Convincing You I'm Me

Chapter 42: Forever

I S L A

I ball my hand into a tight fist and I bang it against the door of the grand, three-story house. I can't decide if it's a happy knock or a frustrated knock, but I'm definitely panicking in some way.

I wait a few seconds, bouncing up and down with impatience. Suddenly, the door swings open and Rosie holds it with her arm as she shouts to someone with her head turned away. 

"Just put it in the basket!" she screams. "It's not hard!"

She turns, to meet my eyes, widening them for a second before pushing her hand against my chest and stirring me backwards into the driveway. "I told you not to come here." She shuts the door, wrapping her cream cardigan tighter around her shoulders. 

"I'm sorry," I say. "But I have nowhere else to go."

"Why what's happened?" she says as she reads my eyes. "Lil?"

"I don't know what to do," I burst out into tears. "I saw him and. . . he made me. . . and. . . he believes me and I can't. . ."

She comes for me, linking her arm with mine and gently pulls me down the driveway. "Let's go for a walk."

I nod, letting her guide me across the street. We walk in silence for a few moments as we stroll into the park. I watch all the parents with their children, playing frisbee or having picnics or doing their daughter's hair, and my heart sinks. I never had the chance to do that, I never got the chance to see them grow up, not properly.

Rosie takes a seat at a bench that looks out over the climbing frame, I fall beside her, aimlessly looking at kids that are playing, laughing, running, screaming. It fills my head with so many blank spaces that it's hard to remember what I was upset about.

"I brought the kids here," she says. "When they stayed over for sleepovers. Jamie loved the monkey bars."

I smile, trying to picture that in my mind. "You did amazing with them," I sniffle. "They needed a woman, especially the twins."

"Yeah," she laughs, awkwardly rubbing her hair. "Me and Davina had to give them the period talk and  the sex talk. Wasn't pretty."

I glance downwards at my fingers, slowly linking them above my knees. 

"What is it?" she asks quietly, observing my frown. "What were you upset about?"

"I saw him today, Jason," I take a breath. "He was at the grave."

"He warned you off?"

"No," I say, meeting her eyes. "The opposite actually, he asked me to go for coffee. We talked and. . . I had to pretend that I was a clairvoyant. I took him to my apartment to try and 'contact' myself."

"Oh no," she laughs out, but then holds a hand to her mouth. "How did that go?"

"He knows," I whisper. "He knows the truth. He believes the truth."

"Wait, you mean...?"

I nod. "It all happened so quick. So fast. For a couple of hours everything felt normal, like we had never spent so long apart. I never thought he'd believe me, that he'd even give me the time of day, let alone come back to my apartment."

"So, that's a good thing, right? You've got him back."

I shake my head, biting on my teeth. "No. Well, yes. But, no. The voices returned."

"Ah, Lil, not this again." she says. 

"It was eleven days, but then it changed, now it's six days."

"And does he knows this? Did you tell him?"

"I told him about what the date means, I didn't tell him what the date was. I have to leave him again, and this time for good, how can I begin to explain that to him?"

She leans against me sadly. "You're not going anywhere, okay? It's probably just a side effect, like a delusion. Just ignore it and it'll go away."

"It's not a delusion, Rose. It's a death sentence. And I'm okay with that. It'd be selfish of me to want more time, when people are dying every minute of the day, and can never return to their families. And even though I only have days left, that's more than I should ever be able to have."

A tear streams down her pale, shiny face. She wipes it, not taking her eyes from mine. "Jason isn't the only one that's got you back. I don't want to lose you again."

"You've had years with me," I say. "You kept my secret, even when it pushed you to breaking point, even when you had to see our family and lie through your teeth. I'm grateful for that. I'm lucky to have a sister that knows me, even though we're not twins anymore, or identical anymore, you saw me for me. I'll always cherish that."

"Why do I get the feeling you're telling me goodbye?" she gasps.

"I need to go home," I whisper. "Just one last time. And I need to focus my entire energy on doing that."

She squeezes her hand into mine and her older, wiser, adult head collides with my shoulder. "You're still my twin," she whispers. "Forever."

I smile, catching my breath. "Forever."