CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

He's staring at me. His eyes are sad, his posture's drooping, and he's staring at me.  Slowly, he rubs a hand over his face and sighs. "I think you should rest for a while, okay?"

I frown. "What? No. I'm fine. You need to listen to me."

"You look tired. Did you get a lot of sleep last night?"

"No, I mean, yes. But that's not the point. The point is I'm not your daughter."

His eyes fill with pity. "Go back to bed, Melissa. You aren't thinking straight."

I groan. "Why aren't you listening to me?! You have to believe me. I can't – I can't keep lying to you. The guilt – I can't... You have to believe me!"

"Come on, let's get you back to your room." He places a hand on the small of my back, ignoring my words entirely, and tries to lead me out of the room, but I step out of his reach.

"No! You need to understand – I have to tell you this! I'm not tired or in shock or anything! I'm just trying to tell you the truth! Why can't you believe me?!"

The pity in his eyes fills me with anger. "There's nothing to believe. You are my daughter, Melissa."

It's like my world has turned upside down. I'm no longer living in a world where no one knows the truth – I'm elsewhere, where everyone knows the truth but no one believes it. I'm in a parallel universe where I'm halfway to solving my problems, but stuck in an eternal fight with those around me. No matter how much I shout and plead, no one believes a word I say – not Rand, not Caden, and definitely not my father.

Once again, a tear rolls onto my cheek. Why do I even bother? I have all the answers to everyone's questions but they're trapped in my mind, floating around uselessly, haunting my dreams because they have nothing better to do. If no one wants to hear what I have to say, why do I still bother speaking?

I look down at the floor, all my emotions sneaking up on me at once. Suddenly, I feel the fear of not swapping back, the guilt of the car crash, the annoyance of not being believed and the massing tide of grief that swamps me every time I think of my mother. It's all there, pounding out its own beat alongside my heart, so loud that my heart starts to crack.

"I can't do this," I whisper more to myself than my dad standing a few feet away.

My eyes flick upwards, meeting my father's saddened gaze, before I break out into sobs and rush out of the room. It's like my brain isn't even in control of my body anymore. Without thinking about it, I'm half running-half tumbling down the stairs with tears streaming down my face. My feet take me forward, pulling me to the front door where I latch a hand onto the doorknob and burst out into the snow, leaving behind the eerie silence only to enter a colourless void.

For a second, I just stand at the front door, noticing the drifting snowflakes. But, inevitably, thinking about the snow leads me back to the reason for its existence, and I move forward with a fresh batch of tears as the guilt takes over. I've barely taken two steps from the front door when I collapse to the ground, digging my hands into the snow. But yet another wave of pain rolls over me when I don't feel anything – no cold, no nothing.

With my heart screaming, I pull my hands out of the snow and stare at them, shaking not from the cold, but from the frantic and panic-stricken emotions running through me. Why can't I feel anything? What is so wrong with me that I can' feel the snow against my skin?

I cry out, falling into the snow and curling into a ball in its midst while my tears continue to flow in heavy streams, mixing with the slowly melting ice beneath my hot and sticky face. The emotions of the past week jump at me, one after the other, until I can no longer tell them a part – until they're all the same thing: sadness. And, after all, that's what it all leads back to, isn't it? The guilt of being responsible for my parent's crash fills me with sorrow. The fear that I might die tomorrow causes me to feel miserable at the life I'm going to miss.

Guilt, sadness, fear, sadness, anger, sadness. It's all one and the same thing.

Minutes – or is it hours? – later, my father emerges from the house and finds me lying in the snow, my fingers going blue at the tips. He says something – something that sounds like, "Oh, Melissa," or, "It's snow, Melissa." But I'm not listening. I'm focused on the clouds swirling high above me, their dark grey shapes twisting and twirling in the wind. Why couldn't I have been born a cloud?

I'm conscious of strong arms beneath me, lifting my ice cold body out of the equally cold snow, but I don't feel their warmth. I notice the chest against my head as my father pulls me into his arms, but I don't feel any heartbeat. I'm aware of the changing atmosphere as he steps into the house, but I don't feel any difference in temperature. All I feel is a deep and impossible sadness.

While my father carries me up all the stairs, my mind wonders what mum will be cooking for dinner. I hope for pasta – she makes a killer spaghetti bolognaise. When I'm gently dropped onto the dry bed in my room, my snow covered clothes wetting the sheets, I think, mum's gonna have to wash the sheets again. And when footsteps sound and the door closes, my mind remembers the night before everything changed, when I turned up at the front door dripping wet from a walk in the rain.

"Again Melissa?" my mum says sadly. "You've made enough mess as it is. What is it with you and the rain?"

I send her a look that says, you should know. And I know she understands. Sighing, she says, "Hold on a sec. I'll go get a towel." I can hear her voice echoing down the hallway as she walks: "And you can take off your shoes while you wait."

I follow her instructions and remove my drenched sneakers, standing barefoot on the pointless that never really welcomes anyone. Seconds later, mum is back with a dry white towel, and I take it out of her hands and begin wiping away as much excess water as I can. The whole time she just stands there, watching, her forehead creasing as if she is trying to figure me out – or find a solution to the problem that I think she's had for quite some time now: what to do with me.

The memory fades and I squeeze my eyes shut and cry.

-:-:-:-:-

I know a lot of time has passed when the growling in my stomach turns unbearable, as if I'm harbouring a raging monster that's tearing me a part from the inside out. But still, I refuse to leave my spot curled up on the bed, knees touching my chest, eyes open and staring at everything and nothing at the same time. My tears dried up hours ago, but the sadness is still there, making everything else impossible. I've only one option, and that's to retreat into the various recesses of my mind, where nothing that's real exists and everything that's fake is truth.

Suddenly, there's a soft knock at my bedroom door, and the sound wrestles me from my thoughts and shoves me into a reality where I'm not the only person in the universe.

"Melissa?"

I close my eyes as I recognise Caden's voice. How is Caden in my house? But it doesn't matter. I keep my mouth and eyes shut, my breathing quiet and pray for non-existence, so that maybe, just maybe, he'll go away.

"Melissa, I know you're in there."

No I'm not, no I'm not, no I'm not.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Go away," I reply, giving up on silence.

It turns out that my two words are all the invitation he needs to enter, and I wince as the door swings open, Caden's presence in the room all too noticeable.

"Melissa..." his voice drifts over to me as I stare hard at the falling snow out my window, willing it to disappear.

"I said, go away." I turn my head to glare at him and see the pity resting in his eyes, just like it was in my father's. It makes me feel sick.

"I understand what you're going through," he says simply.

"Oh yeah? Have you ever been solely responsible for an abnormal winter and been hated by everyone for it, while at the same time had to avoid being killed by people you know nothing about, survived through excruciating pain every day, lived with the knowledge that you're dying and that there's no known way to save you and woken to the news that a car accident that was your fault has claimed the life of your mother?"

"No, but-"

"But nothing! You know nothing about what I'm going through – what I've been through – and how dare you say otherwise."

"You're right, I don't! But I do understand the pain of losing a parent, and I know that, after all you've been through, you're strong enough to cope with this. Your pain has made you stronger and this will too. But not if you stay holed up in this room feeling sorry for yourself. That's not gonna bring your mother back and it's certainly not going keep you from joining her. You're being selfish, Melissa, and you know it. Every hour you spend in here is another hour closer to your death – or Sarah's. She needs you – we all do – and here you are, crying into your pillow like a five-year-old. Grow up, get dressed, and get outside where you can do some good. I'll be waiting out front."

And just like that, he turns and walks out of my room and out of sight, returning my room to its original state of calm. Except, I'm anything but calm.

My thoughts are battling themselves in a war that only I can hear. Part of my mind wants nothing more than to fire angry words at Caden, to tell him off for making little of the hardest and most painful thing I've ever had to go through. But the rest of me hesitantly agrees with him and understands that he's right. Sure, he's gone a bit overboard with it, but, underneath it all, he's right. I can't stay in my room and grieve when every seconds that passes is just another second less that I have to live – another second less to figure out how to swap back and save both myself and Sarah.

And my mum wouldn't want me crying in my room when I have the opportunity to make her death worth it. After all, she died because of me – she died in my place – and if she can no longer live, than I'm gonna have to do the living for both of us. Which means I can't give up and wait for my disease to kill me – I have to actively go out and kill it.

For the first time since early this morning, I uncurl my body and sit up, placing my feet on the floor beside my bed. Everything in me aches to lie back down again, to give into the grief that I've been shrouded by for the past four or five hours. But I won't, and instead, I shove the pain into a bottle and trap it with a cork, keeping it not as pain and sadness, but as a fire that wants vengeance and as anger that grants adrenaline. When things get rough – and they will – I can use it as fuel to keep me going – to keep me pushing through the hardship and pain.

I stand and get dressed quickly, opting for clothes that are comfortable, warm and easy to move in. Then I go through all the other motions that I usually complete before eight in the morning, like brushing my hair and cleaning my teeth. When I'm done, I walk downstairs, fully aware that my father is in his room and knowing that I won't be going back up to say goodbye before I leave.

In the kitchen, I pull my hair up into a tight ponytail and dig through the cupboards and fridge for something quick to eat. I quickly decide on an apple and some crackers, eating them both in less than five minutes.

Feeling satisfied, I grab some nearby paper and, using a pen I found on the counter, I scrawl a quick message:

Hey dad, I've gone out for a while. I'm not sure when I'll be home, but don't worry if it's not for a few days. I promise you I'll be safe. Love Melissa.

Re-reading it a few times, I eventually decide that it'll have to do and stick it to the inside of the front door.

I pause before opening the door, letting my breaths fill the space before I leave. For some reason, this feels final, as if whatever happens between now and when I next see him will change our relationship somehow. Breathing out slowly, I look back at the staircase that leads upstairs – that leads to the remnants of my family – and send out a silent bye with my mind. I know that it's impossible for my father to hear it, but some part of me hopes he will.

And then my hand's on the doorknob, the door is swung open and I've stepped out into the snow and into the life that, after all this time, I've finally chosen.