#izzy kingston

[kaitlinj16]

Izzy: "How come you're so mean to Mom?"

Sam: "I'm not mean to Mom."

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"So what do you think?" I say. "You think it's a good hiding place?"

"The best." Izzy tilts her head back to look at me. "You really think time goes slower here?"

I shrug. "I used to think that when I was little." I look around. I hate how you can see houses from here now. It used to feel so remote, so secret. "It used to be a lot different. A lot better. There weren't any houses, for one. So you really felt like you were in the middle of nowhere."

"But this way if you have to pee, you can go and knock on someone's door and just ask." She lisps all of her s's: thith, thomeone, jutht, athk.

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess so." We sit for a second in silence. "Izzy?"

"Yeah?"

"Do- do the other kids ever make fun of you? For how you talk?"

I feel her stiffen underneath her layers and layers. "Sometimes."

"So why don't you do something about it?" I say. "You could learn to talk differently, you know."

"But this is my voice." She says it quietly but with insistence. "How would you be able to tell when I was talking?"

Oh, Izzy. You're such a great sibling to Sam. You're so brave that you really stand up of who you are. :`)

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A part of me is tempted to freak out at my mom for letting Izzy wear whatever she wants. The other kids must make fun of her. 

Then again, I guess Izzy doesn't care. That's another thing that strikes me as funny: that my eight-year-old sister is braver than I am. She's probably braver than most of the people at Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if that will ever change, if it will ever get beaten out of her.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver