Flash Fiction Piece

Why I Killed My Sister

“Why did you kill your sister?” he asked me again.

“I didn’t,” I blubbered through my tears.  The questioning had been going on for so long; I just wanted it to stop.  I would not give him the answers he wanted; I couldn’t.

He slammed his hand down hard on the table.  “Why are you lying to me?” he said angrily.  His stare was cold and unforgiving.

“Please…”

“Tell the truth!” he shouted in my face.  Anger and frustration poured out of him.  He just wanted me to confess and be done with it.  But it wasn’t that simple.  He didn’t understand.  “Tell me!” he shouted again, closer this time.

“I didn’t kill her, I saved her!”  I finally shouted, my resolve starting to crumble at last.  This was too much.

“Who led Jen out to that bridge?” he asked, stepping back and starting to pace on the other side of the table I was sitting at.  “You did.”  The malice in his voice was piercing.  “Who told her to look over the edge and see that it was her only way out?  You did.”

“Don’t,” I begged feebly.  I couldn’t deal with this.  It was in the past and needed to stay there.

“You pushed her, physically or not.  It’s your fault she’s dead.  Do you deny it?”

“No.”  I said the word quietly, almost as if I were talking to myself.  In some ways I was.  This didn’t really matter to him.  Not like it mattered to me.  I dropped my head into my hands in defeat.  I couldn’t hold out any longer.

“What did you say?” he asked pausing midstride.  He turned to stare at me.  Mild surprise flickered across his features as he walked to stand in front of me.

“I said NO!”  I shouted at him.  “It’s my fault she’s dead.  I killed her.  It was me.”

“Why did you do it?”  He spoke the words without emotion, but there was something in his eyes that said the answer was very important to him.

“Why?”  I asked, sarcasm dripping from the word like venom.  As if he could ask that question.  “Because she was wrong.  She was perfect and she was wrong.  No person was ever meant to be that good.  It’s not possible for that to be real.  I took her to the bridge so she could see what she was really made of.  Jen was living a lie and I had to make her see it.  It would have destroyed her.  I just made sure she ended it while she was still herself.  That’s what sisters are for.”  The words were not nearly enough, but I felt free after finally telling someone, explaining myself so someone else might tell me that I was right.  I had known I was right at the time, but somehow I felt I needed this from him. 

“I had no idea,” he said with surprise as he sank into the chair opposite me. 

“What?”

“All this time I thought you hated me, but you did all that for me.  Thank you.”  He reached up and removed his glasses, setting them on the table.  Then he grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled.  The wig came off and he put it on the table next to his glasses.  He used both hands to release his hair from the pins that kept it bound close to the scalp so the wig could fit on top.  Curly blonde hair spilled down around his shoulders.  He looked up and smiled at me.  It was Jen’s smile.