Free Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani Page A

pest. I’d heard about homes for girls with no parents or parents who didn’t want them. I’d seen Annie . I’m not going to one of those places, I thought. I’m no redheaded stepchild.
    *   *   *
    Our mother left our father, and then our stepfather’s career uprooted us. When we were children, Cara and I moved constantly. We were girls who felt on the outside of things, on the edge of each community. Was it too painful to integrate only to leave again? Whatever the reason, we never fit in. Identical twins have a difficult time adapting even in normal situations—they are curiosities to their peers; they are freaks.
    “Does it hurt Cara if I do this to you?” a kid at school asked once, pulling my hair.
    “Fuck you,” I said back.
    It was because it was partly true that I answered that way; not because the hair pulling was painful, but because our bodies were each other’s property. When she suffered, I suffered.
    “Does it hurt you if I do this?” I hit him, and split the skin of his lip.
    My sister, my twin, we fought like alley cats and then walked down the street together, wherever it was we were living, holding hands. We tangled each other’s hair, bloodied each other’s noses, bit and scratched each other. We knew who we were: We were best friends. We were enemies. We were all we had.
    MARCH 3, 1989
    Dear Diary,
    Today my stepdad tried to kill a spider with a can of my hairspray. I was sitting on the toilet and it was behind me on the wall, all hairy and disgusting. It was the most humongous thing I have ever seen. It made me scream, loud, loud, loud, and we didn’t have any toilet paper, either. So my stepdad walked into the bathroom, all asking what was going on. I just had time to pull up my pants and drip dry before he saw the spider and screamed like a girl!
    MARCH 5, 1989
    Dear Diary,
    Today was the best day ever!!! Me and my sister and Misty took a cab to a bar. We did it while Mom was out. My stepdad was at work and the neighbors were at bible school. We wore black sweat suits out of the house and did our hair in the car, teased it with our fingers. Finger test! Hair has to be as high as the middle finger on Misty’s hand. She is the biggest of the three of us, fat, with a witch’s nose. I hate Misty. She wears all black all the time and dresses like a fat ho bag. At least my sister and I are skinny. We look good with our hair and in our clothes. Anyway, don’t tell, okay? God, if anyone reads this I am dead meat, but who else am I going to tell? Anyway, we went to this bar to meet this band and we changed into our miniskirts and band T-shirts in the cab. I actually saw the cabdriver look at us in his mirror!! How gross is that? I mean we are only twelve. Anyway, so we went to meet this band and I flashed the drummer on a dare. He took my picture and hugged me.…
    JULY 1, 1989
    Dear Diary,
    Tomorrow my sister and I are going to fly to New York for the summer to visit Grandma. Grandpa used to say flying is dangerous and that you have to be careful not to die. He used to say he would never get on an airplane and didn’t. I wonder what he would say now? I hate flying, too, but I pretend not to be scared. Grandma needs us to visit now that Grandpa isn’t here anymore. But my sister and I made a pact that if we do die on the plane, everyone will know that we love heavy metal. We are going to wear our Mötley Crüe T-shirts on the airplane in case it crashes so when they find our bodies, everyone will know we were fans and maybe the band will write a song about the girls who loved them so much they would die with band T-shirts on.…
    R.I.P.,
    ME
    AUGUST 7, 1989
    Dear Diary,
    Life sucks. I am so grounded. Mom found you while I was gone and read about the bar. My sister and I put black lines with a Sharpie on white T-shirts and wrote INMATE on them. We are like prisoners so we figured we should dress like them. Mom says we are going to be grounded for at least a month. I feel like dying. She