Watching My Family From The Grave

It started with a birthday gift. I bought one for a female classmate, but not for my sister.

My parents decided I was abnormal. They called it a deviation. To fix me, they sent me away to Serenity Ridge Academy, a therapeutic boarding school designed to cure behavioral anomalies and difficult cases.

In the first year, I lost a pinky finger because I couldn't tie my shoes fast enough. I had no one to tell.

In the second year, my stomach swelled with a child that never came to be, and then went flat again.

In the third year, when my mind finally shattered and I could no longer feel fear, pain, or hope...

That was when Mom and Dad finally remembered to come pick me up.

My wrists were zip-tied to the metal frame of the bed when the heavy steel door creaked open. The sudden flood of light made me flinch, my body curling into a defensive ball before my brain could even process who was there.

"Im good. I wont run. Please dont hit me. Please."

Mr. Henderson, the program director, yanked me up from the floor. His face, usually a mask of indifference, twisted into a performative grin. "Its your lucky day, Hollis. Your family finally remembered you exist."

He leaned in close, his breath smelling of stale coffee and mints. "You know the drill. You know what to say, and more importantly, what not to say. You know the consequences."

I nodded numbly, hiding my trembling hands behind my back. "I know. Ill be... Ill be good. I wont say the bad things."

My voice was a ruin. A harsh, gravelly rasp. The result of the time they forced me to swallow industrial cleaner. Talking hurt, but silence hurt more.

They hosed me down and shoved me into clean clothes.

Then, the moment I had dreamed of a thousand times happened. The iron gates buzzed open. The sky was violently blue, so bright it made my eyes water.

Mom and Dad were standing by the Range Rover. My older brother, Gary, and my twin sister, Piper, were there too.

Seeing Piperseeing the face that was identical to mine but unmarred by hellmade bile rise in my throat. For three years, I had been forced to look in a mirror and call myself filthy. Looking at her was like looking at a pristine version of my own ghost.

I averted my gaze, digging my fingernails into my wrist to ground myself. I stepped forward, head bowed, shoulders slumped. "Mom. Dad. Gary."

Dad frowned, checking his watch. "Your sister came all this way to get you, too. Look at her, Hollis."

Piper crossed her arms, letting out a dramatic huff. "I knew she still hated me. I literally gave up my spot in the front seat for you, Hollis. What more do you want?"

We were twins. Born on the same day. But because I emerged minutes earlier, I was the older sister. I was the one expected to yield, to sacrifice, to fade into the background so she could shine.

Garys voice was stern, the voice of a man used to giving orders. "Three years, Hollis. Haven't you learned how to behave yet?"

My body went rigid. Muscle memory took over. "Present. Im listening. I learned. Im good now."

Serenity Ridge had strict rules.

Year one: I was ten seconds late tying my laces. They took my finger with a cigar cutter.

Year two: I tried to swallow pills to end it. They pumped my stomach with toilet bowl cleaner. Thats why I sound like this.

Year three: I used a rusted piece of metal to open my veins. I bled all over the linoleum.

My reward was solitary confinement. Hands bound behind my back. Darkness. Beatings.

There was no escape from hell.

Dad seemed satisfied with my submission. "Good. Looks like the program worked. The rehabilitation was a success." He paused, a warning in his eyes. "No bullying your sister from now on."

I didn't defend myself. "Ill be good. Ill listen."

Those were the only words that mattered inside.

Mom looked at me, her eyes glistening with a performative kind of maternal warmth. "Okay, thats enough. The counselors say Hollis has made great progress. We booked a table at Le Jardin to celebrate. Lets go."

I tucked my left hand deeper into my sleeve to hide the missing digit and followed them into the car.

The restaurant was elegant. The table was filled with delicate, expensive dishes I hadn't seen in years.

At the Ridge, we didn't use utensils. Utensils were weapons. Most days, we ate with our hands. Sometimes, for punishment, we ate off the floor like dogs.

"Hollis," Mom said as the appetizers arrived. "It's your birthday today. What do you want?"

Was it? I had lost track of time.

I squeezed my hands together under the table. "Will Dad... send me back?"

Dad straightened his blazer, exuding the authority of the patriarch. "The director says youve improved, but were on a probation period. Piper is fragile, you know that. As long as you listen and put her first, I wont send you back. For now."

The counselors did home visits. If the parents complainedif they said, this child is not fixedthe van would come back.

I had seen girls return. The punishment for a "failed release" was worse than death.

I forced the corners of my mouth up. It felt like stretching old leather. "Thank you, Dad."

"We drove all the way out here on your birthday," Dad said, sounding proud of his benevolence. "I hope you understand that everything we did these past three years... it was for your own good. It was tough love."

"I know," I whispered.

"Alright, eat," Mom said.

Dad picked up his fork.

I mimicked him. I reached for the heavy silver chopsticksLe Jardin was fusiontrying to reclaim some shred of human dignity.

But my fingers wouldn't cooperate. The nerves were shot. My hand shook violently.

Clatter. Clatter.

The chopsticks hit the porcelain bowl. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet restaurant.

Dad tolerated it for ten seconds before slamming his own utensils down.

"Are you doing this on purpose? Are you still resenting me?"

I shot up from my chair. "Report! No, sir."

"Then why aren't you eating?"

In a split second, the restaurant dissolved. I was back in the Mess Hall. The concrete floor. The smell of mildew.

Mr. Henderson ordering me to eat the vomit Id just expelled.

I won't.

Then you kneel until you do.

Hunger strikes meant beatings. Solitary meant three days without water.

No one holds out forever.

In the end, you kneel. You eat like a dog.

Fear hijacked my brain. Survival instinct kicked in. I grabbed the food from my plate with my bare hands and shoved it into my mouth.

The beautifully plated sea bass. The garnish. The rice.

I didn't taste any of it. It was ash. But I had to eat. I had to show them I was compliant.

I crammed it in until my cheeks bulged, grease smearing my face.

"Hollis, stop! You're scaring people!" Mom hissed.

Dads face turned purple. "Enough! You look like an animal. Sit down and use your utensils!"

"Yes, sir."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and sat back down.

I had consumed enough calories to function. In the Ridge, if you ate too slow, the others starved.

I sat perfectly still, eyes fixed on the middle distance.

Mom ladled some soup into a bowl for me. "Here. Have some broth. Its good for you."

"Im full," I said mechanically. "Thank you, Mother."

Moms hand paused in mid-air. She looked at me, and for a second, a flicker of something unsettled crossed her eyes.

I used to cry for her. I used to scream her name in my sleep.

Now, I felt nothing. Looking at them was like looking at mannequins in a store window. They were talking, laughing, playing the perfect family. I felt like I was watching them through a pane of thick, dirty glass.

I stopped trying to decode their conversation. I retreated into the safety of my own mind.

I don't remember the drive home. When I got to my old room, I laid on the bed. The mattress was too soft. It felt wrong. I felt exposed.

I grabbed the duvet and dragged it into the corner of the room, wedging myself between the nightstand and the wall.

The pressure against my back felt like safety.

A knock at the door. I scrambled up. It was Mom. She looked guilty.

"Hollis... I have a gift for you, too. Tell Mom, what do you want? Anything."

"Okay. Give everything to Piper."

She looked into my eyes. I knew what she saw. A dead thing. Hollow.

"I'm asking what you want, sweetheart."

I thought about it.

I wanted that jagged piece of metal again.

I wanted to sink to the bottom of the bathtub and inhale the water.

I wanted to know if a knife sliding between my ribs would finally make me feel something.

I wanted to unmake myself.

"Staying home," I rasped. "Staying home is fine."

"Okay... sure. Whatever you want."

She looked disturbed. But I didn't move. I stood at attention, waiting for the command to be at ease.

Disobedience meant the Chair.

"Hollis, you're home now. You don't have to be so... stiff."

"Yes, ma'am."

She left. I waited a full ten minutes before I silently closed the door.

I went back to my corner, curled up in the duvet, and hugged my knees.

I dreamed of my nineteenth birthday.

A girl in my chemistry class had given me a sketchbook. It was handmade.

Piper wanted it.

I always gave Piper everything. But not that. That was mine.

Piper ran to Mom and Dad. She twisted the story. She said I was obsessed with the girl. That I was writing love letters.

The argument exploded. The box fell. A letter fell outone the girl had written, confessing a crush I didn't even know about.

Mom and Dad didn't listen. They saw "lesbian." They saw "abnormal." They saw a threat to the family image.

We need to fix her before she humiliates us.

They sent the goons that night.

In the dream, I was back in the Reflection Room.

They laughed at me while they strapped me down.

"Thought you didn't like men, huh?"

"Let's see if we can change that."

I woke up screaming, but no sound came out.

The room was dark.

I stood up and looked in the vanity mirror.

My face shifted.

It wasn't me. It was the girl who died from the drain cleaner, her liver burned out.

It was the boy whose arm they broke.

Then it became Mr. Henderson.

Then the other instructors.

They were coming out of the glass.

Smash.

My fist went through the mirror before I realized Id moved. The hallucination shattered.

Blood dripped from my knuckles onto the vanity. The pain was sharp, electric.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

The shards of glass lay on the table like diamonds.

A voice in my headsweet, seductivewhispered: Do it. Pick it up. Open the vein. It ends tonight.

I reached for a jagged shard.

In the reflection of the broken glass, I saw a figure in the doorway.

Gary. He flipped the light switch.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I dropped the glass.

I dropped to my knees, forehead touching the floor. "I didn't mean to. The mirror... it broke itself. Please. Please don't touch me."

The noise woke the house.

Piper appeared in the doorway, yawning, wearing silk pajamas. "God, Hollis. Its a reform school, not a gulag. You did online classes and calisthenics. Stop being so dramatic. Youve been home for six hours and youre already seeking attention."

She looked annoyed. Bored.

I blinked, the adrenaline fading into confusion. "I... I didn't mean to."

Mom gasped. "Oh my god, look at the blood. Should we call a doctor?"

Dad scoffed from the hallway. "No. No doctors. We don't need a scene."

He turned to Gary. "She's just adjusting. Gary, deal with it."

"Go back to bed," Gary said.

"Sorry, Gary," I whispered, hiding my bleeding hand behind my back. "Go sleep. I can... I can handle the cleanup."

Gary frowned. For the first time, his eyes didn't look angry. They looked... unsettled.

"Let me see it."

I kept my hand hidden. Exposure meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant pain.

"Hollis." His voice had that command tone.

I slid off the stool and curled into a ball on the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know I'm wrong."

"Why are you acting like this?" Gary asked, genuinely confused.

I looked around. Plush carpet. heavy curtains. I was safe?

Or would the broken mirror be the strike that sent me back?

I didn't dare stand up.

Gary stepped forward and forcibly took my wrist, pulling my bleeding hand into the light.

"Why?" he asked.

"Mirror broke. I wanted to see. I fell."

"Why are you talking like that?" Gary asked. "Like a robot?"

My brain was buzzing. Static noise. My fingers were trembling so hard I thought they might detach.

Gary stared at me. "Does it hurt?"

Hurt?

Three years. This was the first time anyone had asked me that.

Did it?

I shook my head. "No pain. Please. Don't tell Dad."

He sighed, sitting on the floor with me. He fetched the first aid kit and cleaned the shards out of my knuckles.

"Next time something breaks, just call me," he said, wrapping the gauze. "Don't do it yourself."

Call him?

I had called him. I had screamed for him. I had begged for him every night for a thousand nights.

He never came.

I nodded anyway.

When he left, I crawled back into my corner behind the curtains.

I stopped coming out. I didn't feel hungry. My brain felt like it had been unplugged.

I could sit by the window and watch the dust motes dance for twelve hours straight.

Sometimes they sent food. Sometimes I forced myself to eat, only to vomit it back up.

I was broken. Even eating was a skill I had lost.

Then, she came back.

I saw her standing by the bookshelf.

"Hollis! Get it together!" she snapped.

"You said when you got out, you were going to finish college. You were going to be somebody."

"Are you really going to let Piper win?"

I looked at the books on my shelf. I recognized the letters, but when I tried to read, the words swam away. I couldn't focus.

My brain was damaged.

But I couldn't admit that. Not to her.

"Rory," I whispered. "Did your parents come get you too?"

The girl standing by the window rolled her eyes. She was chewing on a lollipop, looking like the tough, cool punk rocker she always was. "You forgot? My parents threw me away years ago."

"Can you... can you stay with me?"

She shrugged, trying to look indifferent. "Yeah. Sure."

With Rory there, the house felt less like a tomb.

"Are you hungry?" I asked her.

She shook her head.

Strange. Rory was always hungry. She used to steal bread crusts from the trash. She must be being polite.

I went downstairs and asked the housekeeper for two sets of silverware.

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Is... does Miss Hollis have a guest?"

I nodded.

Dinner was awkward. Dad and Gary were home early.

Gary stared at the extra place setting I had arranged next to me. He ate the portion I had served for Rory.

I opened my mouth to protest, but Rory whispered, "It's fine. I'm really not hungry."

Good. I wasn't either.

I pushed my plate toward Dad.

"Dad. When can I... go back to school?"

Dad avoided my eyes. He cut his steak with surgical precision.

"There are some paperwork issues. We need to wait."

"Next semester, maybe. It's too late to enroll now."

They told everyone I was on medical leave.

Paperwork took time. I believed him.

That night, I woke up in a panic. Rory wasn't in her spot on the floor.

I crept out to the hallway.

I heard voices from the study.

"What happens if she finds out Piper took her acceptance letter?" Mom whispered.

Dad sounded dismissive. "So what? The company is stabilizing under Gary. Worst case, we send Hollis to some community college or ship her overseas."

"Piper needed that start. Hollis is... damaged goods."

"How could she like women? Disgusting. Piper is our future now. We can't have that kind of scandal."

My admission letter.

They gave it to Piper?

They erased me. They replaced me.

I backed away into the shadows.

Rory was there. She handed me a tissue.

"Where did you go?" I choked out.

"Don't cry," she said. She pulled me into a hug. She smelled like rain and ozone.

The pain in my chest was unbearable. It felt like my heart was being carved out with a dull spoon.

I gasped for air, wheezing like a broken accordion.

"Rory... am I dying?"

She rubbed my back.

"Don't be scared. I'm right here with you."

I survived the night.

When morning came, the pain was gone. In fact, everything felt light.

My head was clear. My body felt weightless.

I felt... happy.

It felt like three years ago. Before the cage.

I put on my favorite dress from beforeit hung loose on my skeletal frameand grabbed my purse.

"Come on, Rory. Let's go."

"You always said you wanted to see the ocean."

"The ocean is too far, but there's the lake. It's big enough."

I ran into Piper on the stairs.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

I smiled at her. A genuine smile. "Rory."

She looked at me like I was hallucinating, but I didn't care. Not today.

I walked out the door.

"Where are you going?" Piper called out.

"To see the sea."

"Hollis, you're insane. We live in Illinois."

I called an Uber to the city center.

I bought two ice cream cones.

I handed one to Rory.

She fumbled it, and it splattered on the sidewalk.

I laughed and bought another one. "Don't drop it this time."

The vendor stared at me.

I ate my ice cream. It tasted like vanilla and freedom.

I went to a bakery and bought two slices of blueberry cake. Rory's favorite.

I went to the Italian place she always talked about.

"I promised I'd treat you if we got out," I told the empty chair across from me. "I keep my promises."

My bank account was low, so I ordered pasta instead of steak. But we had a feast.

We walked past a candy store. I bought orange gummy bears.

I bought a pink stuffed bunny from a gift shop. Rory acted tough, but she loved cute things.

My arms were full of gifts.

Rory couldn't carry anything. Her hands were injured from that last time in the Reflection Room.

I skipped down the street.

"You're twenty-one, Hollis," Rory teased. "Act your age."

"You act like you're thirty, Grandma," I shot back.

She laughed.

She was a year younger than me. But she had always been the brave one.

Sunset. The sky was bleeding crimson.

I sat on the edge of the pier at the lake. The sound of the water drowned out the city traffic.

I opened a can of soda for her. I laid out the postcard of her favorite band.

The wind off the water smelled metallic.

"I did it," I whispered. "Everything I promised."

Rory looked at me. Her eyes were red. They were filled with a terrible, crushing pity.

"You promised me you'd live, Hollis."

I took a sip of my soda. The bubbles fizzed on my tongue, but there was no sweetness.

"I can't go to college. Piper took it. There is no future."

My phone buzzed.

It was a notification. Rory's grandmotherthe account I had secretly followedhad started a livestream.

I opened it.

An old woman with white hair was weeping into the camera.

"My granddaughter died at Serenity Ridge Academy. Her body was covered in bruises. I am begging the authorities... please investigate."

"Her parents threw her away. But I never gave up on her."

"Her name was Rory Vance."

The soda can slipped from my fingers. Clatter. Fizz.

The glare off the lake was blinding.

I turned my head slowly to the left.

The space beside me was empty.

The pain returned. A spear through the lungs.

A high-pitched ringing screamed in my ears.

My phone rang.

It was Piper.

"Hollis? I Googled that name. Rory Vance? Hate to break it to you, but she's dead. Like, months ago."

It was the first time shed called me by my name without a sneer.

"I know."

My voice was calm.

I hung up.

The dam broke. The memories flooded back.

Rory was my only friend.

We tried to run.

They caught us at the fence.

Rory shoved me behind her.

The guard swung a piece of rebar. It went through her leg.

Infection. Sepsis.

They didn't call a doctor. They threw her in solitary to "cool off."

She died in my arms on the concrete floor.

Her last words were: Don't forget me.

My fingers convulsed, gripping the cold stone railing of the pier.

I felt like I was breathing through wet cotton.

I dug my nails into the stone until they broke. The pain was grounding. But it wasn't enough.

Nothing was enough to silence the screaming in my head.

My body moved on its own. I stepped up onto the railing. The dark water churned below.

Finally. Silence.

I saw her again.

Rory. Standing on the water.

Pale. Cold. Sad.

I leaned forward.

A hand grabbed my wrist from behind. A pale hand with a scar shaped like a rulerthe scar she got taking a beating for me.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed, looking at the air behind me.

"I failed you."

"Rory, it hurts too much."

"Let me go. Please."

The hand vanished.

The grip released.

Gravity took me.

I fell into the lake like I was falling into her arms.

The cold was absolute. The suffocation was a mercy.

Hollis, don't wake up this time.