Part the Third
The boring middle part.
She grew up. Her sister and herself moved further and further apart, leading different lives, as happens. She was quite happy being the good child. She was a support for her parents, didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, didn’t run around, didn’t miss contact with people – who continued to be as confusing as always. Her sister was the example by which she didn’t set her life: her sister ran away from home and came back, ran away again and came back, fell in and out with a bad crowd, married, had two children, grew up in a way that she didn’t.
She stayed close to her parents, maintained a relationship with her sister, held down one good job after another, moved on the biggest whim of her life to another state, bought a home, realized she was aromantic asexual, and continued to count her mother as her best friend and her father as her other friend. She made work friends, sure, but there was always something so messy, so confusing, so upsetting to her about trying to figure people out that it was just easier not to.
After all, she had all the people she would ever need, right?
Right?
Toni L.H. Boughton 