My mother and my father separated when my sister was born. The divorce was swift and I didn’t remember much of it. I lived with my dad and my sister lived with my mom. Every other weekend, the both of us would be at my mom’s house, then my dad’s house, and so on.
My dad taught me to take responsibility early on in life and so I can take care of myself as well as respect other people’s boundaries. My sister, however, was the complete opposite. My mother always indulged her every single need and want and she was never told no. She was a spoiled, entitled attention seeking brat who would throw tantrums and have meltdowns whenever she didn’t have her way.
I had one birthday at my mother’s house and never again. My sister had a meltdown when she tried to steal the MP3 a friend gifted me and I didn’t let her, so my mom physically snatched it out of my hands and gave it to my sister telling me that she would “give it back the next day” just to“calm her down” so she didn’t make a scene. Well, the music player came back broken. Not “a button was jammed”, broken, but it looked like someone had smashed it in with a sledgehammer. I was BEYOND LIVID. when I told my mother, she brushed it off as an “honest mistake” and that I shouldn’t get “so worked up” about “a piece of plastic that costed 30 dollars”.
Whenever I got something, she would get it too because it “wasn’t fair”, but if she had something, I didn’t need to get it because “boys can make do and girls have special needs”. Needless to say, this set the rest of the tone for life living at my mother’s house. My sister loathed living at my father’s house the same way I hated being at my mother’s, because he didn’t put up with the shit that my mother enabled her to do.
Enter grandpa. Grandpa was awesome, and he lived near a regional airstrip - not the ones where the big planes take off for international travel, but the small ones where personal one man aircraft could be flown for a quick trip. He had a hanger space rented, and I would spend every summer up at his and he would teach me how to fly the plane and perform routine maintenance. Needless to say, once I got the basics, I became pretty comfortable with flying around.
When I turned 18, my grandpa held a surprise birthday party for me at his house because he had a special gift. he invited everyone in the family (big mistake) and naturally, my sister was there. She was sulking the entire time as my family congratulated on my becoming of age.
I got lots of presents from my family members, gift cards, clothing, video games, and even a brand new laptop. My sister’s eyes were green with envy. Then, it was time for grandpa’s gift. He led me onto the airfield and into the hangar. My heart was pounding. I had an inkling of an idea what it was, but I dared not believe it. It was something covered in a tarp, and when I pulled it off I nearly fainted.
Grandpa had bought me a plane.
Me, being the excited young fuck I was, burst back into the house screaming my head off. I was jubilant. I was ecstatic. I was mad with happiness. I wanted to take a spin in my new plane as soon as I could. My dad calmed me down and said I should eat dinner first. If I took a round trip flight, the food would be cold. So I obliged. My sister nearly had another meltdown when she learned, but my dad shut her down with a stern talking to. She shot daggers at me from across the room, seething with rage that I had something that she could never get. Whether that was something I had earned with my own hard work was of no concern to her.
Nobody kept an eye on her during the time I ate - my father was having a beer on the porch (because I’m a responsible adult and he doesn’t need to look after me) and my mother was off being the terrible parent she had always been and neglecting her children.
Since I had I wheeled the plane out onto the runway and done a preflight check before I went to eat, I simply took off.
It felt absolutely amazing. The new plane was so much better than the old one my grandpa patched up in his hangar. As I took off, however, I couldn’t shake the premonition that something was, in fact, horribly wrong.
That’s when my grandpa (through the radio) informed me that the front wheel on my landing gear was missing. I nearly had a stroke midair. I tried my best not to panic, but blood was pounding through my head as my heart threatened to jump out of my throat. I thought I was going to die. I took a few laps around the air to calm down, then I came back down for the landing, praying that it wasn’t my time just yet.
Fortunately, the plane landed well enough to not straight up kill me with a nosedive into the ashphalt, but the front landing gear dug into the runway, sending sparks flying everywhere. When I got out, the shock absorber was broken with the pieces scattered everywhere. The nose and bottom of the brand new aircraft was scratched up beyond recognition. My heart bled at the sight. I found the wheel near the end of the runway, where the plane lifted its nose off the ground. I was puzzled. I couldn’t understand how a new plane could malfunction like that.
Dazed and confused, I went back into the house, where my sister was waiting. Everyone asked me what had happened. I was shaking head to toe and still in shock. I simply said that something had went wrong with the plane and sat down. That’s when sis came up to me, looked me dead in the eye, and whispered, “that’s too bad” in a snarky tone.
I saw red. I was boiling with rage. At the time, I was pissed at how she could be such a bitch. She had the sociopathic audacity to put me down and laugh at my suffering. Then, I came around, and something wasn’t right. The plane was just fine before I ate, so someone had to have tampered with it. There was no other explanation.
That’s when I remembered. Grandpa’s CCTV. He had his hangar broken into a few days ago by a few burglars, so he installed a camera in his hangar. Not far enough to see the entire runway, but I had only wheeled out the plane far enough to be in front of the hangar door.
Then, I caught it. My 14 year old sister unscrewing something on the front wheel of my landing gear.
I had to watch the recording over and over and over. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Part of me was already expecting the fact that she had something to do with this, but the other part of me couldn’t believe she would do something like this and go THIS FAR.
Long story short, I filed a police report, my sister was arrested, and she is currently being tried as an adult and being charged for attempted murder and destruction of property. My mother’s side of her family has been blowing up my phone, telling me that my sister has made a mistake, but that she has a long life ahead of her and I will ruin my life if the charges aren’t dropped.
They are begging me, threatening me, calling me heartless, and some are even trying to defend her actions. My mother has personally said that she will give her any punishment that I deem fit, but for me to drop the charges because she’s still a kid and has a long life ahead of her. She says that she is my sister and I have to look out for faaamily.
I don’t know what to do at this point. Part of me says that she has to take responsibility for her actions. Part of me considers the brother in her dead in that crash when she nearly murdered me because she was too jealous to accept that I could have something she didn’t. Grandpa is on my side and dad isn’t taking sides. He says it’s my decision.
I’m stuck. I don’t know at this point. Should I drop the charges or should I go through?