Sisters! →[More:]We've all got them, or at least most of us... hopefully. I never thought I'd be saying that. Of course growing up, my sister and I were very, very close. The elder one of my sisters, who is two years younger to me, and I would spend most of our time together, getting up to some mischief or the other, since there was no one else to keep us occupied except ourselves. So we did mostly everything together... playing Monopoly, watching TV (I actually got hooked on stuff like My Little Pony and Friends because of her???), and a whole lot of other shit. When I was growing up, I loved my sister very much. We fought, sure--but we both knew we had to take care of eachother because there was no one else to lean back on. (I remember one time after watching Aliens for the first time, where Sigourney Weaver's character (Ripley, wasn't it?), says to the Mother Alien--(something, something) "Get away from her, you bitch!" And I, being around eight or so, was fascinated by the word and started repeating it, the whole dialogue, which made my mom [who was also watching the movie along with a cousin brother and sister of mine] to warn me very strictly never to utter that word again). The effect that this has on an eight year old anywhere in the world is probably the same one as I did: I smirked at mom, raised my eyebrow--turned to my sister, and without even knowing what the word meant (it was something that I was NOT supposed to say--that was enough for me)--told her to--"get away from me, you bitch!"

That was it--whatever vestige of control my mom was showing in front of my cousin brother and sister (who were in their late teens and obviously knew what the word meant, and were also extremely embarrassed about the whole thing since it was my cousin brother who had brought the movie home for all of us to watch--saying that it would be very good, which it was--except for the foul language [the one bit of dialogue that was there])--made my mom lose control and get up from the couch where she had been peacefully sitting--walk straight towards me--and slap me HARD on my cheek.

This was embarrassing, no doubt, but to have it done to me without even knowing the reason why was even more hard to swallow, and so--I of course broke out into tears, but not before I was able to stomp off into an adjoining room and slam the door behind me.

My sister--the one who I'd called a bitch, was just as perplexed as I was to the whole situation, and decided to console me--she knocked on the door as gently as she could, told me that it was she who was entering the room (or at least I can recall that she did, because I don't think I would've opened the door for anyone else at that point of time), and slipped into the room.

She saw the tears in my eyes, even though I had tried my best to wipe my face clean before letting her in, and sort of just stood in front of me for a second or two, I think, after which we both went over to the window and stood on a stool or something to watch the pigeons flying around. I told her that I hated mom, and that she was a very bad person, and my sister quietly listened to my frustrated cries, after which (we were both looking everywhere else except at each other), she sort of turned to me and said--Daanish--you can call me Bitch anytime you want--I don't mind.