Broken

Everyone has a sad story, if you dig deep enough, like scratching a scab. You can dig and dig, and eventually, everybody, invariably, opens and bleeds.

Luisa was great at that, finding everyone’s sore spot, knowing just the right way to make it hurt. It could be an innocent sounding comment, a raise of an eyebrow, a gaze too long at a scar or some other secret imperfection. Whatever your Achilles heel was, she could find it, use it. Then she would parade it around like a war totem, a symbol of her strength, another battle won.

I used to admire it, her skill of reading people, of twisting the knife just a little. She was always careful to use it only in certain situations. Her selection of victims was careful, discerning, never reckless. She made sure it was only people who deserved it, who were already broken anyway, people so irredeemably damaged that their only destiny was to destroy other people on their path to self-annihilation.

Luisa once said, there was no shortage of evil in the downtrodden. It was something she read in some self-help book, and she held on to that line and built her own philosophy around it like some sort of manifesto. She proudly declared she never had sympathy for the bully who was bullied, the abuser who was abused. There was a point of no return, Luisa told me, when a person no longer deserved forgiveness.

Of course, this also made me afraid of her. She terrified me, my sister.

Still, she could be a powerful ally, when it served her. She was always ready to go to war, weapons holstered at her hip, barbed remarks with double meanings cocked and ready. Sometimes, though, no matter how careful she was, I was collateral damage.

“You know, you're a terrible person.” I remember saying to her, when I was the naive age of thirteen, young and foolish enough in my moral high ground to believe I knew better, thinking I had it all figured out, my sister, the villain.

At first I thought she would get angry, and I was prepared for her to scream or yell or hurt, but instead she laughed. She laughed and laughed.

The sound sent chills down my spine.

“Oh Andrea. Of course I am.” Her eyes dimmed. Her pretty face suddenly etched with unexplained sadness. I remember thinking then that in that particular shadow she looked decades older than her years. It was the only time she had ever looked at me with tenderness.

“But you... you'll be okay.” Luisa had smiled, a rare sight. “You're not like me. Promise me, Andrea, you'll never be like me.”

It had confused me, but at that moment, there seemed to be a lifeline between us, a connection stronger than blood, stronger than love or hate. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

To this day I wish I had grabbed that thin thread between us and never let it go.

I could have dug deeper, but I didn’t. Even then I knew there was something she was keeping from me, a secret she planned to die with her.

What could it be? I remember wondering. Hardened, invincible, steely Luisa, who was not afraid of anything, of anyone. What could possibly be so important that she felt the need to hide it? From me?

It wasn't until much later, after I had already lost her, that I learned what broke my sister. She had protected me from an unspeakable evil in our own house. In doing so she sacrificed her own innocence, something she would never get back.

A bully who was bullied. An abuser who was abused.

Luisa, my sister.