Losing Hope

the phone, so I know she hasn’t made any attempts to call him. At least while I’ve been home. In fact, I’m pretty sure the heartless phone call from him last night was exactly what she needed to finally see him for who he really is.

I kick my shoes off at the door and walk to the kitchen to refill my water. It’s Saturday night and I would normally be heading out with Daniel, but I already texted him to let him know I was staying in tonight. Les made me promise I would stay in with her because she didn’t want to go out and chance running into Grayson yet. She’s lucky she’s cool, because I don’t know many seventeen-year-old guys who would give up a Saturday night to watch chick flicks with his heartbroken sister. But then again, most siblings don’t have what Les and I have. I don’t know if our close relationship has anything to do with the fact that we’re twins. She’s my only sibling, so I don’t have anything to compare us to. She might argue that I’m too protective of her, and there may be some truth to that argument, but I don’t plan on changing anytime soon. Or ever.

I run up the stairs, pull my shirt off, and push open the bathroom door. I turn the water on, then walk across the hall and knock on her bedroom door. “I’m taking a quick shower, will you order the pizza?”

I brace my hand against her door and reach down to pull my socks off. I turn around and toss them into the bathroom, then beat on her door again. “Les!”

When she doesn’t respond, I sigh and look up at the ceiling. If she’s on the phone with him, I’ll be pissed. But if she’s on the phone with him, it probably means he’s telling her the break-up was all my fault and she’ll be the one who’s pissed. I wipe my palms on my shorts and open the door to her bedroom, preparing for another heated lecture on how I need to mind my own business.

* * *

I see Les on her bed after I walk into her room, and I’m immediately taken back to when I was a little boy. Back to the moment that changed me. Everything about me. Everything about the world around me. My whole world turned from a place full of vibrant colors to a dull, lifeless gray. The sky, the grass, the trees . . . all the things that were once beautiful were stripped of their magnificence the moment I realized I was responsible for our best friend Hope’s disappearance.

I never looked at people the same way. I never looked at nature the same way. I never looked at my future the same way. Everything went from having a meaning, a purpose, and a reason, to simply being a second-rate version of what life was supposed to be like. My once effervescent world was suddenly a blurred, gray, colorless photocopy.

Just like Les’s eyes.

They aren’t hers. They’re open. They’re looking right at me from her position on the bed.

But they aren’t hers.

The color in her eyes is gone. This girl is a gray, colorless photocopy of my sister.

My Les.

I can’t move. I wait for her to blink, to laugh, to revel in the twisted aftermath of the sick, fucking joke she’s playing right now. I wait for my heart to start beating again, for my lungs to start working again. I wait for control of my body to return to me because I don’t know who has control of it right now. I sure as hell don’t. I wait and I wait and I wonder how long she can keep this up. How long can people keep their eyes open like that? How long can people not breathe before their body jerks for that desperately needed gasp of air?

How fucking long before I do something to help her?

My hands are touching her face, grabbing her arm, shaking her whole body until she’s in my arms and I’m pulling her onto my lap. The empty pill bottle falls out of her hand and lands on the floor but I refuse to look at it. Her eyes are still lifeless and she’s no longer looking at me as the head between my hands falls backward every time I try to lift it up.

She doesn’t flinch when I scream her name, and she doesn’t wince when I slap her, and she doesn’t react when I start to cry.

She doesn’t do a goddamned thing.

She doesn’t even tell me it’ll be okay when every single ounce of whatever was left inside my chest is propelled out of me the moment I realize that the very best part of me is dead.

Chapter Two

“Will you look for her pink top and the black pleated pants?” my mother asks. She keeps her eyes trained on the paperwork laid out in front of her. The man from the funeral home reaches across the table and points to a spot on the form.

“Just a few more pages, Beth,” he says. My mother mechanically signs the forms without question. She’s trying to keep it together until they leave, but I know as soon as they walk out the front door she’ll break down again. It’s only been forty-eight hours, but I can tell just by looking at her that she’s about to experience it all over again.

You would think a person could only die once. You would think you would only find your sister’s lifeless body once. You would think you would only have to watch your mother’s reaction once after finding out her only daughter is dead.

Once is so far from accurate.

It happens repeatedly.

Every single time I close my eyes I see Les’s eyes. Every time my mother looks at me, she’s watching me tell her that her daughter is dead for the second time. For the third time. For the thousandth time. Every time I take a breath or blink or speak, I experience her death all over again. I don’t sit here and wonder if the fact that she’s dead will ever sink in. I sit here and wonder when I’ll stop having to watch her die.

“Holder, they need an outfit for her,” my mother repeats again after noticing I haven’t moved. “Go to her room and get the pink shirt with the long sleeves. It’s her favorite one, she’d want to wear it.”

She knows I don’t want to go into Les’s bedroom any more than she does. I push my chair away from the table and head upstairs. “Les is dead,” I mutter to myself. “She doesn’t give a shit what she’s wearing.”

I pause outside her door, knowing I’ll have to watch her die all over again the moment I open it. I haven’t been in here since I found her and I really had no intention of ever coming back in here.

I walk inside and shut the door behind me, then make my way to her closet. I do my best not to think about it.

Pink shirt.

Don’t think about her.

Long sleeves.

Don’t think about how you would do anything to go back to Saturday night.

Pleated black pants.

Don’t think about how much you fucking hate yourself right now for letting her down.

But I do. I think about it and I become hurt and angry all over again. I grab a fistful of shirts hanging in the closet and rip them as hard as I can off their hangers until they fall to the closet floor. I grip the frame on top of the door and squeeze my eyes shut, listening to the sound of the now empty hangers swinging back and forth. I try to focus on the fact that I’m in here to grab two things and leave, but I can’t move. I can’t stop replaying the moment that I walked into this bedroom and found her.

I fall to my knees on the floor, look over at her bed, and watch her die one more time.

I sit back against the closet door and close my eyes, remaining in this position for however long it takes me to realize that I don’t want to be in here. I turn around and rummage through the shirts that are now on the closet floor until I find the long-sleeved pink one. I look up at the pants hanging from their hangers and I grab a pair of black pleated ones. I toss them to the side and begin to push up from the floor, but immediately sit back down when I see a thick, leather-bound notebook on the bottom shelf of her closet.

I grab it and pull it onto my lap, then lean back against the wall and stare at the cover. I’ve seen this