At my 13th birthday dinner, my mom’s friend gripped my hand and whispered

The Revelation

At my 13th birthday dinner, my mom’s friend gripped my hand and whispered, “What happened to your twin wasn’t your fault?”.

I laughed, “My fault for what? That she got a scholarship to a boarding school in Switzerland.”.

Miss Killerself’s face went completely white.

She pulled her hand back like she’d been burned, mumbling something about needing to find my mother. The thing was, everyone had been acting strange all night.

When dad made his toast, his voice cracked on, “Proud of the young woman you’re becoming”. And mom had to take over.

My grandmother kept touching my face and tearing up for no reason. Even my cousins were being nice to me, which never happened.

I found dad in the garage pretending to organize his tools. He always did that when he was upset.

“Dad, why is everyone acting so weird about Kitty?”.

“Is this about when I was jealous that she got into that fancy boarding school?”.

“I apologized for that months ago.”.

He went completely white, whiter than Miss Killer had been. His wrench clattered to the concrete floor.

“Sweetheart, do you What do you remember about when Kitty left?”.

“She got the scholarship last year.”.

“Went to Switzerland.”.

“We drove her to the airport.”.

Even as I said it, something felt wrong about the memory. Like trying to remember a dream.

My father, who I’d never seen cry, not even when grandpa died, was sobbing against his workbench.

“You were asleep.”.

“You didn’t mean to.”.

“Didn’t mean to what?”.

My voice was barely a whisper.

“Please find your mother.”.

“Please.”.

He wouldn’t look at me. I ran through the house, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.

Mom’s bedroom door was locked. I could hear her on the phone.

“She doesn’t remember doing it.”.

“She thinks Kitty’s still.”.

I pounded on the door.

“Mom, open up.”.

“What is everyone talking about?”.

The door opened and Mom’s face was destroyed.

Mascara streaking down her cheeks. Her lipstick smeared.

“It wasn’t your fault.”.

“You were asleep.”.

“You were just asleep.”.

“What wasn’t my fault?”.

“Let me call Kitty.”.

She sobbed harder. Her whole body shaking against mine.

I pushed away and called Kitty with trembling fingers. With each time it went to voicemail, my mom tried harder to grab the phone.

So, I went to the bathroom and called my brother.

“Everyone keeps saying I did something, that it wasn’t my fault.”.

“What did I do to Kitty?”.

Dead silence.

“Then you really don’t remember.”.

“Remember doing what?”.

I was screaming now.

“Where are you?”.

“Home.”.

“Mom and dad are having breakdowns about something I supposedly did to Kitty.”.

“Don’t call the school.”.

“Don’t look for her online.”.

“Why would I?”.

“She’s at boarding school.”.

“She sends letters every week.”.

Another long pause.

“I’m coming home now.”.

“Just Just wait for me.”.

20 minutes later, my brother pulled me out to his car. His hands were shaking as he gripped the steering wheel.

“Everyone says I did something to Kitty, but won’t tell me what.”.

He wouldn’t look at me.

“Do you remember the locks on your bedroom door?”.

He finally asked.

“The safety locks?”.

“Yeah, mom installed them last year.”.

“They lock from the outside.”.

I felt my stomach drop.

“What?”.

“Every night for the past year, mom or dad locks you in your room after you fall asleep.”.

“That doesn’t make sense.”.

“Why would they?”.

“Do you remember having nightmares?”.

“Night terrors?”.

Something cold was creeping up my spine.

“I sometimes, but everyone has nightmares.”.

“You were sleepwalking.”.

“Bad.”.

“Like really bad.”.

“You’d wake up in random parts of the house with no memory of how you got there.”.

“Okay, so lots of people sleepwalk.”.

He finally looked at me and his eyes were red.

“The night Kitty left for boarding school.”.

“Do you actually remember driving her to the airport?”.

“Stop it.”.

I was crying now.

“Why are you doing this?”.

“Because there was no plane.”.

His voice broke.

“There was no airport.”.

“There’s no boarding school in Switzerland.”.

“Then where is Kitty?”.

He turned away again and I saw tears rolling down his cheek.

“That night, the night you think she left, you were sleepwalking.”.

“You and Kitty were in your room.”.

“You Something happened during your episode.”.

“You pushed her.”.

“Pushed her where?”.

My voice was so small I could barely hear it.

“Out your bedroom window.”.

“The one mom nailed shut after.”.

The world stopped making sense.

“But that’s the second story.”.

“Yeah, but she’s she sends letters.”.

“Mom reads them to me every week.”.

“Mom writes them.”.

“Dad helps sometimes.”.

They’ve been pretending for a year because he took a shaky breath because when you woke up, when the ambulance came, you had no memory of it. And when they tried to tell you the first time, you completely broke down.

“You tried to You hurt yourself bad.”.

The therapist said your mind couldn’t process it. So, it created false memories to protect you.

“I killed my sister.”.

“No.”.

“No.”.

“Listen to me.”.

He grabbed my shoulders.

“You had a parasomnia episode.”.

“Your body did something while your mind was completely unconscious.”.

“It wasn’t you.”.

“I want to see her room.”.

“It’s locked.”.

“Has been for a year.”.

“I know where mom hides keys.”.

10 minutes later, I was in Kitty’s untouched room reading her diary. The last entry was the night she died.

“I have to tell someone the truth about what OP does at night.”.

“Mom’s been lying to everyone.”.

“She knows exactly why this is happening.”.

I read the words again. “Mom’s been lying to everyone”. “She knows exactly why this is happening”.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The diary felt too heavy, like it weighed more than it should.

I looked up at my brother standing in the doorway, and his face told me everything. He knew.

Whatever Kitty was going to tell someone, he already knew about it.

I stood up fast, and the room spun a little.

“What did mom lie about?”.

“What did she know?”.

My voice came out louder than I meant it to. My brother stepped inside and closed the door behind him, which made my chest feel tight.

He sat down on Kitty’s bed next to where I’d been sitting and put his head in his hands for a second. Then he looked at me and his eyes were red and tired.

“For months before it happened, your episodes were getting worse.”.

“Way worse than anyone told you.”.

He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through something.

“Mom was writing everything down.”.

“Every episode, every time you did something violent in your sleep, she kept a journal and hid it from everyone”.

I felt cold all over.

“What do you mean violent?”.

He turned his phone toward me and I saw a photo of handwritten pages. Mom’s handwriting.

I grabbed the phone and started reading. The first entry was dated 8 months before Kitty died.

“OP woke up screaming again tonight.”.

“Found her in the hallway with a kitchen knife.”.

“She didn’t know how she got there.”.

“Didn’t remember leaving her room.”.

“Took the knife away and she looked right through me like I wasn’t there.”.

“Put her back to bed.”.

“Can’t tell anyone.”.

“They’ll take her away.”.

My stomach hurt reading it. I scrolled to the next photo.

“OP attacked me during an episode last night.”.

“scratched my arms trying to get past me.”.

“She was saying things that didn’t make sense.”.

“Something about needing to fix it.”.

“She didn’t recognize me.”.

“When she woke up, she had no memory.”.

“Found blood under her fingernails.”.

“My blood.”.

“I’m scared, but I can’t report this.”.

“Social services will separate the girls or they’ll put OP in a hospital.”.

“I can handle this myself.”.

I couldn’t breathe right.

“I attacked you.”.

“I attacked mom.”.

My brother nodded.

“You don’t remember any of it.”.

“That’s how the parasomnia works.”.

“Your body moves, but your brain isn’t awake.”.

“You were asleep the whole time.”.

I kept scrolling through the photos. There were dozens of entries.

Mom documenting every episode, every violent thing I did while asleep, every time she had to stop me from hurting myself or someone else. And she never told anyone, never told doctors, never told dad, just wrote it all down and tried to handle it alone.

The last entry was 2 days before Kitty died.

“Episode getting worse every night now.”.

“OP tried to open Kitty’s bedroom door while sleepwalking last night.”.

“I heard her and stopped her.”.

“She was saying, ‘I have to make her leave. She needs to go away.'”.

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”.

“The locks aren’t enough.”.

“But if I tell someone, they’ll take both my daughters from me.”.

“I just need to watch more carefully.”.

“I can keep them both safe.”.

I dropped the phone on the bed. My whole body felt wrong, like my skin didn’t fit anymore.

“Mom knew I was dangerous.”.

“She knew I could hurt someone and she didn’t get me help.”.

The words came out flat and dead. My brother picked up his phone.

“She was scared.”.

“She thought if she told anyone, you’d be taken away or locked up somewhere.”.

“But Kitty died.”.

I was yelling now.

“Kitty died because mom was too scared to tell the truth.”.

“This wasn’t just an accident.”.

“This was preventable.”.

Something broke inside me. I felt it crack open like ice. All those months, Mom watched me get worse and wrote about it in her secret journal instead of taking me to a real doctor.