STAVROS, KAITLYN DAHLIA

i was born in athens, greece, and i guess you could say i grew up there. i have two older brothers and a younger sister. i had an older sister.... i guess i'll get into that later. my family used to be really close together. we had dinner every night, and we went on vacation every summer to our lake house. it was great. my siblings and i are consecutively a year apart, so there wasn't a big age gap separating the five of us. however, we all had quite different personalities. the oldest, hendrick, has always been the serious one. dominic, the second oldest, is the musician of the family. he could woo any girl with his acoustic guitar and that deep voice of his. my older sister, riley, being the middle child, was the rebellious one. she would do anything and everything she could just to get a rile (which makes her name very suiting) out of our parents. every time our parents told her not to do something, she would deliberately do it- even if she didn't want to. me? i guess i was a bit like my older sister. i was the good girl with a bad streak my parents didn't know about. i was the one who constantly strived to make my parents happy. i studied hard and got straight a's. i was the angel in their eyes. but when my parents are gone, i was the wild one. and my little sister, hazel, is the cunning one. she, truly, is the evil genius of the family. she could talk you into doing something you didn't want to do and make it seem like it was your idea in the first place. nonetheless, though, we all loved one another. alone, we are individually difficult to handle. but for some reason, together, we all sort of mellow each other out and things seem a little easier to handle. my family was great. we were the kind of family you read about in a story. but all stories come to an end. good or bad. in my case, it was bad. i used to talk to my family on a daily basis. now, i haven't talked to them in almost six years. not since the incident with riley.

i was sixteen at the time, and i was that girl in high school that never missed a party. my parents had been out on some business gathering convention thing and wouldn't be back until the next day. i had wanted to enjoy it while i could. riley and i weren't super close. we got along most days, but we always went to parties together. kind of like a buddy system kind of ordeal. i had asked her to come, already knowing what her answer would be. as usual, we had gone into the party hand in hand. it wasn't long before we both went our separate ways to talk to our own friends and get just a little tipsy. i promised myself i would only have one drink that night because i had to drive both our asses home. and i knew, for certain, that riley wouldn't be able to control herself if people handed her drinks. she was just one of those girls, you know? she was the popular mysterious one that all the boys wanted to get to know. it was just another routine night. we go in, make a pact to protect one another if we didn't like who we were talking to. we had our own secret signal and everything. everything was fine. it was the same as usual. us stavros girls were magnetic in terms of our looks. it wasn’t a surprise if someone tried to cope a feel, but i was not the type to be comfortable with them. i flirted a lot, but i was not riley. i was never comfortable with people touching me. i wasn’t looking for one night stands or flings, but riley never cared who i flirted with. for some reason though, riley got pissed off with me when she saw someone getting a little more than friendly with me that night. after that, it spiralled into an ugly fight between the two of us. we said a lot of ugly things that we both know didn't mean anything, but we were in a heated argument, and just threw out whatever words we knew would hurt each other the most. we called each other a lot of awful things that we have never said to each other before. riley and i weren't best friends, but we rarely fought. if we did, it was always about something stupid and small, and we would forgive each other within hours because this is what sisters do. we fight and we forgive, but this time was different though. she was really angry with me.

i knew she wasn't fit to drive. i knew i wasn't either. we were both too angry and too drunk to really handle a vehicle, but there was no other way for us to get home unless we walked or called our sleeping brothers- whom would be less than happy to see us at three in the morning. a voice in the back of my mind had told me not to get in the car, but i had been too busy throwing out insults at my sister while my body went through the actions of opening the passenger side door and getting in. i barely registered the fact that my sister had been turning on the ignition. both of us were yelling in the car, and neither of us were really focused on the road ahead of us. nothing was supposed to happen. it was early in the morning. there weren't supposed to be any cars. we didn't notice anything until it was too late to do anything. we were heading straight for the truck. the driver of the truck and my sister both swerved at the same time, but the cargo of the truck did a fishtail and rammed right into the side of our car, sending us tumbling down the hill. neither of us screamed; we were in too much shock. all that could be heard was the cracking of the windows, the crinkling of the car metal, the jostling of the things in the car, and our frozen heartbeat because we knew that we might not survive this accident. but the loudest... what rang the loudest in both our ears were the apologies we were trying to send for the things we accused of one another. but it was too late. the last thing i saw was the the way the car lurched my sister's body out the car. the last thing i heard was the simultaneous cry of pain from riley and the scream of horror that escaped my lips. after that, it was just silence. silence and darkness.

needless to say, nothing was the same after that. my parents blamed me for everything that happened to my sister. i don't blame them. they couldn't look at me, let alone speak a word to me. i don't exist to them anymore, but i guess that's not as bad as my siblings. hendrick, dom and hazel hate my guts. they took every chance to put me down. sometimes i wished they wouldn't acknowledge my existence like our parents, but then i have to remind myself that this was my punishment. i deserved this. it was my fault after all. i had every chance to stop my sister. the sirens and the voices in my head were screaming, and i chose to ignore it. if i had just listened to it and stopped my sister from getting in the car, none of this would have ever happened. riley wouldn't be in the hospital, hooked up to machines with no promise of ever awaking, but my parents didn't want to give up. they kept her on the stupid life support in hopes that she would wake up one day. i know my family had wished that it was me instead of riley on that hospital bed. i just wished my parents knew just how truly sorry i am. i never meant for it to happen. if i could take her place, i would. i am so deeply sorry. i hope that they will, one day, find it in their hearts to forgive the biggest regret and mistake in my life.

but my family tortured and guilt tripped me for months. they shamed me and shut me out of everything. eventually, i couldn't take being hated by my own family, knowing they didn't want me. i couldn't live in that town anymore. everybody knew what i did. they all looked at me like i killed her. but i guess i might as well have. no one wanted to talk to me. they were all afraid that they, too, would be shunned by everyone if they were caught dead trying to be my friend. even my own friends had abandoned me. it was too much for me to handle, so i took the allowances i saved up and moved to america- which, i knew for certain, made my family ecstatic. i found myself a job with a rather rich family that was looking for someone to be their maid/nanny. my job pretty much included doing anything and everything they asked me to do without question. i looked after their five year old little girl, and slaved around for their two older daughters and have been doing so for the past five, six years. in other words, i do their homework, dry cleaning, and be their punching bags when they need to release some anger. i guess it makes them feel better to make themselves superior to me. it didn't matter. their parents paid me a lot of money. not that i use it much anyways. after the accident, i stopped partying and doing the things the old kaitlyn did. i stopped being me. all i did was my job and study. i studied hard. i tried to be the one thing my parents had been proud of before the incident with riley. i only ever made time for studying and taking care of the whiteley's.

i guess, essentially, i was still the same girl as i was before the accident. the only difference was that the wild and free kaitlyn didn't exist anymore. i still had my manners in tact. i tried to help whenever i could, and i try my best to keep my arms open for any potential friends. but sometimes, i still have trouble getting close to people. the only person i really got close to after i left greece was kyle. he was my first and last boyfriend. he broke up with me, but we still talk. i wish i wasn't, but i'm still hopelessly in love with him. i can't help how i feel- even if i know he doesn't feel that way for me anymore. he's different around me. in a good way. he knows how i feel. he doesn't know what really happened that day. not all of it anyways. i left out the drinking and the partying because i'm not that girl. not anymore. i only told him that riley and i were in a heated argument before the truck hit us. i wasn't lying to him. not really anyways. i know he wants me to be that girl though. the girl that i was. but i can't..... i just can't get into those things anymore. every time i try, all i can think of is the guilt that was slowly killing me inside. i guess it was for the better. the break up, i mean. at least i wasn't holding him back. it hurts to see him with other girls. i hadn't wanted to end things, but what was i supposed to say or do? i can't force him to stay in a relationship that he didn't really want to stay in. that's not what i want for him. no matter how much it had hurt, at least i know i can still count on him to be my friend. that's better than not being anything.

even though we broke up, i knew i should have moved on. or at least try to. but i couldn't. i didn't want to hurt like that again. i can only take so much of people not wanting me. maybe i'm just destined to be alone. maybe that's why i fell in love with photography. i'm always the one stuck behind the camera lens when i'm not studying or working, taking pictures of couples and families. there were the occasional landscapes and nature, but i mostly took picture of people. from happy couples to lonely, sad people. i like taking pictures of people. because when the pictures come out, all their emotions seem to just scream out at you. their posture, their eyes, their lips. they all tell you something. sometimes, i look at a picture for hours, just wondering what they were thinking about. why they were feeling so happy or why they looked so sad or angry. because it was better than taking a picture of my own face, trying to analyze it the same way i do with other pictures because honestly, i don't know what it would say. i wouldn't know what the girl in the picture was thinking about. all i'll see is the same girl i see in the reflection. a girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, average height, and an ever present friendly smile. hair that accentuates her facial structure. eyes that hold so much pain, but masked away by the fake happiness. a smile that wants nothing but to scream out until she loses her voice. but just like the girl i used to be, i push them away. i can't let anyone see them. not even kyle.