I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister by Amelie Sarn Read Free Book Online Page A

table.
    “Hey, that’s not yours!” Idriss shouts.
    “It’s mine now,” Djelila answers.
    “You’re lovely too,” Mom says as she pats my sister’s cheek. “Go now. Be good.”
    We take the stairs four at a time and run across the lawn of the square. The bus is there and we jump on.
    Djelila sits next to me. We put our bags on the floor and prop our knees against the glass partition.
    The landscape goes by. Towers, parking lots, kids riding their bikes on sidewalks.
    Karine and Estelle board the bus. Djelila waves to them but doesn’t get up. She stays seated beside me. She even turns to me.
    “What’s your first class?” she asks.
    “French.”
    “Ah. OK.”
    “You?”
    What a strange way to talk to each other! It feels awkward, self-conscious, artificial. Have we gotten totally out of the habit of speaking to each other in public?
    “Umm … History with that stupid guy.”
    “You mean Ducasse. I always thought he was funny.”
    School.
    We get off the bus side by side. Djelila leans toward me and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
    “Don’t forget we’re meeting up at the Hanky this afternoon.”
    “No, I won’t. See you at four o’clock.”
    “Yeah, at four.”
    Djelila walks off. This morning I get the feeling she wants to make a declaration to the whole world: “This is my sister! This girl with a scarf on her head is my sister!”

“It’s my sister.”
    Djelila, my sister.
    Your name is engraved on a slab that is surrounded by grass. A commemorative slab the town hall paid for.
    You wanted to be a princess, Djelila. You had magnificent dreams. Of course, I would make fun of you.
    We used to invent games by the hundreds. Our imaginations had no limit. Our bedroom was a castle, a ship, a forest swarming with monsters, a jungle.… 
    Once, when you were seven and I was eight, two tigers attacked us. We had to kill them to save our lives. Then we discovered that they had a cub. We took it with us, you bottle-fed him, and he became loyal to us. Do you remember, Djelila? He became our protector.
    Why did you grow up, Djelila? You were pretty with your butterfly barrettes.
    Our games often ended in arguments. When I wanted to conquer a new country, you would meet a charming prince and demand to get married.
    “Djelila, it’s not fun if you get married,” I would say.
    “Please, Sohane. I’ll get married, then I’ll come back with you into the jungle.”
    “No. I know all you’ll do is take care of your Prince Charming!”
    “Sohane, I promise you I won’t. Come to my wedding. Then you and I will leave together.”
    “Adventurers don’t need to get married!”
    “Then I won’t play anymore!”
    “I don’t care. I don’t need you!”
    “Too bad. You always want to be in charge!”
    So I would lie down on my bed and read a book, ignoring you, and you would sulk. You would go to the kitchen and help Mom cook the meal, complaining about me the whole time. “Sohane doesn’t want to play with me anymore,” you would whine. “She always lets me down.” And as Mom peeled vegetables or stirred a sauce, she would tell you stories about when she was young, with her sister. She always managed to make you laugh.
    My sister would come back, lie down next to me, and put her head on my shoulder. She couldn’t stand having us mad at each other.
    I never rejected her.
    Time goes by. Without you.
    I try not to think. I try to focus solely on my lessons. I have only one desire: to leave this place. I went into Paris last week, to pick up the famous Student Connection Guide at the main university center in the city. The guy at the reception desk told me at least four times that my school was going to distribute the guide shortly and not to worry. I finally got frustrated and told him that I wasn’t attending school anymore, that I was studying by correspondence. He looked at my head scarf knowingly and muttered, “I understand,” then kindly started to explain each paragraph of the application