It had taken me a while to accept my fate. Even after hours of being surrounded by family, friends and distractions, I still couldn't grasp it. It didn't feel real, none of it felt real. The police came a few days after I had woken up, the same day that feeling was slowly crawling back into the bottom half of my body. Lily hadn't mentioned how drunk she was to them, they informed me that she confessed she got too close to the edge and tripped, surprisingly they praised me for acting on quick instinct. The driver of the car also came to see me, I could tell it had been eating him up for a while. He was a kind man, easily guilt-ridden, even though it wasn't his fault. Luckily, his insurance covered the damages, otherwise I'd have forced myself to pay. 

I hadn't heard anything from Lily since she came to see me. Travis said he had tried to speak to her at her apartment, but she wouldn't answer the door. I was worried about her, I was worried about how much she blamed herself when I would have ended up in a hospital bed with a stitched, half-bald head anyway. Either that or I would have been in a coffin. Travis filled me on the missing blanks--that I had engaged in a fight with a stranger at the edge of the road. So, I was to blame anyway. It didn't matter which way I looked at it, or which way anyone else looked at it, it was done. I couldn't turn back time, I just had to deal with what was happening. 

Every time the door opened, I had hoped it would be her. And my hopes were crushed every single time. I was deluding myself. We weren't together, there was no reason for her to ever come back. And then, on a rainy, dark morning; her face appeared in the window of my hospital room. 

For a moment my eyes widened with joy, my heart accelerated so fast that I could feel it pumping in my throat. A tingling sensation ran up and down my limbs and my stomach churned with a familiar, lavishing heat. Just for a moment, I was beside myself with glee that she had finally come to see me, that I finally had my chance to defend myself against everything she had said to me.

But, it wasn't her. 

Rosie didn't smile nor did she shake, nor did she jump and down, nor she did she greet me with any traits that Lily always did. She gave me a blank look as she wandered into the room. She wore a tight, black coat with large buttons and her hair was soaked from the rain. Even though I knew instantly that it wasn't Lily; it was still her face, her eyes, her lips. It was better than nothing.

"What do you want?" I narrowed my eyes at her as she straightened against the door with her arms crossed.

"You can always tell," she said. "She said you would."

"Did she send you?"

She shook her head. "She doesn't know I'm here."

I stared at her. "So, why are you here?"

She glanced down, eyeing her feet shamefully. "I was wrong about you. I've always been wrong about you, and, I'm sorry."

"Woah," I gasped. "Only took you four years to realize."

She began to fidget, shuffling awkwardly toward me. "I've always been jealous of her, since we were kids, she was always the favorite. And I resented her for that. But, that doesn't mean that I don't love her, that I'd do anything to protect her. The truth is, I've always wanted what the two of you have."

"Had." I corrected.

"I was immature and messed up. I was jealous of how happy she was, of how happy you made her. Which is why I was the one that split you up."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told her that I saw you kissing a girl in a club. She didn't believe me, so, I paid someone to go along with the story. The girl told her you slept with her and I manipulated her into breaking up with you."

"That was you?" My voice rose to the extreme, and Rosie flinched. "She didn't even give me a chance to defend myself!"

"I am so sorry," her voice cracked as she trembled toward the edge of tears. "For everything."

"Does Lily know?" I looked toward the rain thumping against the window, refusing to look at her.

"I told her the day after the accident. I told her everything. Seeing her like that, so conflicted over her anger for you, it broke me. I kept thinking. . . what if she had died and she died believing a lie. I couldn't do that to her. I couldn't do that to you. After I told her, and we had argued it out and we were kicked out of the hospital, the guilt started to eat at her. The guilt of all of it. I thought that it would make her go back to you, but it made her worse. Now she believes you hate her."

"And whose fault is that?" I snorted.

"Mine," she whispered. "You can sit in that bed all day and hope she'll come through those doors, but the fact is, she won't. She isn't coming. She won't see anyone. She missed her dance recital, Jason. She had worked so hard for it. I know that I can't ever make up for the damage I've caused, my own twin can't stand me. But you can. Please, go see her. You pushed her out of the way for a reason."

"Because unlike you, her life means something to me."

"I deserve that," she said quietly. "By all means don't hold back. Insult me, get angry at me, scream at me. You can't hate me more than I hate myself."

I looked at her then, gently and still. Those are the exact words that Lily had expressed to me all those weeks ago, the exact tone with the exact expression. Rosie might had been the complete opposite to her, she might had been twisted, damaged and selfish, but she was still her twin. She was still one half of Lily. She was still the same girl that dated a jerk senior just to keep Lily safe, until she realized that me being with her had the same effect and finally broke up with him.

 What was wrong with me? Why did I feel compassion for the life-destroying idiot? Why did I suddenly feel sorry for her? 

I tried to be angry. I did. But she had her face, and it was hard to remain angry at someone that had her face. All I felt, was pity. Pity that she believed she was always in Lily's shadow, in the background. She was twenty years old and she had finally taken responsibility for her actions. She had finally separated herself from that selfish, manipulating high-school girl she made herself become. 

"I can't forgive you for what you did," I said. "But I understand why you did it."

"So, you'll speak to her?"

I narrowed my eyes. "I had every intention of doing that, whether you had come today or not. But thanks for the random honesty."

She gave me a small smile of sadness. "I hope it works out. You two belong together, you always have."

"Goodbye, Rosie."

She nodded, backing up slowly to the door. She exited quickly, like she couldn't wait for that to be over. 

I listened to the rain again, watching the drops smear across the glass. Rain was her favorite weather, she used to tell me that it could wash away every fear that lived inside of us if we allowed it to. She said a lot of bizarre things, but right at that moment, that was the one thing that felt true. 

+ + +

The day that I could walk again without falling, was the day I discharged myself. They tried to stop me, but I was determined. I was on crutches and my body still ached from the internal bruising and broken ribs, but there was somewhere I needed to be.

Travis drove me from the hospital to her apartment across town, she had lived in a block of flats since she graduated high school and got a part-time job at the same restaurant my mother worked at. She couldn't deal with the pressure from her mother anymore. And neither could I. I stayed over most nights, we were practically already living together, except we weren't.

Travis parked the car up, tapping his fingers against the stirring wheel. "Good luck," he said. "You might need it."

"Cheers, bro. I owe you."

"Are you sure you don't want me to wait?"

"Nah," I said. "She'll talk to me."

I opened the door and used my crutches to help me out. Manic wind greeted me and I stared up at the block of flats, frozen to the spot. I heard the engine roar from behind me as Travis took off. I limped myself toward the door, managing to push it open without falling flat on my face. That was a bonus. But it wasn't the hard part. The hard part was realizing there wasn't an elevator installed yet and having to somehow tug myself up three flights of dusty, steep stairs.

Finally, after almost killing myself multiple times all over again and coming to the terrifying acceptance that I had lost my strong, athletic biceps because of lack of nutrition and human food, I landed at her door. Literally. I rolled over on the floor and it would have been funny if I wasn't in agonizing pain. 

I steadied myself to my feet, yanking onto the crutches for dear life. I thumped my hand against the wood of her door.

"I know you're in there!" I shouted. "It's me."

I waited for a while, but she didn't come. I knocked again. 

"I'm not going anywhere until you open this door. I will literally. . . I will sit here all day and night if I have to." I collapsed down the door, resting my back against it as my bum crushed into the floor. "I know that you feel guilty," I said sideways. "For a lot of things. But shutting yourself away isn't going to solve anything."

"Go away, Jason." she mumbled through the door. 

"You were right, I should have fought for us," I told her. "And I didn't. I should have been at this door every day convincing you it wasn't true. But I wasn't. I was angry that you could think I'd do that to you. Because I wouldn't. I couldn't. Ever. I never even looked at another woman. Well, obviously I looked, we all look but-"

I stopped abruptly as the door swung open and I fell through the air, landing on my back as Lily stood above me with her arms crossed.

"I know," she said over me. "I know you didn't cheat on me. It was Rosie, she set it all up."

"Yeah," I said, meeting her up-side down blue eyes. "She came to see me a while ago. She told me what she did."

She fell to her knees beside my face and helped me sit up, I rolled my shoulders back, adjusting my body back to normal. She remained on her knees, her face was pale and distant--she wore no make up, her hair was a knotty mess and she slightly stunk of body odor, but she had never looked so beautiful to me. 

"You should be in hospital," she whispered. "I'll take you back."

"Screw the hospital," I muttered. "I'd only be in the same pain there."

"I know you don't like hospitals." She tried to smile but it didn't reach her eyes. "But you need to be there. You're only making yourself worse by going for walk-abouts."

"Nice to know you care."

She stares at me, touching the chain around her neck. "Of course I care. How could you even say that?"

"You never came back." I shrugged. 

"I tried. I got as close as the hospital entrance and then I turned back. I'm a coward."

"Yes, you are," I said to her. "And we can either keep going around in circles, apologizing and telling each other how stupid and angry we were or we can do something useful about it and just be together."

"It's too-"

"Don't say it's too late," I bit on the words angrily. "Because I haven't just been through hell and back for nothing."

She placed her shaking hand on my face and her eyes lit up fantastically. "If you can still love me like I love you, then it wasn't for nothing."

I smiled at her, becoming slightly dizzy from her stench, and then I placed that thought aside as I brought my lips to hers.

+ + +

I made a promise to myself that day that nothing would come between us again. I wasn't prepared for death to be an exception, but it was. It was something we couldn't fight, something we couldn't apologize for, something we couldn't expect, not that soon. Not in a blink of an eye. Death took her without a reason, other than to leave me with a small, crying baby. 

We had moved on from the accident, we had moved on from the guilt. We never really spoke about it again. We had embraced a love so strong that no words could ever define it. 

So how the hell could a nine-year-old girl?