thing, it made me remember what he'd done to me and I wanted to be clean again.

"It won't make you like him," Christina said. "Having sex won't make you like him."

"You're my sister," I said, as if she might have forgotten.

"So I know you."

I took a step towards the bed, my toes dragging along the carpet of my bedroom floor. Christina sat on her knees, looking at me under that curly blonde mop, her nipples were hard against her t-shirt. She wanted me too. I pushed my hand into her curls, the hair I should've had, and pulled her to me, kissing her hard, taking her mouth as mine, curling my fingers and taking her hair as mine, taking her to my body as MINE. I got onto the bed, pushing her down and straddling her hips with my legs. I pushed down her panties, then slid my hand up under her shirt. I squeezed her budding breasts, tears dripping onto her bare shoulders as I massaged her nipples. "Yes, Lilly," she said softly and I wept, thrusting against her. She cupped my breasts and I felt dirty, she put her hands in my panties and I wanted to shove her away.

"I love you, Lilly," she said as I came.

I sobbed into her neck, shuddering, the orgasm actually feeling like a relief after years of restraint. It practically hurt, my knees and shoulders trembling. She pushed me off, pulled the blankets up over my shoulders and kissed my lips. It wasn't a kiss of sisters, her tongue slipping wetly into my mouth. When she walked away, closing my bedroom door behind her, I rolled onto my back and touched my nipples, sliding a hand down between my legs.

Would I ever have had sex if not for that night? Would I always have equated sexual desire with the Awful Thing that had happened to me?

After that night, we shared everything. Secretly, whispered promises and oaths spoken to a pillow. We shared everything... until she took something of mine and left me bare to the soul. How could I ever trust her again after that? I owed her for what she'd given back to me... maybe one day I could forgive her for taking something I cherished so much. I put my key down on the bar and watch her eye the chain, like a puppy whose been whipped too many times inching towards a snack.

I was offering her my couch. That much she deserved.

My heart... she would have to work a little harder to reclaim.