When the girl’s sister left she was a blonde. When she came back and they tried to pretend everything was normal again her sister had red hair that washed out in the shower like blood. She went back to school to finish her senior year and spent most of her time on the computer, looking up the people she’d met in Arizona. 
When her sister came back it was a summer day that was sticky and sweet and the girl was in the yard tanning. The girl had stolen a bottle of vanilla oil from her sister’s room.
When her sister came back a black car dropped her off and she stood in the driveway staring at the girl tanning in the yard with her vanilla oil. The girl thought she was mad because of the oil, but her sister stood there with red hair whipping around her shoulders in the heavy, humid wind, filled with drops of summer and unspoken words. She walked up to the front door and knocked. Their mother opened the door and hot tears ran down her face that scalded her cheeks and disappeared into summer air.  
Her sister pushed past their mother and ran into the kitchen.
When the girl’s sister came back she’d been gone for 6 months, 5 days, 7 hours.
The girl kept a timer on her bedroom windowsill that she'd hidden under a lace pillow. The pillow was square and the edges were frayed where the cat had thrown itself at it. The timer ran on a heavy battery that counted the seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months for the girl when she forgot or chose not to remember anymore. It beat like a heart when she slept and kept her awake with the hurt it sent through her body.

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The first day was cold and clear. There was no snow, but the frosted air bit the girl’s ankles and face and seeped into her coat. The trees cradled dark yellow leaves that would only fall to the ground with an upcoming snowfall. The girl sat on the bus in her heavy coat and stared out the window. The glass was smudged so that pines were faintly visible through the tint and gravel driveways contorted. The dirt plowed over by the wheels of the bus rose up in clouds and fell to the ground like snow. 
The bus trudged along the frozen road and came to a stop in front of the girl's house. It looked small and flat against a backdrop of grey pines. The girl walked out of the bus and stood in her yard. Her sister’s car wasn’t in the driveway and neither was their mother’s. It started snowing, wet flakes that stuck to her hair and melted on her face.     
That morning the girl had woken up to her sister and their mother fighting downstairs in the kitchen. Her room was dark with winter light muffled by a thick curtain. She’d heard them through the floorboards, their voices echoing up to her. They were screaming about her sister’s boyfriend. Her sister hadn’t come home the night before. Their mother had slammed the kitchen door, retreating to her bedroom, and her sister had stomped upstairs to her attic room. The first floor became silent and all the girl heard was her sister crying above her. She’d sat there in bed listening to a dead house and muffled sobs. 

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The snow came faster and heavier; swirling around her and tainting the sidewalk. The sky darkened and shed thick flurries into the air. Daylight slowly disappeared, yet the girl stood on her front lawn. She waited for her sister’s car to emerge in the late afternoon, lighting up the snowflakes dropping to the ground. And when a car came edging into her driveway, but it was only her mother’s, the girl cradled her elbows and dug her mouth in to her scarf, whispering, “one”.