The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
My Sister’s Reaper by Allison Hambrick
It was a sunny, beautiful day. Meg hated sunny, beautiful days. Her sister, Mikaela, thrived in the sun. It was as if she photosynthesized the light into pure, unbridled confidence. They were going to visit him. Mikaela claimed that she hadn’t put any special effort into her appearance, but one look at her betrayed her words. Her long dirty blonde hair was just the right amount of wavy. A man would think she just rolled out of bed, but a woman would be able to tell the difference. Her makeup was light, allowing her natural beauty to shine through.
Meg didn’t look like her sister. Her hair was frizzy and brown, and she had to wear a minimum of foundation and concealer just to look like she wasn’t on drugs. That’s why it meant so much to her when he chose her over her sister. The men always loved Mikaela. She was always Dad’s favorite, too. Who loved Meg? Not even herself, really. That is, not until she met Don. He was older than Meg. Seventeen years older, to be exact. It wasn’t a crime. Meg was nineteen, after all. Naturally, that was not how her father saw it.
“Ready to go?” Mikaela’s pitch perfect voice pierced through her innermost thoughts. “He’ll be waiting on us.”
“I really don’t see why you need to come with me,” Meg said softly, afraid of reopening old wounds. “I’m a big girl.”
“Well, what if I want to see for myself what you see in that old cougar?”
“Please, not again, Miki.”
“Why, whatever do you mean?” Mikaela played innocent.
“You always do this. I find someone, and you dig your claws into him.”
“It’s not my fault that guys like me, Meggy.”
Mikaela was not blind to Don’s attributes, however. He was exactly the sort of man her mother would have picked. Handsome. Charming. Completely and totally naïve. Mikaela was the sort of girl who always got what she wanted. It just so happened that most of what she wanted was what Meg had.
The girls walked out to the garage. Meg reached for her keys, but Mikaela held up a hand to stop her.
“I’m driving.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Every time you drive, I end up getting stuck waiting on you.”
“So?”
“So? Would you like to sit by yourself in a room listening to me getting off with some random guy?”
“That’d never happen, Megs. I don’t like dealing in hypotheticals.”
Mikaela smirked triumphantly and plopped into her driver’s seat. Meg rolled her eyes and took a seat in the front passenger seat, nervously looking back at Mikaela’s trunk. She reached for the radio, but Mikaela slapped her hand away.
“My car, my music.”
Meg pulled her hand back and rolled her eyes as the not-so-soothing sounds of Taylor Swift filled the sedan. Of course, Mikaela’s favorite music would be all about how unfair it is to be a rich white girl. She glanced over at her sister’s phone screen. They were getting close to Don’s house. Meg started wringing her hands. Could Mikaela see right through her?
“So, what exactly do you plan on doing?”
“Winning him over with my feminine wiles, of course.”
“And what about me?”
“You can have him when I am done with him.”
Not this time, Meg thought. Mikaela gets all the guys. It simply is not fair.
Meg turned to her sister and smiled, hoping her sister couldn’t sense her overwhelming urge to snap her neck. Mikaela was driving with the window down, her hair flowing in the salt-tinged air. If Meg didn’t know her, she would have thought she was looking at an actress. Not just any actress. One of those Oscar-winning humanitarian types that make you want to blow your brains out and yet you still go to see every overdramatic historical biopic they star in.
But Meg did know Mikaela. She knew the sort of person her sister was. Cold. Manipulative. Ready to tear you apart at the first sign of weakness. She got it from her mother.
Meg’s mother was different; she was sincere. Marylena was her name. She loved truly, deeply. That was her first mistake. Marylena was not married to her father, but Mikaela’s mother, on the other hand, she was, and she did not take to kindly to any opposition. Ever. Mikaela was her mother’s daughter, for sure. They said it wasn’t Meg’s fault she was born.
Both of Meg’s mothers were gone now. Her father could not have cared any less about what she did as long as she didn’t come home pregnant. Anything she had was fair game to Mikaela. That included any and all prospects she had, romantic or otherwise. Mikaela took a sharp right turn onto a secluded road. Meg’s pulse quickened.
“So let’s review. You can greet him and set the stage for me. Then-”
“Let me have this, Miki. I was the one that found him.”
“Yes, but I’ve always been better. Mom said so.”
“And where is Mom now?”
“The same place as your mom.”
“Listen, I am ready. I’ve played wing woman for you so many times – let me have my
turn.”
“Meggy, dear. You play wing woman because you don’t know shit. You don’t know shit because you are shit. You did good picking a target, but you’d best leave it to the pro.”
She always gets everything she wants. It simply isn’t fair. I deserve a chance. She could feel her jealousy increasing, boiling, evaporating into anger. Meg reached for her sister’s hand. She tugged on her wrist aggressively and lunged across the car.
“What are you doing?” Mikaela screeched, “This was not the plan!”
“He’s mine!”
The car veered off of the road, flipping over three times. Mikaela’s airbag deployed, and she passed out. Despite the pain in the back of her head, Meg crawled out of the passenger side and walked to the back of the crumpled sedan. She circled to the front of the car and opened her sister’s door, reaching for the keys. Meg returned to the trunk and opened it – Don, bloodied and tied up, started screaming.
Not this time, Mikaela. Meg reached behind Don, brandishing a pistol in her bruised hand.
“My turn.”
