(Kim)
Everything that I do in life, I want my sister’s approval. I want Trin to think of it as if I accomplished something or that I made a good move. I guess I want to impress her or something like that.
I’ve just always been that way and I know it’s because she always paid such close attention to me. I’ve always liked that attention; it always made me feel so special. I mean, she was older than I was and whenever a big kid takes an interest in a little kid, the little kid likes that. I was no different and Trin always made it seem like I was the greatest thing in the world to her.
So, when I decided that I was going to be a hero, I wanted her approval. I didn’t get it. It was the first time that Trin ever looked at me as if she was disappointed in me and it hurt me when I saw that expression in her eyes; it hurt me a lot.
I told Trin about my first mission; she happened to be doing grunt work for Global Justice at the time and missed me in action. I told her how it was fun to help someone in need and if I got the chance I would do it again because I really liked it. I thought she’d be thrilled because she used to come to my aid all the time and she did work for Global Justice a lot of the time. So, I was expecting her to be psyched about my plan; silly me.
She looked at me with a dull, almost bored expression in her eyes; my enthusiasm wasn’t working on her for once. She then gave me her cynical side, a side I hardly ever saw and it never was directed at me when I did see it, and she wanted to know why I would risk my neck for people that didn’t care about me. She thought that it was foolish for me to want to help people that didn’t know me, that didn’t care about me.
I argued with her; I was so hurt that she had actually called my idea “foolish.” That was actually the word she used. I pointed out how she helped people all the time when she did things for GJ. She scoffed and informed me that she didn’t do those things out of the kindness of her heart; she did them so she could avoid going to jail or to make up for doing something that she wasn’t supposed. I then pointed out all of the times that she saved me and all she did was counter with of course she would save me; I was her baby sister.
I was debating against the wrong person, but that didn’t occur to me. Trin might as well be a lawyer with the way she went about arguments. She always had something to counter anything that anybody said, myself included, especially that day.
I hated how calm she was with arguing; she was calm about everything. I eventually uttered some words that hurt her feelings; I probably was just looking to hurt her back since I couldn’t win the stupid argument. I called her a shrew; I actually used the word “shrew,” which showed that I listened to Shin too much. I then said that nobody liked her because she was so negative and mistrusting and I didn’t care what she thought, which was a ferociously huge lie.
I said some other things that I don’t remember; I just wanted her to feel how I felt. I do know that I succeeded in hurting her feelings like she hurt mine; I could see it in her eyes. I stormed out of the room once I was done and left her frowning to herself.
(Trin)
I suppose it was a bit insensitive for me to tell my impressionable little sister that her idea was outright foolish. For once, I hadn’t thought before I spoke; I let my mouth get ahead of my brain. I couldn’t believe that I just blurted something like that out, as it was very unlike me. I always carefully weighed my words before using them, especially when it came to my little redheaded clone. I was more upset with myself than with her words, even though they did sting a bit. She wasn’t so good with biting words, which I suppose would be a good thing.
I wasn’t sure what I should do about Kim now that I had upset her. It wasn’t a problem I usually caused, so I wasn’t accustomed to dealing with it. I decided to go talk to my mother about it; she was always loaded with decent and practical advice.
My mother knew why I needed to talk before I even said anything; apparently, Kim had beaten me to our fountain of wisdom. My mother thought that I needed some cuddling before anything else because of Kim’s words, but I didn’t really need it because they weren’t particularly scathing words. I accepted it because I, like most other mammalian creatures on the planet, like some affection from my mother every now and then despite my age.
After that, my mother addressed the issue by suggesting that I apologize, which made me frown. I was out of practice when it came to apologizing because I had been brought up to almost never apologize. It was mostly to due to what happened in my early school years.
In school, they used to force me to apologize after beating up bullies that were attempting to do something to me or even to Kim. My parents hated that the school used to do that; they felt it was sending me the message that I shouldn’t defend myself or my sister. So, they started telling me that I shouldn’t apologize if I didn’t mean it. Since I typically did things on purpose whether they were good or bad, I stopped apologizing altogether.
My mother noticed that I was frowning and jokingly suggested that I could always just leave Kimmie angry with me. She knew I couldn’t do that. I sighed because of the horrible options left to me; it certainly did teach me to always think before I spoke. It wasn’t a hard decision to make, though.
I practically crawled upstairs to Kim’s room, acting like I had thousand pound weights holding me back because of what I had to do. She had her door shut and usually I would knock, but I knew that she didn’t want to see me at the moment. So, if I took the time out of my life to knock, she would’ve told me to get lost or something worse. Therefore, there was no point to knocking.
There were not many times through out her life where Kim wouldn’t let me in her room. The first time she had been really little and was trying to wrap a gift for me for my birthday on her own; that had been a perfect problem for her and the gift looked more mangled than wrapped. Another time was when she cut her own hair and that was a commendable mess that required our mother to fix; I had stuck around for moral support. The most recent time that she had locked me out of her room was when she had gotten her braces. She was under the impression that she was ugly and didn’t want anyone to see her. Bonnie was the one that had her thinking such nonsense, which I cleared up immediately.
I entered the room without permission and discovered Kim on the phone, whining to Ronald of all people. I had bothered her to the point where she was telling Ronald our business; it was a bit disappointing, but I never said such. It wasn’t that I hated Ronald or anything like that, but it was something that happened between Kim and myself. I wouldn’t run to Shin and whine to him about something that happened to between me and her and I expected the same from her. It was between us and we should always be able to talk things out in time without other parties, unless the other party is our mother.
I disconnected the call almost immediately. I pulled the wire right out of the jack. Needless to say, I received an absolutely dreadful look from my baby sister. I suppose it was nice that she didn’t throw the phone at me.
“Trin!” Kim hollered at me as if I had shot her phone right out of her hand.
(Kim)
Trin burst into my room and just yanked my phone line right out of the wall as if that was cool. She was such a drama queen. I probably gave her a look that oozed venom; I was really angry with her. I ordered her to leave, but she ignored me, which I would have expected if I wasn’t so pissed at her.
Trin came and sat down next to me. She looked around and sighed. I was about to start pushing her to get out, but when she looked at me, I couldn’t move. She apologized for upsetting me, which really paralyzed me. I was so stunned that my mouth was hanging open.
She then gave me a little half smile; it was about as big as she ever smiled by that time. I wondered why she was smiling, especially after apologizing. I knew she hated to apologize. But, then she started to explain herself.
Trin told me how she couldn’t believe I was growing up already. She was used to be being the hero and protecting me, but now I was planning to be a real hero. I was stepping out on my own, not being her little clone anymore. I wondered if she was sad about it, like it meant I wasn’t going to be her baby sister anymore.
She then said that what I was planning to do, it was admirable. I was skeptical for a moment or two, maybe more. I asked why she had called it foolish if it was suddenly so admirable; she had no problem explaining that one.
It was her personal belief that helping the masses that didn’t care about was foolish because she didn’t see the point in helping those that she didn’t know. The admirable thing to her was that I didn’t think like that, that I wasn’t going to be selfish or indulgent with my skills as she believed she was; I didn’t think she was selfish or indulgent, but that was my belief. She said that it was admirable that I believed I was capable, that I had faith in myself; it was like she didn’t know she was one of the reasons I was that way. It was admirable because she was certain that I would be exactly what I wanted to be.
“You’re just saying that,” I grumbled, mostly because I was embarrassed. I didn’t think she thought so highly of me and I didn’t know that she admired me like I did her.
Trin only half smiled again. She never “just said” things and she made sure to remind me of that. Trin was always honest, so I believed her when she said I would be a hero. If I did my best, I believed I could do anything and she believed that too; besides, I knew if I hit a bump in the road, I could ask for her help.
I did my best when people started requesting my help, but I ran into a problem early on. I needed to get to far away places really fast and the only form of a ride I had was a bike. Getting rides around Middleton wasn’t hard, but getting a ride to the Himalayas was another stich altogether. That was when having Trin for a sister came in extra-handy.
Although she didn’t agree with my freelance heroing, especially with no money being involved, she had no problem with pitching in to help make me a success. She had favors that she called in for me and that was how I got my first rides. Even though Trin only had one friend and was extremely antisocial, plenty of people owed her for some reason or another. I built my favors from her favors; she claimed she didn’t need them anyway.
(Trin)
Yes, I had my problem with my little sister going out to save idiots that wouldn’t do the same for her, but it was what she wanted to do with her life. I had faith in her to do a splendid job and had no problem with helping her accomplish her goals in any manner that I could; at least she was trying to do good in the world. I did wonder why our parents were okay with such madness, though.
Dad had a simple answer that told me he was pretty much okay with us doing anything. He said “at least she’s not out with a boy” and he was serious. It seemed as if that was the first thing that came into his mind whenever we did something crazy. I would wonder if he will be the same way with the twins, but I doubt it. A son couldn’t come home pregnant, after all.
It also told me that Dad didn’t consider Ronald “a boy” since Kim was always out with him, much like he didn’t consider Shin “a boy” since I was always out with him. After doing what I did with Shin, though I did watch Kim and Ronald a bit more closely when they hit their teens. After all, Kim was always a bit boy crazy and I considered that she might decide to experiment with Ronald. The notion still makes me cringe.
My mother was a bit deeper in her explanation since she lacked the one-track mind answer of “at least she’s not out with a boy” to fall back on. I doubt it would’ve bothered Mom much if she was out with a boy. I’m fairly sure that it was Mom that started the suspicion that there was something going on between me and Shin, which was accurate for about a minute, but she wasn’t so against us being with boys.
Anyway, the point that my mother made was that the Possible family had a long history of doing extraordinary and amazing things. Kim was just doing what was in her blood, much like me whenever I started with my computers or chemistry. I pointed out that I couldn’t get killed on a computer or in a lab; she countered with I could end up in jail, but it wasn’t likely. Kim could be killed, but it wasn’t likely. She then told me not to worry because Kim had a competent role model and was just as capable as her hero. I told Mom to stop trying to sweet talk me, even though it worked like a charm; I was just too easy sometimes.
Now, during that conversation, it didn’t go unnoticed by me that my mother said I had was doing what was in my blood, as if I had Possible blood in me, as if to say I was a Possible by blood. I didn’t think it was feasible at the time, but in retrospect, I realized that my parents seemed to forget that I wasn’t biologically linked to the family in any way. But, they looked at me as their blood, like Kim, like the twins. Had I noticed that sooner, it would’ve eased my abandonment issues more than likely.
(Kim)
I was glad that Mom talked to Trin to get her to stop worrying about me. Now I knew how Trin felt when she went out on a mission with Auntie Tashawna. It was like she said, I was growing up and she needed to trust me a little more out on my own. At least I knew she was trying.
I did try to get Trin and Shin to come on a few missions with me, to see I was fine and because I thought they’d have fun. Shin was all for going; it never took much to sell him on an idea where pain and fighting were involved. Trin seemed to be offended by the very idea of going somewhere where she might see Ron lose his pants.
Trin also didn’t see the point in going out to help people that she didn’t know, even if it meant saving the world. She told me she wasn’t leaving her room if money wasn’t at the end of the trip. Shin eventually gave into that idea too, wondering why in the hell he would go some place where he might actually save people when he could chill with Trin, make money, and maybe go some place where he would have to save people, but he would forced to do it. I eventually took the hint and just stopped inviting them; I think it was also Trin’s way of saying she didn’t want me to think she was there to baby-sit me.
For a while I didn’t think Trin approved and that was why she didn’t want to go out on a mission with me. I mean, even though she supported me and everything, it still seemed like she was against the idea and one day she proved me wrong. One day, just out of the blue, she came up behind me and hugged me. She said she was proud of me and of all the good work that I was doing. She told me that I was her hero. I was speechless and all I could do was continue on with what I was doing because I wanted her to always be proud of me. I liked the feeling and I wanted to keep it. Mission accomplished so far.
Next time: Tatsu and Trin meet and it just ain’t pretty.