The Ties That Bind

I love my cousin, but I hate her.

From the time we were young, it was always Nyx. Nyx is so smart and Nyx is so pretty and Nyx is hilarious and Nyx is the fucking savior of the Earth. Christobel, why can’t you be more like your cousin? Christobel, if you don’t get to losing some weight, your cousin will beat you by getting married and having children. Christobel, you can’t eat Nyx’s bowl of ice cream. Have some carrots, instead.

We were born into a large Greek family, and when I say large, we usually had to rent out a banquet hall for family reunions. When people think of those kind of families, they think we’re all close, despite our numbers, we can’t play favorites because there’s too many to pick from. Well, you’re wrong. Nyx and I were born a year and three days apart, and she’s always been the favorite. Her and my brother, who looks like he came from another father, so different are our looks. I tried and tried to become better then Nyx. I wanted the same amount of attention that she was able to score just from walking into a room. I wanted people to listen to me as if I had important things to say. I wanted to look like her.

While I was tubby and awkward, Nyx was skinny and sharp. When we were younger, she and I were best friends, despite my intense jealousy of her. Apart, I was the odd one out, but together, we caused havoc at family get togethers, holidays, and crawfish boils, and there were many. I learned quickly that I’d get attention as long as I stuck to her side.

I regarded her back then as a pain in the ass, but I loved her and would kill for her, given the chance, and I knew she felt the same for me. The same mantra, drilled in both of our heads-God first, but family second, and never forget it. My brother Scotty was a year older then her and two years older then me, and he made it no secret that he would rather hang around Nyx then his own sister. My brother ended up gay and it explained his aversion to me-he liked to be surrounded by pretty, interesting people. I was neither. I was a blip on the map, and though my family will adamantly deny it, but my mother’s choice to marry into a non-Greek family really separated me from the rest of them. Nyx didn’t discriminate, though, I’ll give her credit. She tried to give me the spotlight when it wasn’t offered to me. At Christmas, when the adults’ backs were turned, she’d hand me a few of her presents, her pile much bigger then mine. “Take it,” she’d whisper. “I don’t need three doctor Barbies. Besides, I’m trading Scotty for his GI Joe.” Nyx would give me an extra piece of chocolate when we’d lay down in the back room of our Grandma’s house, scoffing, “I don’t know why they’re not giving you more cake, cuz.”

Because I’m fat, I wanted to tell her, and you have no idea how hard it is to be held up to your standard all the time. But I would take her little gifts, whether they were cake or Barbies or her pity. Pity was all I could hope for.

But then we grew up, and it became extremely clear that while we were family, we were as alike as oil and water. Nyx’s father is French and he is much more reserved then our loud, nosy, passionate family. She became more like him, quiet, cynical, shelving conformity. I, in turn, had always wanted to fit in, and so I tried in vain to edge over into the highly regarded position that she no longer wanted-the funny, endearing one. The family smiled at me and endured my efforts, but it was to no avail. French or not, Nyx was the top dog, would always be. The cakes and Barbies stopped coming, and so did the pity. Nyx and I started sniping at each other as soon as we entered puberty. No longer was it possible for our parents and grandparents to avoid a world war by getting us the same birthday/Christmas presents. And then Nyx, deep in some sort of misguided adolescent angst phase, started drinking on the quiet.

And this was not, at the time, something out of the ordinary. If you didn’t have a driver’s license, you had two choices-go to Walmart, or get drunk, or go to Walmart to get drunk, and arrive at Walmart while drunk. Boredom, tons of it. Our family drank too, a lot more then I’m willing to admit, but I was never interested in getting drunk-food was my poison of choice.

 I would watch Nyx crash through the door of our grandma’s guest bedroom, her arms loaded with little shotglasses. “I stole a shitload of ouzo. Nobody saw me do it, they’re drunk as hell out there.” She’d say, already glassy eyed, and I’d watch in reluctant admiration as she’d line them up in a row, surveying her acquisitions with pleasure. She’d take two in her hand, toast me sardonically, then throw them down her throat in rapid succession, followed by a mumble of "Opa!"

This used to be funny to me. She’d drink them all, one after the other, not stopping to make a face, and stumble around the room for my benefit. I laughed so hard that I’d fall off the bed. It was all in good fun, until Nyx decided that shotglasses were too easy and began sneaking bottles of ouza and/or tequila into the room. I’d listen to her puking it up late at night in the bathroom across the hall. I wasn’t laughing now, I was just plain disgusted.

When cocaine entered the picture, Nyx went from being sort of abrasive to completely out of control. She’d lock the door after family dinner and line up the white powder on the table, not bothering to explain to me what the hell she was doing, bringing that stuff into the family’s house. She no longer gave a fuck about what I thought, something she expressed with glares and punches. Along with the stolen bottles of liquor, this was going beyond the normal activities of most kids of our age. It got so bad that I started sleeping on the couch when we came to visit, I couldn’t sleep in that room anymore with the smell of puke. She’d keep me up with her nonstop twitching and jumping.

And the worst part is, she was still the favorite. She’d sit next to me, coked out of her mind, surrounded by her parents and our grandparents, drunk as hell, and they’d have no clue. They would ignore me and talk to her the entire time, and they didn’t even know. I’d glare at her when they weren’t looking, and if I muttered something snarky under my breath, Nyx would take her fork and jab it into my leg. “Shut up, fatass. Nobody is listening to you.” She’d sneer, her words slurring. The love I once felt for my cousin was quickly being replaced by hatred. I didn’t recognize the person in her body.

And then Alan came along out of nowhere. He was always fated to be the preppy frat boy type, but he tried to impress my cousin with his Hot Topic clothes, and for some reason it worked. He would start coming over to the family house and having dinner some nights, and the family was more then happy to meet Nyx’s boyfriend. I had never had one, so I just sat sullenly next to her, hating her so hard that I was surprised she never felt it. He would speak to me kindly, but rarely. To him, I was just another cousin who dulled in comparison to Nyx. He was crazy about her, and it drove me insane.

It was worse then torture, sitting there two or three nights a week, listening to the not –so subtle hints from my family to Alan about buying a ring, which he would have done in a heartbeat. Nyx would scowl and change the subject, every time, very pointedly. Fucking idiot, I wanted to say, he’s rich! He’s perfect! You ungrateful bitch!

They broke up two months afterward. Nyx barely noticed, but I’d see him sometimes in Walmart or at the mall, and he looked miserable, all the time. I hated her for breaking his heart. I could treat you well, I wanted to tell him, she is incapable of love. I knew, however, that there was no chance of scoring Alan if I couldn’t stop eating everything in sight, so I bothered my father until he got me gastric bypass. I got skinnier almost instantly, but it didn’t matter. Alan was still mooning after my addict cousin, who was more in love with things she could snort out of her nose and pour down her throat. It got to the point where just seeing Nyx would make me seethe with hate, and I let her know it. One time I went too far and she knocked me down, then put her boot against my throat. When she leaned down and glared at me, I couldn’t see anything familiar in her eyes.

“You’re not my family, so keep your fucking opinions to yourself. Skinny don’t fix ugly, Christobel.”

I hate to admit it, but I was scared of her after that. I didn’t see her too much afterwards, either. We went to separate places for Hurricane Katrina, but when we came back-well, I don’t want to talk about it, but her addiction got worse. And that was the only time when I didn’t blame her for it, because Nyx had seen things that would have sent me into the fucking mental asylum. But, I don’t like to remember it, so, let me wrap the rest of this up.

About two or three years later, roughly, Nyx and Alan had hooked back up, but it was over almost as soon as it started, and Alan got the hell out of dodge, unable to deal with the heartbreak twice. He left for Florida. Nyx moved out of her parents’ and got herself an apartment in Kenner, working at a law firm, which I’m sure didn’t drug test, because at this point she was flying high. With her out of the way and with my new look, I tried again to make my family see me in a different light. It didn’t work, suffice it to say, all they would do is talk over me or ask me if I had talked to Nyx. It got to be too much. After Thanksgiving dinner, I stood up and told every member of my family that they could go fuck themselves sideways. I left the next day for Florida.


I remember Alan’s face as he opened his door and saw me standing there, bags in my hands. They got huge and then he rushed towards me and grabbed my arm.

“Christobel, what are you doing here? Did so

mething happen to Nyx?! Is she…” Alan gulped, assuming the worst. I scowled and yanked my arm away.

“She’s still alive, unfortunately. I didn’t come here to talk about her.”

He let go of me as if I had burned him. “Then why are you here?” Alan asked, looking extremely confused, as we had barely spoken over the past few years.

I gathered up my nerve and glared at him. “I’m here because I think you’re lonely and I know I am, and I’m sure I can treat you a hell of a lot better then my dumbass cousin.”

His eyes had narrowed. “Don’t talk about your family like that, Christobel.”

I felt my face getting red. “Shut the fuck up. She’s not my family, she’s made that quite clear over the years.”

Alan sighed. “She’s got her problems, Christobel, but you know you can’t just dump her out.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to just accept her shit because she’s my family? Well, she hasn’t done me, or you, for that matter, any good, so why don’t you just man up and get over it?”

“Christobel, you don’t even want to be with me, we don’t even know each other.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t care, and you’re right, we don’t want to be with each other and we don’t know each other. But I don’t want to be in Louisiana anymore, compared to her every time I turn around.”

Alan scoffed and folded his arms and moved to stand in front of his door, blocking my way. “Give me one good reason why we should be together, Christobel. One good one. I can’t wait to hear it. I’m waiting to hear what this has to do with me.”

I looked straight at him. “Because my family has decided you were a piece of down and out pussy for not proposing to her when you had a chance. Because if you marry me, you’re automatically part of the family, and by being a part of my family, you’ll be able to hear about Nyx, and don’t give me that look, because I know you aren’t over her.”

Alan’s mouth dropped, but he couldn’t deny the truth of my words.

“Besides,” I muttered, pushing past him. “she’ll be back. She always does when she fucks up.”

Three days later, after signing a prenup (unfortunately, Alan wasn’t as stupid as he looked) and countless other contracts binding me to silence, I had a huge rock on my finger and was Alan Crane’s acknowledged fiancé. My family was shocked to hear it, and I had to endure countless questions of why I had stolen Nyx’s man, but I had taken care of my fate and left Nyx to hers.

On the outside, I gloated on how they had all been wrong; I was the one who would get married first, I was the rich one, the favored one, I would be loved, I would knock Nyx off of her pedestal. But on the inside, I was always aware that my engagement was a sham, that my fiancé didn’t know if he liked women or men, and I was basically a paid whore. And Nyx, to my supreme irritation, didn’t show up at the door, threatening to kick my ass from stealing Alan from her. She didn’t care, reported my family, and that royally pissed me off.

And then, as I predicted, she came back. Out of nowhere, and not for Alan, but back all the same. I had been content enough to be a paid whore, though sometimes it hurt to feel so lonely. I was more in love with being thin and lady of a huge house, rich, no one to tell me I wasn’t good enough. I was on top of my perch, laughing at everybody else, and in the space of a day, my cousin came in and knocked me off of it. Before I knew what had hit me, she was driving the maids crazy, bleeding over carpets, breaking bones, dating popstars, stealing my clothes and my liquor and buying cocaine from my maids. Alan was spending nights on the floor in her room, and while Alan and I were anything but in love, I still seethed with jealousy. It seemed like no matter what I did, she’d always get one over on me.

And then, if you please, that fucking boyband member coming in here and looking at her as if she was the best thing since hot pockets. Chris Kirkpatrick had no idea what he was in for, and I spent my days imagining how I could take him aside and telling him how my dear cousin, for all her funny quips and her thin body, she was nothing but a fucked up, spoiled drug addict. I had no interest in Chris myself, I’m more of a Justin fan, but even he didn’t deserve Nyx’s bullshit.

And now I’m back in Louisiana, the place I abhor. I’m staying in the old spare bedroom that Nyx and I used to share, and remembering all of this. I can even almost see her hanging off the side of the bed, imitating Robin Williams, making me laugh, drunk on ouza. It seems like eons ago.

I don’t want to tell anyone this, but I guess it has to come out-I’m scared to death. I can’t even sit here and muster up anger that she managed to kick me back to Louisiana and now lives in the house I stood to inherit, with a famous boyfriend and my ex-fiancé at her beck and call. All I can think of is the Nyx I knew, the one who used to line up shots, grab her black fedora, and dance to Michael Jackson to make me laugh, after everyone else made me cry.

My cousin is going to die.

And I can’t let that happen, because family comes only after God, and try as I might, I cannot ignore the ties that bind me to her.

I hate my cousin, but I refuse to let her die.

The sun is gone and the flowers rot
Words are spaces between us
And I should've been drown in the rivers I've found of token lost
And I should've been down when you made me insecure

So break me down if it makes you feel right
And hate me now if it keeps you alright
You can break me down if it takes all your might
'Cause I'm so much more than meets the eye