Ava

Ava had always been the good one. The sweet one. The kind one. Or at least she fooled people into thinking that. Whenever something bad happened, I was always the one they looked to.

When things started going missing around the house, I swore it wasn't me. I had seen Ava take the necklace.

Even when mom caught Ava wearing the necklace in question, it was still my fault.

'Leila gave it to me.' she had told her.

Of course mom believed her. Perfect Ava would never steal or tell a lie.

Ava and I both had the same best friend for a while, but then Janie started playing with me more. She said Ava was too bossy. I liked that Janie wasn't fooled by my sister like everyone else.

Ava wasn't happy. She had blamed me and said I was turning her best friend against her.

Janie agreed we could all be friends if Ava would stop telling her what to do and Ava seemed happy with this solution so we had all gone out to play on the beach near the house. It was cloudy and grey so we had lots of space to roam.

I didn't like that Ava was able to win Janie over so easily but she was my friend so I tried to accept it.

They wanted to see the tide pools but mom and dad always told us not to get too close without an adult and I didn't want to get in trouble again so I stayed behind.

Ten minutes later I had seen my sister walking slowly up the beach alone. My sister hadn't seen me, and continued towards the house.

I never saw Janie again after that and Ava refused to talk about her.

It wasn't until years later that I would find out what they said really happened at the beach that day. Mom and dad had refused to talk about it too. They were worried about what something like that could do to a child.

They thought it would be too upsetting for Ava and me so they kept quiet. If I mentioned Janie, they changed the subject. Eventually I moved on and forgot. It wasn't that I didn't care just that, I grew up. We both grew up but we were as different as it was possible for sisters to be.

Eventually my parents had to admit the truth, there was something very wrong with their favorite daughter. Ava changed. She was angry and paranoid.

When mom and dad walked in one day and found her screaming and pinning me down and hitting me, they were forced to admit the truth. Perfect little Ava had lost her mind. They were devastated. That's when they told me about Janie.

Police had found her body down near the tide pools. She had been hit in the head and drowned. That was the official cause of death: Drowning. They had it all wrong. Drowning hadn't worked but the rock had.