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I was born on April 30th at 11:39 pm, in a little backwater hospital in a backwater town about two hours outside Kansas City, Missouri. A little over 40 minutes later, on May 1st, my little sister was born. Our parents were leftover hippies who shouldn't have been allowed to name children: they called me Rain Elizabeth Dupree. What a name, huh? Sis got the better end of the bargin with Rose Ella. Why they felt we needed to have the same initials we never found out. They hardly ever called us Rain and Rose, though (thank GOD) - everyone called us by our birth months. Yes, you heard me right. Y'know... "April showers bring May flowers"?
Yeah, they were awful.
We spent the first eight years of our lives in that little hick town where we were born (I've blocked out the name of it. Really.) before Carol Ann and Marty (that's Mom and Dad to the rest of you, but they wanted to be our "friends"...) decided they'd like Los Angeles better. And thus began our Gypsy-esqe life of moving constantly while the 'rents tried to make it as folk singers, apparently either clueless of or in denial of the fact that folk was definately not in demand anymore.
Sixteen rolled around and, thank GOD, May and I got our dearest wish (to live in a house, not an RV) when we settled down in Chicago. Ah, the Windy City. We were sent to public school for the first time (hooray for homeschooling?), Carol Ann got pregnant, the 'rents tried desperately (and failed miserably) to get us to call them Mom and Dad, and we settled down into quasi-suburban life. (And yes, in case you were wondering, I do have a penchant for parentheses.)
May hit it off with the popular kids at school right away, she'd always been that sort of person. I made my own friends in a slightly slower fashion, but it was okay because both of us were happy. I thought so, anyway, but then suddenly my May flower was getting thinner and thinner, and neither Carol Ann or Marty had noticed that she hadn't eaten one meal at home in almost nine months, and I had a strong suspicion she wasn't eating anywhere else, either. I tried talking to May, but she insisted everything was fine, she'd just been busy. And despite everything I, like the complete idiot I am, believed her. For a little while, at least. But c'mon, you've got to give me a bit of a break - we'd never, never lied to each other about something important before.
But then she was just all bones, and I couldn't believe her anymore, and I tried to get Marty to listen when I told him something was wrong with Rosie-May, but no one fucking listened, and I didn't do anything soon enough, and I didn't try hard enough, and I failed, I fucking completely failed as a big sister.
They found her three days after she didn't come home from school. She'd collapsed in this really brushy area of a park near our house, all alone, face down, and drowned in a puddle fucking half an inch deep. We were turning 18 in two weeks.
Two weeks later, I kissed my baby brother goodbye, told Carol Ann and Marty to go to hell, and left with my backpack and May-flower's guitar. I used our "big trip" savings (money we'd been setting aside since we were SIX, for a "big trip" after we grew up) to buy a bus ticket to New York, and started trying to teach myself to play her guitar.
I never was very good at music, though. I can't quite get the hang of it. But I can sing passably, and B.S. my way through a couple of songs, so I'm not quite starving... yet.
Three months ago, I turned 19. It was the worst birthday I've ever had.

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