You don’t want to believe it.  You refuse to believe it.  It can’t be.  It just can’t be.

                Half-jokingly and half-seriously, you note how much you would like to punch God in the face right now.

                Mere minutes after being airlifted by a titanic family member into the stratosphere of average chest level, your hiding place in the clean clothes in the laundry closet suddenly turned into a horrible idea, you felt the jeans being plopped down hard onto a plastic-coated surface.  Before you could even consider trying to listen for fading footfalls, signifying your chance to escape the jeans and move on with your original plan to get help, you heard a sound so bitterly painful to your eardrums, you might as well have been listening to the sound of a bullet being unloaded into your chest.

                The shrill sing of a zipper being closed above your head. 

                You don’t even have to climb out of your dark denim cave in a pocket of the folded up jeans to know what’s going on.  You’re in a duffel bag, and your fate was literally just sealed inside of it.

                Sweat forms coldly along your brow, your arms shivering, as you clutch your legs against your chest in defense of the jostling of the bag as you feel it being swung gently, carried to some unknown location. 

                The next half hour is a blur to you.  You can feel the loping swing of the bag being replaced by a steady vibration with occasional hard jostles.  Car along a bumpy road?  You feel sickened with how accustomed you are to figuring out what’s going on, even when too powerless to get much definitive information or chances of affecting it, for that matter.  It’s like telling a young child exactly how they’re going to die someday; it can’t be helped at all, and while it’s informative, there’s nothing but anticipation from there on out.

                Grimly, you disappear into a similar dream world of such volatile thoughts, not even noticing the steady vibration of the bag being replaced again by arcing swings, and finally the crash of the bag hitting a surface and stopping the motion altogether.  You don’t even dare move at this point, your plans of escape so thoroughly screwed over you don’t particularly care anymore about actively trying to escape.  For now, you’re choosing “flight” over “fight,” curling yourself silently into a ball and praying futilely to remain hidden until a new opportunity presents itself.

                Muttering pessimistically to yourself, you note how your entire life for the past five years has consisted mainly of you hoping against hope that you’ll catch a break and get off easy from a day in hell, that maybe you’ll be gifted with the eternal plan B of just surviving the next day unharmed and, if the fates are feeling kind, with some imaginary shred of dignity still intact.

                This so very rarely is the actual outcome, but it’s nice to have goals, you note sarcastically to yourself.

                Your bones are rattled back into the bitter reality of the present as you hear the zipper shrieking itself in the other direction, and the louder ruffling of clothes above you. 

                Unpacking. 

                Bracing yourself and even grasping roughly at the fuzzy interior of the jeans pocket, you try to ready yourself for what you have no doubt is incapable of being readied for.  Still, it’s nice to convince yourself that you have a shot at getting out in one piece.  It’s a comfort thing.

                Your turn comes up quicker than expected as you are shot into the air, jeans and all, like a buggy on a roller coaster being power-dragged up to the top of a slope, ready to be dropped into the loopy pits of wind-whipped doom.

                Your world does an abrupt 180 as the clothes begin coming unfolded, flipping over in the process.  Grasping with all your might at the pocket material, you can see light trickling into the pocket. 

                And not from above you. 

                With a gasp, you wrap your arms into the fuzzy fabric as tightly as you can, staring downward at a plummeting drop to the floor a couple dozen stories below, at best.  It’s hard to perceive as your vision goes into a swirling plooey of nausea and gut-wrenching terror.

                Don’t let go, you whisper to yourself, your arms already getting tired and shaking.  Don’t let go.

                The rebuttal to your silent pleading comes rapidly as the clothes are jostled so hard, your white-knuckle grip is no match any longer.  With a weak squeal of horror and despair, you cascade down the brief inverted slope of the pocket and out into the open.  Light from a window blasts onto you, burning your darkness-adjusted eyes.  Wildly, you grasp at the fabric, and miraculously, your fingers meet a curled edge of the jean waistline.  Gripping with so much adrenaline your fingers begin to go numb, your breathing heaves painfully as you attempt to blink the shock of the light out of your eyes.

                As your vision slowly returns to normal, you stare ahead, and find the darkness replaced with something far more overwhelming and shocking.  A face.  A very large face, obviously, but more specifically, a focused face.  A face focused directly on you.  Turquoise eyes bugged out, long eyelashes whipping and blinking in disbelief, plump lips poised partially open in surprise, nostrils flared, dirty blonde hair hanging loosely and messily over shoulders, warm air being gently exhaled from the darkness of the mouth.  A slight gasp escaping through the moist air being blown out to you as you continue hanging precariously over certain doom, held up only by your impossibly determined fingers gripping the edge of the upside down pair of jeans.

                You find yourself, hanging naked, two inches tall, sweating with life-rending terror, and bug-eyed, essentially in a staring contest with the IMAX-sized, angel-featured face of your sixteen-year-old cousin Sophie.

                You can feel your arms shaking violently again, pleading with you for release, and yet you aren’t even focused on the strain anymore as you continue to lock impossibly large, glowing eyes with the teenage girl currently holding the ultimate fate of your life in her right hand, where’s she was gripping loosely at the leg of her pair of jeans.  The position holds for a few moments, the world seemingly frozen.

                Suddenly, the silence and static image are shattered simultaneously.  Sophie’s free hand not hanging onto the jeans shoots into the air, causing you to wince, and stops short, just close enough below you that, in theory, you could let go of the jeans and land safely in her hand.

                You stare downward at the horrifyingly wide palm of your cousin, creased, outstretched, soft-looking.  Her fingers are flattened, her entire hand held perfectly still.  Waiting.  Anticipating.  Knowing that you can’t hang on for much longer.  Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in a matter of moments, you’ll have no choice but to place your fate even more directly into her powerful hands.

                For the briefest of instants, you contemplate using the remaining shred of energy you have left to swing and get some momentum going to allow you to overshoot the distance of her hand, instead plummeting toward the ground far below.  In that way, you’d eliminate the potential for any unthinkable future scenario that, for all you know, is about to transpire and beat the previous five years’ efforts in terms of nightmarish quality.  You gulp, your eyes tearing up again. 

                You should do it.  It’s time to end all this for good.  You’re not going to let all of it happen again.  You’ve given up five years of your life, which has felt much more like fifty, in servitude to your giant sister, for the purpose of living onward, and for what?  This?  To find yourself in the hands of a younger and more immature clone of Carly?

                You think not.

                Swinging your legs, you prepare to get a flow going so you can dive-bomb to the carpet of the monumental bedroom, ceasing the pain once and for all.

                Your brain freezes in its tracks, though, as the softest and gentlest of whispers caresses the air around you.

                “J-J-Jack?”

                You stop swinging.  You don’t look Sophie in the face again.  You can’t, somehow.  However, you do manage to respond.  Nodding hard enough “yes” so that she can tell what response you’re giving, you stare back down at the imposing, wide, fleshy plain of her still-waiting palm just below you.

                “It c-can’t b-be…” she gasps, whispering still.  Your arms are shaking so hard you’re almost sure you’re going to sprain something if you don’t let go soon.  “J-Jack… please… it’s okay.  Let go.  Let go.”

                Regardless of whether you believe her or not, your fingers finally give out, forcing you into chilling free fall for half an instant before landing gently in the cushiony, warm palm of your cousin.  You had your chance to get out of this, and now it’s gone.  Now, you’re putting all your chips on the table.

                Closing your eyes and simply focusing on the soothing touch of the soft skin under your back, your splay your entire body out, beyond exhausted from all the energy you just expended in surviving.                You hear the flop of the jeans far below on the ground as Sophie allows them to drop.  Opening your eyes again, you wince to realize her digits are beginning to curl up around you, like a tidal wave of finger flesh on the gentle ocean of her palm.  You gasp, shaking harder, bracing yourself to be gripped into a hot fist and subjected to endless examinations and curious experimentation by your sister’s younger doppelganger.

                However, none of this happens.  You look upward, realizing Sophie was only cupping you more securely into her palm to ensure you don’t fall.  Cool wind tickles your cheeks again as you are brought slowly up to her admittedly beautiful, wondering face, which now fills most of your field of vision from your soft cradle of her cupped hand.

                She purses her lips gently, exhaling slowly so as not to blow out a blast of wind onto your trembling, tired form.  Her eyebrows arch.  You study the face before you.  It’s so strange to see one up so close and yet have it feel so different.

                In the face of Carly, you’re used to the usual tics and sights that tell you precisely how she’s feeling.  You see the curl of her smirking lips, showing her derision and pitiful humor toward you.  Her arched eyebrows contemplating what game she might play with you, completely leaving your feelings out of the equation.  Her eyes fastened on you, looking you over for weaknesses like a lioness might on a zebra before pouncing.  When you are in this position, steadied before your sister’s tremendous face and about to face certain pain and humiliation, you know you are nothing more than a toy, a prisoner, a distraction, and an experiment to her.

                But this is different.  Very different.  The eyes are soft and patient, looking you over not with gleeful contemplation of the fun possibilities, but of surprise and even concern.  The lips are frozen in place, partially opened, and not at all out of joy at the thought of your helplessness.  Genuine shock at the situation.  For a moment, as you stare into the enormous face of your cousin Sophie, with such similar features to Carly, you can’t help but wonder how your history with your family have might turned out differently if Carly was capable of expressing these kinds of emotions in her face.  In that same moment, you feel as if you are staring up into your sister’s face not with fear, but with something else.  What is it?  You can’t quite identify it for a moment, and then with a sigh of surprise, you realize what it is you’re feeling.  You can’t understand it, but you feel it welling warmly and comfortably inside of you.

                Relief.

                “Oh… m-my… G-G-G…” stutters the girl, still understandably unable to process the sight of her tiny, helpless cousin sprawled weakly in her hand.  More specifically, a cousin whom she had believed to be dead for the past half a decade.  “No…”

                Your throat is bone-dry from dehydration after your full sprints back at your house, but swallowing a few times, you manage to gasp out a gummy answer, coughing a little.  “S-S-Sophie.”

                She blinks hard, her eyes widening brightly at the novel experience of hearing your little voice, as if finally getting reassurance that you are, in fact, a sentient human being merely superimposed into a size small enough to fit comfortably into her hand.  She swallows hard, her throat gurgling slightly, still trying to drink it in mentally.

                “It is you, isn’t it, Jack?” she whispers softly.  Her tone of voice is ambling and gentle, without a single note of shocked accusing or crazed discovery.  However, it’s not even the condescending tone used to speak to a toddler with that Carly often uses to embarrass you.  It’s unassuming, worried, and tender: like speaking to a wounded animal, afraid it might pass away if the words are spoken too loudly or forcefully.  It’s comforting to be spoken to in this way after so many years of angry orders interspersed with domineering callousness from Carly.

                “Y-Y-Yes…” you gasp out, coughing.

                Her voice goes even lower, as if trying to keep it a secret from the rest of the world.  “They thought you r-ran away.  They thought you… y-you w-were…” she gasps, her voice choking back a soft sob.  “…dead.”

                “I didn’t.  And I’m not,” you answer simply, deciding, at this moment, the best course of action is to give brief answers while your cousin still tries to get over the difficult reality of the situation on her own terms.

                “How?” she whispers painfully, and you watch as her eyes begin turning pink, dampening with thick, salty tears.

                “I’ll tell you about it,” you gasp, coughing again.

                “What’s w-wrong?” she answers, watching you hack a little into your fist.

                “I’m t-tired… I… I… w-water…”

                “Oh my God… yes, water, right,” she sputters, getting ahold of herself and making briskly for the door of her bedroom, still keeping you safely cupped into her palm.  Her pace is measured and steady, careful not to jostle you.  Caring, even.  The heavy footfalls you felt before are gone, replaced with gentle, powerful tiptoes across the carpeted hallway of your aunt and uncle’s house.

                “S-Sophie…” you gasp out slowly as she steps into the bathroom and heads for the sink to get you a drink.

                “Shhh…” she whispers, clasping a finger over her soothingly smiling lips as she twists the metallic faucet of the sink to get the water running.  “Don’t worry right now, just wait.  I’ll take care of you.  I promise.”

                For the first time since you can remember, a small, weak, but genuinely hopeful smile appears on your face.