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With a quiet click, and with a final bow, Ash quietly shuffled into the house, leaving us both in private.

"Hey Sammy," was how my greeting to her started and ended.

We haven\'t had a chance to really talk since coming home, due in no small part to her refusing outsider contact from anybody that wasn\'t in her room currently… and seeing as how she kept the door locked all this while, therein lies the reason why.

Even now, the only greeting I received back from her were only hard grunts, and shrill whistling breathing. Though I suppose her exercising so much focus fighting literal air had some part in that…

It took an even louder grunt before she eventually came apart, staggering back on buckling feet, her arms drooping down lifeless at her side. 

Afraid she might fall, I tried to reach out to her. The keyword being \'tried\'. I saw her eyes fling open, showing unbridled frustration, and I stopped.

She wasn\'t exhausted… just very, very upset. But I knew that already.

"I can\'t do it!" She exclaimed aloud, staring down at her open palms almost in disgust. "Wow, amazing, seriously amazing! The one time I want to use my power for something that\'s actually useful for once! And I can\'t do it! Why even have them, then?!"

Did I say she was very upset? Make that extremely upset, actually… girl had enough anger in her to turn her huge and bulky… hulky.

Lucky for me, I\'ve had prior experiences when dealing with irate little sisters. 

Slowly, I approached her again. In her sleepwear, her hair left unbraided still… I suppose she had more pressing things on the mind than basic cleanliness.

"You actually left your room," I said, shocked and awed, extremely so,  truly. "What\'s the special occasion?" 

She spun towards me, and mustering a breath, spoke, repressing the rage in her voice, "The best kind of occasion," although she wasn\'t doing a very good job at it. "Mom finally left the house."

"And if she hadn\'t left?"

"Then I wouldn\'t have either," She heaved. "That simple."

Yeah, I already kinda suspected as much. After seeing her stalk off away from the kitchen, being cooped up so long in her bedroom. No doubt, her vendetta towards Mom had risen quite dramatically since returning back.

Still, wouldn\'t hurt to try and delve deeper into it.

"Any particular reason why?" I asked.

"Any particular reason?" She repeated, blinking heavy blinks. "Does it have to be one? Can I give two? Three? A hundred? A thousand? How about this stupid magic wall she\'s never told us about? Can that be reason enough to not want to see her face at the moment?"

Sammy extended her arms, scrounging up the rest of her strength and trying again. But barely a few seconds in, and she was already trembling just as badly as before.

"And this! What is this? I don\'t get it!" She said, straining her words, her breath. "Why is this so hard?! Why can\'t I do it?! It doesn\'t even feel like I\'m doing anything!"

"You don\'t feel it?" I raised a brow, and right alongside her, I raised an arm… and an instant I felt the ripple in the invisible, the hard solid wall in the unseen. "You don\'t feel that?"

"Feel? Feel what?!" She demanded, reaching near to where my hand was. "It just feels like air! What am I supposed to be looking for? What are you feeling?"

The frantic tone of her voice plus her unkempt appearance was a combo that equated to her looking like a demented, deranged woman. So much so, that I thought it best to back away even…

"Maybe you just need more practice," I suggested. "You\'ve been here like, what, barely an hour? It took me two to even get a grasp on it." 

She shook her head, annoyed even more. "But I\'m faster, I\'m a lot faster than this! Anything else, half an hour at most! It\'s not hard, why is this hard?! I\'ve watched you do it, I listen to Dad explain it, that should be more than enough! So why can\'t I just…" 

She trailed off, finishing the rest of her sentence with a loud snarl that sounded like a raging bull. In all seriousness though, she really can\'t feel what I was feeling? I don\'t doubt her potential or her skill, there\'s no way she should be struggling this much just trying to get a sense of this.

And yet here she was anyway… literally grasping at air. 

How peculiar… 

"In any case, I don\'t remember us switching places," I muttered. "Wasn\'t it me who\'s supposed to be taking it down?"

"No, no! It shouldn\'t be you! It shouldn\'t even be me! Mom put it up, she should be the one taking it down! If she had a heart, she would!" She paused to breathe, the effort heavy on her body, her shoulders hunching. "But she won\'t. Even after asking her, begging her, she won\'t. So? Where does that leave me? What other choice do I have? She won\'t even help her son, she won\'t save a life… I don\'t know who she is, I don\'t… I don\'t know who…" 

"Sammy…" Gently, I pulled her away from trying any longer. Her skin had gone pale, her voice rapidly losing strength, at that point I had to step in. Thankfully she didn\'t resist. More than anything, it\'s like she melted onto me. That brick wall of rage crumbling. "It\'s alright, you don\'t have to - "

"No, it\'s not alright!" She interjected, prying herself away, and staggering off-balance. "Wh-why aren\'t you more upset about this? Why aren\'t you more upset with her?! You should hate her for this! At least more than me! Knowing who - what she truly is… how can you even still bear to look at her? You just take it, you just accept it! How can you do that?! How, how do you… and why, why can\'t I?!"

Finally, she actually said it. The elephant in the room she finally acknowledged, the parasite gnawing at her insides the whole time. This bitterness she\'s been feeling… I guess she finally had enough of it.

"It\'s like she\'s changed, but she hasn\'t. Nothing about her is different, she looks the same, she talks the same, acts the same… so why doesn\'t it feel the same?! I try… I try treating her the same… I want to treat her the same… and then she tries to kill an innocent man! Refuses to help you outright unless you prove yourself to her first! She wouldn\'t do that! Mom would never do that! So did she lie? Is she a lie? What\'s real? What isn\'t? What can I trust about her anymore? Does she even love us at all in the first place? Or is that also a lie?" 

"Sammy, that isn\'t - "

"The truth? Yeah, I know! I want to know!" She said. "But let\'s face it, big bro, our whole life was built on her lies! Knowing the things she\'s done before, who she was before -  how can I know, really? How can you know?!"

This was exactly what Mom feared would happen once the truth was out of the bag. She had a good reason for wanting to keep it buried… but all the same, Sammy had good reason for acting the way she did. 

Really, who wouldn\'t be at loss once faced with something like this? In fact, I\'m surprised she even managed to bottle her feelings up this long given her tendency to be more emotional. 

"Dad\'s not any better either," She muttered, taking her strained gaze and burying it into the dirt. "But at least he wasn\'t the one that massacred an entire world in cold blood. How did this even happen? How did they even get married? How did we even happen? How can he even trust her?!" 

"You\'re just upset, Sammy. Too upset," I said. "You got a lot of pent-up anger right now and just want someone to let it all out on. Mom just happens to be the perfect punching bag for it." 

"No, duh!" She replied, sardonically. "She\'s the only one fitting for it - and you still never answered the question. How can you still trust her after all this, huh? How do you do it?"

"I don\'t know, honestly, I really don\'t, alright?" I said calmly. "I get pissed, I get annoyed, briefly, I hate her and I swear I would never trust her. Then eventually, that feeling fades, and I find myself thinking otherwise. It\'s not that I trust her, Sammy… it\'s, I just can\'t help but want to, y\'know?" 

"Why?" 

"Because, even if everything else is a lie, the fact that she\'s our mother isn\'t," I said bluntly. "Years of being loved, cared for… I can\'t just see them disappear so easily like that. And I know neither can you, you wouldn\'t be so upset as you are if you could, you can\'t deny that."

"She\'s a monster…" Sammy whispered.

"She is, yeah," I agreed. "And you\'re upset, because even knowing that, you can\'t help but still love her all the same." 

"I hate it, it\'s messed up…" 

"Talk to her, Sammy…" I suggested. "Really talk to her. Sit down, as long as it takes. You can\'t decide anything if you don\'t say anything." 

She curled her fist, scrunched her expression, and after a moment, finally decided. "I\'m going to Leslie\'s!" marching, she headed towards the house. "I need time away! Time to think! If they ask, tell them I\'m gone! I won\'t be coming back!"

I just nodded. "I\'ll tell them you\'ll be back by dinner, then." 

The slam of the front door answered me back.

Ahh, little sisters, man…

Always such a handful to deal with.