Siblings Discover True Love

Sometimes, it seems, love is in the place that you’d least expect to find it…

Where should I start… well, I guess I’ll start at the VERY beginning of it all.

My name is Jessie, short for Jessica and my brother’s name is Alex. I was born 4 and a half minutes before Alex to a single mother in a small village outside of Palermo, Sicily on February 14, 1992 (Valentine’s Day!!). I was born with various different conditions, some hereditary and some from just plain bad luck. I am autistic, albeit very mildly. I show no functional issues aside from executive functioning impairments, but developed early language skills when I was four. I was also born with hyperthyroidism, which is a condition that speeds up my metabolism to an unhealthy amount. Today, I am on constant medication to regulate it and must eat in regular intervals. During my growth spurt, my food bill rose to $50 a day!

I was also born with heterochromia, a condition I inherited from my mother’s father. For those of you who don’t know, it’s having two different colored eyes. Think Kate Bosworth or someone like that. My left eye is golden-brown that darkens in the middle and my right eye is a solid blue. I like to think of myself as physically fit. I keep up with a workout routine to help my body’s metabolism stay regulated. I fill out a 34C cup rather nicely and dye my hair various colors, albeit my natural hair is a copper-red. I always had, and always will have, a babyface. I have five or six main freckles that dot it with more that pop out in the summer. My eyes are quite large, my nose is pretty small, and my mouth seems proportional, but I don’t really know. I kind of got used to my face and couldn’t be the judge of its attractiveness.

My brother is also a good-looking individual. We both play instruments. I play guitar, bass, violin, and cello, but he plays the drums. Those drums really beefed his arms up over the years. He’s a bit of a hefty guy, standing at 5’11 and weighing in at around 215 pounds, literally two of me. I’m 5’9, though, so we maintain a good level with each other. Alex was always proud of his physique, even if it wasn’t the best. He’s basically an average Joe with a natural gut and some hefty arms from many years of playing the drums. His eyes are so blue that I swear I could go swimming in them. That was always my favorite thing about him. I love the color of his eyes. His hair is champagne-blonde and has a natural poise to it. Both of our heads are adorned with thick hair, a gift I appreciate wholeheartedly every time I hear about the people losing their hair on TV. His face is usually clean-shaven, long, and slender, with the same basic features as mine. We look and sound a lot alike.

My father and grandfather on my father’s side were both heavily involved in the Italian mafia and for most of my early childhood, my mother and brother and I were hiding, albeit at the time I didn’t know from whom or why. At the age of six, we immigrated with our mother to the United States to finally rid ourselves of our family ties.

When we moved to the states, we first lived in one of many towns in heavily populated northern New Jersey. We barely threw down our bags before our family caught up to us. I don’t exactly remember what had happened. According to my mom, when I was sleeping, my father’s sister had broken in to the house and snuck into our room when we were asleep. Mom felt some sort of “strong poke,” as she describes it, and she jerked to life and chased the intruder out of the house, screaming and landing punches as opportunities arose. We never woke up during all of this, apparently.

We weren’t safe in that house, and there was nowhere else we could live. So our mom sold off everything she owned and bought a 1992 Jeep Cherokee. We lived in that truck for the following two years.

I had a hard time adjusting to elementary school life… I guess that’s where it all started, I suppose. My brother and I already formed a lasting bond throughout our early childhood, and while we were living in the back of an SUV, we didn’t really mind all too much. I guess you could say I am an optimist in a lot of ways.

I distinctly remember the first day of school. We got 7 hours of sleep a piece when Mom woke us up. We slept in the trunk, using the spare tire cover and a bunch of jackets as a pillow. “Okay, you guys, time to get ready for school!” shouted my mother as she revved the engine. To this day, the sound of a six-cylinder still wakes us up, even if we’re dead asleep and it’s just a guy driving by our house. It’s our alarm clock, of sorts.

“Come on, sleepy-heads!” she shouted again over the back seat. “Okay, fine…” said my brother, still groggy. “Mom, I have a headache…” I complained. We’re both NOT morning people by any means.

We got out of the Jeep and brushed our teeth in the back window. We had taken a bath the day before, albeit I don’t remember where. Usually, we’d use these showers at the local public pool to get cleaned up. Sometimes we’d take a bath in a motel here and there, though, for special occasions like this. And for us, it was a special occasion. I remember seeing the school for the first time. It actually looked fairly imposing. It was a Catholic elementary school. It was one story, shaped like a backwards L, and with the larger part of the L topped with a massive church that made it seem bigger than it was. We’d frequently venture up to the church during school hours to observe Mass. We loved this because it meant that we skipped a period.

When I first walked in, I felt very uneasy. I suppose he felt this, because as we walked through those doors, he whispered, “shh… Take it easy, Jessie. You’ll do great,” and it was this small phrase that had resonated with me from the moment I entered to the time I left. The classes were easy (as are all first-grade courses) and the other students were fine. The class was very small; we had 25 students there at the time. We introduced ourselves one at a time as the teacher called on our names. When Alex and my names were called, the teacher noticed the common last name.

“Oh, you two are siblings?” she inquired nonchalantly. We didn’t know what to do, so we just nodded with a “Yes, ma’am,” and a smile.

“So, you two twins?” Again, a nod, this one silent, “How fascinating! It’s not too often that I have twins that are a boy and a girl!”

“Oh… umm…” I muttered. I was, and still am, very shy around new people. My brother picked up where I left off. “Yeah, we’re a one-of-a-kind pair!” he said, nudging me in the shoulder. I smiled back at him for lifting the weight off my shoulders. The teacher smiled and continued with calling the rest of the names. Many of those students have names that I completely forgot. Others have names that I will never forget.

That first class showed me just how selfless Alex truly was. Even at the tender ages of six, we were looking after each other and helping each other out in a genuinely considerate fashion. Between age six to eight, we lived in the Jeep while attending school there. But when we were eight and we moved into our first apartment, it was an experience unlike any other.

I remember stepping in to the house for the first time. “Welcome home, guys!” shouted Mom joyfully as she tossed her bags on the bare wooden floor. It wasn’t much, but it sure beat having to do your hair in a rear-view mirror! And I finally had an answer to which town I lived in, which was a big plus!

I guess before I continue, I’m going to tell you a little about Mom. She was half-Irish, half Italian. My grandfather was born in Ireland and moved to northern Italy before the War. After the War, he trained with the Swiss Border Patrol where he patrolled the Swiss Alps on skis for many years. He met my grandmother at a local deli in the area. Mom was born somewhere in Switzerland but quickly moved to Sicily with her parents. Her hair is curly and red, and freckles dot her skin. She isn’t exactly a MILF; I’m not out to embellish anything. However, she is the sweetest woman in the world. She doesn’t talk about how or why she fell in with the Mafia or what they did to her, but she certainly does not regret getting an abortion, something she was greatly pressured to do. Frankly, neither are we!

Mom sat us down for a quick talk. “Guys, we may need to move again pretty soon, but for now, this is home. Enjoy it!” We looked at each other, nodded, and sped off like lightning to search every cabinet, closet, crevice, and corner. It was mostly a plain little apartment. There was only a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The living room was more or less a wide hallway with a couch in it. But it was the best damn living room I’ve ever seen. “Mom… this is great!” I excitedly cheered. Mom had a warm, genuine smile on her face that is implanted in my mind to this day. Her green eyes watched us dart from room to room with glee as she sat down in the first couch she sat on in years. What an amazing shitty little apartment that was.

A year later, Mom brought out the suitcases again. “Mom… no… we’re not moving again,” I said through my sobs. “Yeah, Mom, what’s wrong with this apartment?” said Alex in tow.

“We have to move… I’m so sorry, guys. I wish it could be different. I wish we could stay. But we can’t. We have to leave,” mom sorrowfully mumbled to us. It was the saddest news I’ve heard in my life at that point. We packed our bags and got back in the Jeep and moved an hour west, to Philadelphia. We stayed in the same school, which was about a 30-minute drive, since we now had the advantage of a highway being in between this new, even shittier apartment and the school. This was a studio apartment, and we slept on this mattress on the ground while Mom slept on the pull-out couch that came with the place. But Alex and I didn’t care.

See, our mother raised us to be optimists. She taught us that we have to see a positive side to every story, that the universe has a balance to it. So while we went to school and learned about the nature of God and the Devil, our mom had another philosophy. And Mom’s philosophy was the predominate one in our house. We never admonished Catholic philosophy, nor will we ever, as Mom also taught us to respect all religions. Her philosophy was simple: there is a positive to every negative and a negative to every positive. For every negative action that happens, somewhere down the line, a positive action will be triggered as a result, and vice versa. The trick is to acknowledge the negatives while reveling in the positives. It’s this recipe that she says will get us through life in an easier way. So far, I’m going to have to agree.

Let me give you an example. There was a negative action of us moving to Philly. We loved that old apartment. And consequently, she taught us that we’re absolutely right. It was a negative. Therefore, there must be a positive hidden somewhere in there. So for the longest time, we looked for that positive. It just so happened to come rather unexpectedly.

Our neighbor below us was playing in a band at the time, and it was apparently rehearsal time, because I could hear him rocking out underneath our feet as Alex and I had dinner while Mom struggled to catch a cat-nap.

See, here’s the sequence of events that set off the positive. First, we moved to Philly. Say that’s a -3. Then we get to school faster. Okay, that’s a +1. We get home sooner and get work done quicker, so more free time, another +1. However, the apartment is crappy, and there’s nothing to do, so -1, making the total -2. Also, the city took its toll, and after a year and a half of living there, by age 10, I was getting frequent migraines. That’s a -2. So that night, we go down to talk to the guy below us, which was a sign of respect, as we didn’t just leave a passive-aggressive note on his door. So that proactive step is a +1. The man invites us in and we had the first sip of soda we’ve had in years, another +1. Then he shows Alex his drum set, and that’s the final kicker, the final +2. Alex was hooked, and by Christmas, he had his very own little rubber drum set and some sticks. He still bangs on those stupid rubber pads to this day. See how things even out?

Mom and we had to move again that year. We moved to New York City, where we lived in the Bronx and went to Middle School in Manhattan. We were certainly not used to seeing Manhattan without the trademark Twin Towers, and Alex and I are grateful every day that we weren’t living there when that happened.

Mom got a job as a maître Dee and would walk us to school every day. She parked the Jeep in this cheap-as-hell lot that filled up fast, so we got to school really early every day and did our homework in the parking lot. Mom would sit with us until the bell rang, then blew us a kiss and waited as we went inside the imposing brick and stone structure. It was the first public school we’d ever attended, and we loved it. The school was massive and had so many kids in it. It was a thrilling experience.

At school, I was always picked on. You know that girl who sits in the back of the room and doodles in her notebook? That’s me. My brother was a knight in shining armor for the most part, and would always help me out whenever bullies became a problem. That school time, however, was short-lived.

Mom was shaken down by some more Mafia guys. We had to move again, and it had been less than six months. Mom came home crying that day; I remember it well. She was sick of the constant running, she said. She wanted to go somewhere far away. So we packed our bags and left.

We first lived in the summer for a couple of weeks in Kentucky, in our uncle’s basement. However, as it turned out, he was a complete and utter nut, and ended up shooting two kids in the head with a Springfield M1903 at close range. Thank God we were at the local deli picking up some sandwiches to eat when he did it, or else we could’ve faced some serious legal problems. After the trial, he was found guilty and sentenced 25 to Life, so we had to move… again. This time, we moved far away… really far away. We moved to California.

Now, Mom was a very financially conservative woman. Our father had been tracking us all over the country, so she had to always stay one step ahead. I give her every ounce of credit for doing so under that pressure. We had a nice sum of cash saved up from her various odd jobs. She worked in lots of different places, from day-cares to restaurants. In between us going to school, she went to culinary school and became a chef, but could never land a job as one, so she saved and saved, waiting to cash in as if something would just fall right into her lap. As it turns out, that’s exactly how it happened.

We moved to a small town called Yountville, about 2 hours north of San Francisco, in Napa County. I was 12 at the time and had spent about a quarter of my life living in a Jeep. This was the first house I’d ever lived in (not counting my uncle’s), and it beat out the apartment by many, many fathoms. The reason why we moved to California is because our grandma was the owner of a restaurant in the area and Mom came here to be the chef. She begged on her hands and knees for the job, and it paid off. She got it, just like that. And so Alex and my lives just flipped 180 degrees. Suddenly, we had an income! We could afford to live! We finished grade school surrounded by snobby, immature kids, but we really didn’t care about that. We were happier than ever together.

Our graduation was seen as a massive triumph. We called up our friends back in Jersey to tell them of the news. Many of them I still see sometimes, if we ever fly out there. We rarely do anymore. That’s a shame… we had such good times there. But back to the story! Mom sent us to different high schools. She said, “I want you guys to socialize with other people other than just each other for once!” As it turns out, she just engaged what would become the worst time of my life by sending us to different high schools.

I seldom talk about my first high school, if only for the fact that it was a very traumatic time. I went to the school on Day 1 with a smile. I left that school on Day 180 with eighty-three new scars covering my body. Why, I don’t really know. I was abused to a level that I didn’t properly quantify to Mom. See, I told her I was being “bullied,” not being “physically and sexually assaulted.” So there was a disconnect there. When I was 14, however, things started to change for the better. I had been on the wrestling team for freshman year. In addition, I was also on a rifle team. I had a love of the shooting sports I inherited from Grandpa, who taught me to shoot when I was 12 and first moved here. Soon, I was competing on the State-level in Pistol, Rifle, 3-Position Small-Bore, and Ranged fields. I love shooting to this day, and go to the range every other day.

Anyways, back to the story. It was when I was 15 that I first found out about my interest in Alex for something more than a twin brother. I could never forget what happened during those fateful sequence of events, and it all played out exactly how Mom had said it would. It all started on the day that my wrestling career was over. It was the last practice. At this point in time, every day I would be expecting to be hit in some manner at least 3 times a day. That was normal for me. But today was special. I was fighting for my sanity, but never really showed it. I don’t know what I did to set these guys off, but they got pissed. So they did the only sensible thing they could do: if you can’t break something with your hands, use a tool.

In this case, the tool was a 4” long stiletto. There were 7 or 8 guys who held me to the ground in the locker room as one of them comes up behind me and starts flaying my back. He cut me 26 times before stabbing me in the lower left part of my lower back, burying the blade to the hilt and leaving it in there. Then, just like that, they all walked out. I stood up and could feel the blade maneuvering throughout my back. I took out a bobby pin from my head and straightened it with my teeth, then took a cigarette lighter and burned the steel of the pin until it burned red-hot. I then ripped out the dagger in one swift motion and shoved the bobby pin in its place. It honestly felt like I had buried a chainsaw into my gut and my back began to spasm out of control.

I didn’t know if my improvised cauterization had actually worked. I then set to work repairing the rest of my back. I fell down two flights of stairs with a roll of duct tape in hand, since I didn’t have the energy to walk down. I went into the bathroom and laid the duct tape in a checkerboard pattern on the ground. I then took the whole roll of that shitty bathroom toilet paper and bunched it up into great big clots and stuck it on the tape mattress. I laid on the paper and taped the whole thing around my torso. I then tried to get up, but I guess I blacked out, since all I remember after that was waking up in the hospital.

Alex was right there the whole time. He sat in that room with me for two weeks. “You know, your sister was smart… she saved her own life,” the doctor said to him. “She lost three pints of blood. Any more blood and she would have died from blood-loss,” he continued. I honestly didn’t know what to feel. I felt slightly ashamed. I also felt lucky. And I felt, as my brother gripped my hand, that I was ready for that positive thing to happen.

Well, as it turned out, it happened at the school dance. Mom pulled me out of that school the day after. I was now going to the same school as Alex. Honestly, it was like heaven. Suddenly, I wasn’t being punched in the gut every day! I didn’t have to cover up! I felt like I had been missing out. At the same time, I felt a sort of resentment. I never really made a lot of friends, and Yountville was a small town. I was still celibate. I wanted to know what love felt like, but not brother-sister love or mother-daughter love. I wanted to know what lover-lover love feels like.

So we went to the Freshman Semi-Formal, that is, my brother and I. He had just broken up with his girlfriend, with whom he had a quick and rather uneventful relationship. I remember seeing her come to our house and seeing them kiss. It was nothing how I imagined. It felt like he was being used for the sex. It felt all wrong… he was certainly right to dump her. I got ready for the dance with Alex. We lived in a Jeep for a long time, so we were used to the idea of no privacy. It kind of weirded us out, if you will, that many siblings never showed each other their naked bodies. We were different, I guess.

“Honey, are you sure you’re okay with this?” asked Mom. Many of the kids that were at my old school would be there, some of whom I have very distinct, unpleasant memories of and others are just plain assholes. “I’ll be alright,” I whimpered back. “You look out for Jessie, now,” she said, looking at Alex sharply. “Don’t worry, Mom. Jessie will be fine,” he retorted.

By this time, Alex had filled out quite nicely from his drums. He now had a Ludwig drum set that sounded incredible. I picked up guitar at his request, and managed to get into it.

“Okay, so where to first, Jessie?” said Alex.

“You know where…” I quickly snapped back.

“We’re there,” he remarked as we made our way through the crowds to the cafeteria.

He didn’t eat much. He’s always been a picky eater. I eat anything on a plate, but mostly due to my hyperthyroidism. I loaded up like I was an African famine victim and sat down at a table at the back of the cafeteria, away from people. I was beginning to get a migraine and my back was starting to itch. My scars were noticeable from the dress and I didn’t want to have to explain them off. We sat next to each other, like always. We never really sit across from each other. I have problems with eye contact, so it makes it easier when we sit next to each other.

“So Jessie, having a good time?” he said about 20 minutes into eating.

“Ehh… been to better dances,” I replied. “Maybe we should call Mom and have her pick us up.”

“Hmm… yeah, you may be right. Okay, I’ll go to the payphone,” he said. The thing about us is that we never argue. We argued once in our entire lives. Our thoughts are always in sync with each other. Five minutes later, he returns to the table with some more snacks. “She’ll pick us up in ten minutes,” he calmly said while prodding his dish with a fork.

I never really thought of him in a sexual way before.