Kirsten

I have never been more furious or more proud of my brother than I am right now.
Two years and three weeks ago, my friend Kate and I took my 3 American Girl dolls down to the basement to do a photoshoot with them for a last 12th grade history class project. Two days later, I went down to the basement to clean up and bring them back up to my room. Kirsten was no longer there, but Samantha and Molly were.
My attachment at 18-21 years old to these dolls perhaps doesn't make a whole lot sense to the outside world, but it fits in perfectly with who I am and what I feel my calling in life is (a mother and a teacher to young girls), and frankly, they're still fun to spend an afternoon with as I change their outfits and do their hair. No, perhaps I don't fit in with what is expected of 21-year-old girls, who aren't supposed to enjoy that stuff anymore. Luckily, I don't care.
Upon learning this morning that the Kirsten doll has been retired by American Girl, I was determined to once and for all learn the truth about what happened that afternoon two years and three weeks ago in the basement. It took a lot of coaxing, but my brother finally admitted that he took one of Kirsten's arms off (and hid it somewhere strange- I don't remember where, but I found her arm in a weird place in the house last summer) and threw the rest of her out because he was mad at me. I am furious with him that he did that, especially since I have told him multiple times in the past to hit me rather than take it out on my belongings when he gets mad at me, but I am so proud of him at the same time for admitting the truth. He has been vaguely ambivalent this whole time about what happened and claiming he can't remember or that he doesn't know, which has only frustrated, angered and disappointed me even more. Now, however, he has finally told the truth. At least the truth has come out, even if it is a horrible truth that I wish wasn't the truth.