Piece By Piece | ✓

11 | vanessa

     Veronica had a cornucopia of clothes. On the right side of the closet were different shades of light, pastel colors; on the left side were bright, neon ones, and aligned on the closet floor were strapped sandals and cute flat shoes.

     Vanessa bit her lower lip to stop herself from crying as she pulled out a few of the clothes on their respective hangers, but her damn tears betrayed her and cascaded down her cheeks anyway.

     "I'm sorry, Veronica," she whispered hoarsely, clutching one of the long sleeves of her twin sister's shirt and burying her face in its soft fabric. "I'm trying not to cry too much when I'm in here," she hiccuped in a weak voice as she constantly blinked through her tears, "but I just can't stop crying. I... I don't think I can, Ver."

     The untouched clothing still smelled like her sister. It had been two whole years without Veronica—and yet, no matter what she did to distract herself from the gaping hole violently clawing at her chest, the crippling pain never went away.

     Several agonizing screams and hysterical gasps for air later, she crumpled down on the floor, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she tried to concentrate breathing evenly, but she couldn't tell whether or not her lungs were still intact.

     Whatever deity it was out there looking down at her that moment probably hated her guts as well—because as soon as she started to slowly calm herself down, haunting images and flustered voices from that night flashed vividly through her closed eyes. The surge of painful flashbacks flooded her mind and drowned her alive.

     Veronica had gone to another one of the popular kids' parties. It was a Friday night, and of course, Vanessa knew for a fact that almost all of the people there were going to drown themselves in alcohol and random hook-ups.

     Veronica had been one of them. Her twin sister wasn't always a wild child, but ever since their family business had gone bankrupt and their parents practically neglected them, she became depressed.

     Vanessa had tried numerous times to cheer her up, to make her see the brighter side of things, to let her know that she didn't have to be sad because she vowed to do everything in her power to make her twin sister happy.

     What she hadn't expected was Veronica's strange way of dealing with their stressful family and financial problems—she wasted herself away by going to exclusive parties, consuming lots of alcohol, flirting with all sorts of guys, and ending up in a vacant room with them later on.

     Vanessa didn't really mind at first; she told herself that her sister was just going through some kind of rebellious stage. She ignored her parents' constant arguments the first week she was left at home while Veronica was at another party.

     She had distracted herself with reading books and doing her homework—and Veronica's—since her sister wasn't coming back until a few hours. She waited and waited, but when her parents' yelling subsided and her sister still wasn't home, she tried to remember which party her sister was at, and then she drove around their neighborhood, looking for Veronica.

     Eventually, she found her twin—Veronica was shitfaced and barely coherent; she couldn't even walk a straight line anymore. Vanessa was fuming mad, but when her drunk sister looked up at her and smiled apologetically, her anger quickly dissipated and was turned into relief. She didn't fail to notice that Veronica kept mumbling something about "drinking away the pain—pain that deserves to be forgotten".

     She had convinced herself that her twin's insurgent behavior was going to last for at least a week, that her parents were going to patch up their marriage and their business problems, that everything was going to fall back into place again.