Girls Only

something from a long time ago that i've never been able to forget. -enjoy-

 

My mother was gone. Out. I don’t remember where. All that mattered was she was gone. And that she had left us with a babysitter. A new babysitter. And she was fun.

            To this day I don’t remember her name or what she looked like; I think she had brown hair. Its funny I remember her and the one day she spent with us, my older brother and I, after all these years, but I don’t remember her name or anything about her. I think she lived in our neighborhood, though. Maybe. Probably. That’s where my mother got most of our babysitters.

            I think it was a summer day. It probably was. My brother and I were both out of school. I think we were both in school then. We would have had to be. At least him in school and me in preschool.

It was summer. I think we were watching TV and playing with our Legos. We loved Legos. The babysitter, maybe her name was Heather. Probably not, but for the sake of keeping this simple and being able to use pronouns I’ll call her Heather.

So, Heather went into the kitchen. I followed. I climbed up on the counter. I was always doing that. I think I just jumped up. I don’t remember. I was short. Well, not for my age, but in general, being four or five, I was short. She said that she wanted ice cream. I did, too. Heather got the ice cream out of the fridge and the bowls out of the cabinet. She gave me a big bowl full of ice cream. I think it was chocolate chip cookie dough. That was my favorite then. Or maybe we were having chocolate chip; I liked that one, too. I was a chubby kid.

I sat there on the counter eating my ice cream. And a few minutes later my brother walked in. He was a cute little kid; blonde and happy. He looked up at Heather and me, eating our ice cream, and did what any kid his age would do. He asked if he could have some. Now, any normal babysitter, or non-cold hearted person, would have said, “Sure, you can have some. How much do you want?” I don’t think Heather was cold hearted. No, she wasn’t. She seemed fine. Normal. She was. I think. I don’t know why she did what she did. But I do remember what happened next. I remember it well; like it was yesterday. Yeah, really well. She said, “No.” No? Yeah, no. She said, “This is for girls only.” And she said it with this look. Pure joy? Simple happiness? Or just a complete ignorance to what she was really doing? One of those. The last one, I think. Probably. And me, being the little kid I was, with no real sense of empathy and a general attitude chorus, “Yeah, girls only.” Then I believe I stuck out my tongue. I was real classy. Oh yeah.

My brother left the room. He went into the living room. He probably went back to playing with his Legos. I bet this didn’t even faze him. Probably forgot about it the next day. But I didn’t. This has stuck with me. For about ten years. Ten years. I don’t know why. Maybe this was my first glimpse of real senseless cruelty. Guilty conscious? Could be. I don’t really know. But all these years later it still hurts to think that I might have hurt my brother. We always fought. Really fought. Bad. One babysitter said listening to us fight was the best form of birth control. We’ve never fully gotten along. But I love my brother. And I still haven’t forgiven myself for this.

Heather never babysat for us again.

Reviews

[[untitled]]

What an interesting story. It's crazy the things we remember from when we we're little, the things that don't seem that important but stick with us forever. I love how you used the details that you forgot to actually make the story more interesting. Your voice pulled me in from the beginning. Well written story!