MY SISTER STARTED PACKING BOXES AND WOULDN’T LOOK AT ME
The air felt thick and heavy in her bedroom, smelling faintly of dust and old paper from stacks of forgotten journals. I stood in the doorway, watching the *sound* of packing tape tear across cardboard, a tight knot forming in my stomach. She was moving out suddenly, no warning, just these boxes appearing overnight.
“What is this? Where are you going?” I finally managed, my voice thin and shaky. She flinched, her back still to me, her shoulders stiff. I could see the *tension* in her neck even from here; something was seriously wrong.
“Just… sorting things,” she mumbled, refusing to meet my eyes. I pushed forward, past a lamp casting a *harsh yellow light* on the messy floor, grabbing her arm. “Tell me the truth, Sarah. This isn’t just sorting.”
She pulled away, her hand trembling as she fumbled with a small wooden box. “I can’t stay here anymore,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the ripping tape. “It’s not safe. Not after…”
She dropped the box, and it skidded across the floor towards me, a faded, old photograph sliding out from beneath it.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*I picked up the faded photograph. It was of us as kids, maybe seven or eight, standing awkwardly beside Uncle Mark at a family picnic. He had his arm around Sarah, a wide, unsettling smile on his face that I’d never noticed as a child. A shiver ran down my spine.
“Uncle Mark?” I whispered, looking up at her. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears.
“He’s… he’s back,” she choked out, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “Someone saw him downtown last week. And then Mom got a call, she wouldn’t say who from, but she was acting weird after. I just… I keep thinking about…” Her voice trailed off, but the memory hung heavy in the air between us, a dark shadow from years ago we never spoke about.
The knot in my stomach tightened into a painful clench. It wasn’t something we liked to remember, something buried deep under layers of forced normalcy. I looked at the photo again, seeing it through Sarah’s terrified eyes. The forced smiles, the way she was subtly trying to lean away from him even then.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was back?” I asked, my voice softer now, the anger replaced by a cold dread.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” she whispered, pulling her knees to her chest. “I thought maybe it wasn’t true. But then everything here just started to feel wrong again. Like he’s going to show up at the door. I can’t… I can’t be here if he is.”
The ripping sound of tape seemed deafening in the silence that followed. I looked around the room, seeing the boxes not as abandonment, but as a desperate attempt at escape. She wasn’t leaving *us*; she was running from a ghost from the past that felt suddenly, terrifyingly real.
I walked over to the bed and sat beside her, gently taking the photograph from my hand and placing it face down on the nightstand. “You don’t have to do this alone,” I said, putting my arm around her shaking shoulders. “If he’s back, we’ll figure it out. But if you don’t feel safe here, then you shouldn’t stay. Where were you planning to go?”
She leaned into me, her body trembling. “Megan said I could stay with her… just for a while. Until I figure things out.” Megan was her friend from college who lived a few towns over.
“Okay,” I said, holding her tighter. “That’s good. Let me help you finish packing.” I stood up and looked at the scattered boxes and belongings. “What else do you need?”
Her eyes met mine, a flicker of relief mixed with pain in their depths. “Just… the rest of these,” she said, gesturing vaguely around the room.
I didn’t ask any more questions about Uncle Mark or the past. Not right then. What mattered was that she felt unsafe, and she needed to leave. We spent the next hour packing together in a quiet, determined rhythm, the earlier tension replaced by a shared purpose. As the last box was sealed, I knew this wasn’t a permanent goodbye, but a necessary pause, a step she had to take to feel safe again. And this time, she wasn’t alone in taking it.