The Year I Turned Thirteen
My sister Delilah was the kind of girl that boys never forgot. She was the kind of girl who turned heads in the hallway, the kind who boys loved, but other girls loathed. My mama would always boast about Del to whoever would listen, as if looks outshined everything else in life. Mama never boasted about me like that. I was always the one whose name would trail second, almost like an afterthought. It’d always be Delilah and Denise, never Denise and Delilah. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you’re the younger sibling, it means everything. It was never a spoken competition, yet, it was. All I ever wanted was for my name to come first, just once. I longed for my time to shine. But never did I ever want Delilah’s name to disappear.
