Her hands quickly dashed through the air, not staying in one place for more than a second, her practiced posture, her eyes rapidly scanning the keys. Everything had been practiced, to the way her feet were placed near the pedals to how she would move to the tempo of the composition. Dorothy had always been skilled. Always skilled at everything. Yet not skilled in trying to like me. She didn’t care much about my affairs, unless they were directly affecting her. I would see Dorothy 17 months later, touring around Europe and the states, showing off her practiced pieces, her practiced bow, her practiced smile. I remember when I wanted to be her. When Dorothy and I were kids, I remember she used to have trouble finding friends. She would stick with me then, we used to trust each other. I remember that night, when I saw her behind those bars in that awful orange color. The only thing I could register was how her uniform drained the color of her skin. It looked really bad, and I wanted to tell her. But before I could, tears were swelling in my eyes and everything following was a blur. My mind kept me up for months. How did she get there? Why? What triggered her to cause such an outrageous scene? I had asked her once, but she never gave me a complete answer. Always a very short monosyllable word that did not help construct her case. I remember the figures written on the paper in front of me, making me have to pay a certain amount of money-a certain amount that I did not have- to compensate for Dorothy’s “damages”. The numbers were large and dumb to me. I didn’t want to make sense of them. I could’ve chosen to leave Dorothy. It would’ve served her right, after leaving me when we were older and when I needed her the most. But I didn’t. It wasn’t the sisterly bond, or anything like that that made me choose to pay the stupid numbers and let her go. It was that she had looked pathetic, alone, and vulnerable. It made me think, if my younger self saw her then, she would’ve laughed.
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