YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE. She screamed something about being a third wheel; and having to be an aggressive bitch. Hateful words spewed forth, of their own accord.
"Do you know what it's like to be alone all your life? Do you?" she screamed hoarsely at her sister. Years of frustration and rage fell away, one by one, in those few seconds.
She shrieked at her sister.
"You have to be an aggressive bitch! Nice girls can sit home alone! I can't believe you're my sister," she said in front of all those girls.
The crowd watched. A couple of blond sweatshirted girls stood, open-mouthed, staring at her. Sherri was open-mouthed, as well. She winced in pain at the words her shy sister now hurled. Debbie walked over to the pier, away from them.
"Why don't you just stay home? I was supposed to have a date tonight. A dinner date!" Sherri shouted.
"A dinner date? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? I would have stayed home. I couldn't stand you all day long."
"Since you moved to New York, you think you're too good for anybody!" Her sister shouted. Well, maybe she was.
"You're always talking about all your dates!" Debbie yelled back.
"Well, you always tell me about Steve and Mike," Sherri confessed. So that was it. Her guards were finally coming down. She no longer had the perfect comeback for Debbie's every remark.
"If he wanted to ask you out, he would," she taunted her older sister for the fiftieth time.
"Well, maybe he will!" Debbie screamed, further incensed by the familiar taunt. She slapped her sister's face so hard her hand stung. And her sister walked away in horror and stood by her date.
"Take me home!" Debbie screamed. But she would not leave the pier to go near her sister.
The realistic fear that her sister would refuse her a ride home plagued her distraught mind. They walked, what appeared to be a mile apart, down the street. Debbie was afraid to go near her sister. Sherri rounded a corner and was gone.
Oh, no, she's leaving without me, Debbie thought. What would she do?! She didn't have a car, she didn't have any friends around here. There was no subway system, cab service or buses that could take her home. The ultimate revenge: her sister had left her here! The awful reality of this night struck her as she had struck her own sister.
Who did she know who would come and get her? Mike? But he lived at the other end of Connecticut. No, she would try her mother first. She dug for the quarter or was it a dime to make the collect call.
"Well, you better get a map and find your way here!" she ordered her mother. All she wanted was to be able to call someone from anywhere, at any time and to know that person would come get her.
