From Sister
Keepsake necklaces written in your voice, with the words already on the card.
“We met in one very loud week and somehow managed to get it completely right. Years on, the house has changed hands twice and we have not changed at all.”
“We shared a first breath and every birthday that has come since. Nobody else has been there for every single day of my life. Only you.”
“People have been getting the two of us mixed up since before we could correct them. Not one of them noticed we are not remotely the same person, and I did.”
“We spent a decade driving each other completely up the wall over nothing. And none of it left a mark, which is the part I find myself thinking about.”
“You went through every single thing first and then came back and warned me. You made all the obvious mistakes so that I only had to make the new ones.”
“We grew up sharing a roof, a last name, and every secret worth keeping. Now we share a whole lifetime, and I would pick you as my sister twice.”
“We have had the same argument about the same thing for years. Neither of us has budged an inch and neither of us has ever actually left.”
“There is one person alive who remembers the same kitchen that I do. Nobody else will ever get the joke, and that is rather the point of it.”
“We were not born into the same family and it has never made any difference. You found the part of me that nobody else had even noticed was there.”
“We are not related in any way that a form would ever accept as an answer. Every single person who has seen us in a room together has assumed it anyway.”
“We shared a wall for years and you heard every bad idea I ever had. You never told anybody about a single one of them, which is why you are standing here.”
“You knew him before he was any of the things that I fell for, and liked him anyway. Whatever you did to him growing up it plainly worked. I have the benefit of it.”
“You have seen me at my very worst and you have never brought any of it up since. Today everyone meets the polished version. You are the one who knows the rest.”
“You went first through all of it and you had nobody ahead of you to ask. By the time I got there you had already worked out which parts were survivable.”