My little sister didn't start talking until she turned five.

My parents were scared she was mute or demented, and it would've been pretty ironic if the daughter they wanted so much to have was messed up and I, the accident kid, was too smart for my own good. But it was all okay when she started to call my parents "Daddy and Mommy" after a while, but her words were few and her eyes often stared into space. Leila felt sometimes detached from the world.

This didn't stop me from loving her. There was a strange sort of calm between us; I'd sit with her and we could be having a whole conversation for all I knew. I felt like I owed her something, like I had to protect her because I was her older brother and it helped me practice my patience with her.

Leila always managed to get to the roof of our little house, to stare at nothing. It was strange, her tiny body hunched up, her arms around her knees.

I never knew what went through her mind, her blue eyes always glassy and empty.

I found her on the roof again, but I didn't have the heart to tell her to get down. I never liked being the bad guy, so I left her to do whatever she wanted. I just sat next to her and said, "What are you thinking of, Lei?"

She looked at me once and buried her chin deeper into the hug of her hands, "Where did your voice go?"

I couldn't fight back the smile, "It went and hid somewhere. Once I get it back, I'll get a girlfriend and people won't laugh at me anymore."

"People aren't nice," she shuddered and it did come to me that she might've been bullied at school, but I kept quiet.

She wouldn't have told me if I asked.

For a long time, I thought of getting her a kite. She looked like the type to enjoy doing that, because Leila always looked up—as if all of the answers to her questions were there in heaven. It hurt a little that she wouldn't share any of what went through her mind with me, but at least she talked to me more than she did with both of my parents put together. I was thirteen at the time and she was seven but I was still not yet an adult she couldn't trust.

I got her a blue kite that looked like a butterfly. I did my share of kite-flying when I was a kid and I still remembered enough to teach her how to make it fly. For the first time since her last birthday party, she was genuinely enjoying herself by the time she grasped the basics. I taught her how to firmly hold the kite winder and how to fly her butterfly in the right weather.

As I walked her to school, her silence was much more bearable. It was not deafening and barely carried any tension; Leila seemed content for a while. It made me happy.

One late afternoon I came home after two long hours spent practicing soccer with my friends to find Leila – for the first time in weeks – doing something else but kite-flying. She was sitting in a corner where a small desk was placed for her, coloring in her Scooby-doo book.

"You got bored of butterfly, huh?" I said as I was about to run upstairs and have a quick shower.

Leila lifted her head and shrugged, "I don't like her anymore, don't think I'll be playing with her again" and went right back to her careful work.

Her words gave me a pinch but I shrugged it off, just like she did, and went for my shower. It was only natural she'd get bored of butterfly after constantly lifting it up, good windy day or not.

I was trying to go to sleep, a couple of months later when Leila came to me, scared. There were times when she looked so vulnerable I wanted to do anything for her. Again, she showed this side of her to me only.

My room was pitch-black, except for the bright stars that still glittered in the dark from the ceiling, back from my childhood. Rockets, the universe, and astronauts were all hung up there and it never failed to make me calm and at ease since I was six. As I was concentrating on the galaxy above, a thin streak of light from the hallway dulled my stars and I turned to the door.

Her little silhouette held hesitantly to the door, one foot in my room, the other out in the hallway. I sat up and slid my legs to the floor, and she knew she could tell me.

Leila rushed to my side and tugged at my hands, "There's a boogeyman under my bed" she whispered, as if her boogeyman could've heard her from all the way here.

I stood up and let her lead me to her wide room, all of the lights turned on.

I didn't think once of laughing at her, I remembered my boogeyman days and how I'd wished I could wake my parents up. I sweated like I had a fever and I barely moved, like the slightest movement would've alerted the boogeyman to the scared boy up.

Leila stood by the doorway, her eyes scared and fearful, as I bent down to check under her bed. There was no boogeyman, only a dark, battered thing. I pulled it out to find it was butterfly; a torn, dirty with muddy feet butterfly kite. I was shocked for a long moment before Leila snatched her away, looking scared—a different kind of scared.

I attempted a smile, but my thirteen year old self was deeply hurt.

"Guess there isn't a boogeyman after all"

I wanted to leave, to return to my dark galaxy of a room. I'd put my head to sleep and I wouldn't care. Leila was different—I had to accept that fact, and that I'd never understand her actions.

"It wasn't me" Leila said softly, her voice cracking before I shut the door behind me.

The morning after, I acted like nothing happened and everything went back to normal. When Leila saw me treating her like I always did, she said nothing about it either.

By the time the summer before the start of college year came, Leila had already sunk deeper into her trap of silence. I tried everything to make her talk about her problems to me, but her lips were sewn shut. She was twelve and I was getting all the more worried about her when she came home with torn clothes and dirty hair. She looked like she rolled in the mud a couple of times before she reached the doorstep. Our parents did everything they could, they talked to her school and tried talking to her, they even got her into counseling sessions but that pushed her more into her cocoon.

I already had to worry about facing the first year of college on my own; I was leaving for a college in another state. I had no idea when the next time was when I'd be able to get back home. Not every holiday was for sure.

The month before college when I was supposed to leave came closer and closer. We were dining one night; Leila was scarcely able to swallow a bite at a time. I thought her throat might've been constricted, but it only started when my parents began to talk about life in college.

"I don't want you to do what kids do in college; you better pay attention to your studies. Stay away from booze as much as you can, and don't let the glamor of parties take you away." Mom spoke first.

Dad nodded, "We know we can trust you not to get into any funny business with girls, alright? Don't make our mistake."

If I didn't really understand what he meant, I would've been angry and furious—I was a college mistake, but that only made me more careful around girls.

Leila suddenly pushed her spoon into her plate and excused herself quietly, and she hardly ate anything. I stood up and followed her slowly, maintaining a comfortable distance between us.

She turned angrily at the top of the stairs, and in her eyes I saw little Leila who thought there was a boogeyman under her bed, "What do you want from me?!" she shouted and even the sound of platter clanking downstairs stopped.

"I want my sister back"

"What's the point of it all? You're leaving for college; thousands of miles away and you're telling me you want your sister back? Would you even be here to have me back?" little Leila started crying but no sound came out. I didn't know what to say, I was leaving for college but I never said I'd be leaving forever. I'd never do that to my baby sister.

But like always, I never spoke a word. I don't know if they would've helped or not but she deserved to know that I wasn't abandoning her. This was life, and I was only moving along with it.

She carried on to her room and slammed the door shut.

Our house was unsettlingly quiet for a while after that.

Life at college was a bit tough. I got rid of my initial awkwardness at school, but I still wasn't Mr. Popular. I think I never minded it; I hated to be under a microscope all the time. Besides, being popular at college meant I had to sleep around and go to every party and get drunk every time. My future couldn't afford that, and I wasn't that hot in the looks department anyway.

Leila was constantly at the back of my mind. I did have the inkling of an idea that I was perhaps her only friend. Who did she have now? Even if she almost always ignored me for my last two years of high school, at least she knew I would've been there for her anytime.

I worried about nothing but her. What if I came back home to find she wasn't there—or she got herself pregnant or committed suicide? The last what if scared me the most.

I left for New Year's Day since I couldn't make it to Christmas. I missed my parents and my old friends, most of all I wanted to know what happened to Leila in the past five months.

After a four-hour car ride, I parked my car at the garage and breathed the air of my town for the first time since what seemed to be forever.

I didn't bring keys around because I never thought I'd need them, it wasn't every day when I visited my family so I rang the bell. I waited for a while and grinned when I heard Mom yell at Leila to open the door. It felt like I only left yesterday.

But when Leila opened the door, my grin fell. Leila's face was pale, unsure, afraid, haunted. Her hair was golden threads of hay-straw; dead. And I was unsure whether to get back in the car or not when I saw how unnaturally thin she was. She looked nothing like how a healthy twelve year old should look like.

"What in God's name has happened to you?" I'm surprised I managed to say something.

Leila hugged me and cried, "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, so sorry—"

"So you actually know how to talk." and I got a weak blow from her. We were ushered inside by Mom and I got through all of the causalities with the family.

I went into the car and got all of my things, riding up and down the stairs as I moved my bags because I kept forgetting something important. Mom, Dad, and Leila laughed at me and it seemed as if we were a normal family again, if not for Leila's appearance and Mom's tired face.

Late at night while my parents were downstairs looking at TV for the countdown in NY Times square, I sat on the roof with Leila, who didn't say no when I asked her to come up with me.

I smiled at her, "Where did old Leila go?"

Leila stared in the direction of Michael's bar not a block away, where people were celebrating, "She's hiding somewhere. Once she comes back, people will make fun of her and her older brother would stop his worrying."

"I'd never stop worrying about you."

"I guess you won't." I didn't miss the wince when she hugged herself closer.

"Give me your hands," when she looked alarmed, I already knew what was wrong, "I don't bite; just give me your hands."

And she did.

I raised up the sleeves of her sweater while she looked away, back at the bar again. I half-expected it but I was praying it was only some wound she got while she wasn't careful. I thought she might've fallen somewhere and bruised her arms. But bruises like these weren't from falls or just scratches.

Covering her arms were criss-cross shaped thin lashes, the skin around the cuts was red and blue. I dropped her hands right away, and I didn't feel like saying anything for the rest of the night.

There hung between us a silent "why".

"I always knew I was weird and different, right from the beginning. When my classmates were running around as kids and I preferred to sit quietly in class. But did they have to make me hate myself even more? They pushed me and taunted me, they called me names. They even called you names. "As always, whenever she cried there were no sounds and no hysterics; just pure sadness.

"I didn't care because you were always there for me at home. I'd just leave my problems at school and it would almost be okay. I didn't talk but you never got tired of me. I was boring and grumpy but you never left. And now you're there and I'm here, I've got no one else."

"I did guess a couple of times of what was going on, but you could've just told me."

Leila gave me a look, "And you would've done what exactly? Marched off to school to tell them to leave me alone? Or would you have told Mom and Dad?"

"Neither. I would've been just there. That's all. You could have talked about it and I would've only listened."

Lei seemed satisfied with this answer and she looked up at the sky in anticipation when the wind carried back the drunkards' voices to us from the bar.

"Ten, nine, eight—"

"Stop cutting as your new year resolution?"

"Seven, six, five, four—"

"I'll try, yeah, but it's sort of late now to be a New Year resolution"

"Three, two—"

"I guess, but stop so I can calm down a little"

"One"

"I promise you then"

"Happy New Year!"

That night we just looked at the fireworks as I thought that nothing was really solved. My sister was still a skeleton next to me, and the happiness all around us didn't suddenly transform her back to normal. But she promised me to stop cutting, and for the first time she came out clean. She told me about everything time allowed her to say, and I've done what I would've done if she ever wanted to talk—I only listened.

I think it was a change for once to not be the one talking all the time.