"Does she like coffee?" Jamie asks. "Or we have tea, or I could make a cappuccino. Does she eat breakfast?"

"What kind of a question is that?" I laugh, eyeing him from across the kitchen. "Everyone eats breakfast."

"Jessie doesn't."

"Your sister is weird," I say, flicking through TV channels. "I definitely don't think she's related to me."

"I definitely do."

"Shut it." I mouth at him with a grin. "Just make her some tea and toast."

He meets my eyes and flexes his arm. "She's not that special."

"Anyone that gets you to flick a kettle for them definitely is."

"Ouch. That's quick for you, Dad."

"I'm learning."

He begins walking across the kitchen and joins me at the table, he places his hands on the glass and takes a deep breath. "Is it weird that I find Isla hot?"

I raise an eyebrow. "It'd be weird if you acted on it."

"Ew," he grimaces, shaking his head. "No. That's gross. I just mean. . . she's my age. Technically. I don't know, this whole thing is bizarre."

"Bizarre doesn't even cover it."

He scrunches his face up. "How about, unorthodox? An unorthodox reality."

I glare at him. "Since when did you swallow a dictionary?"

"Since my sister became a scientist," he says. "Didn't you get the memo?"

"I sure did. I've got the knowledge of a planet I can't even pronounce to prove it."

"If it's the same planet I'm thinking of, same, I can't pronounce it. To be fair, I don't think Jade can either."

I laugh, resting the remote on the table. "Kettle's boiled."

"Along with your brain."

I turn, widening my eyes. "That was quick for you, too."

He chuckles to himself and begins pouring the water into mugs with his back to me. "So, is she moving in?"

"Who? Isla?"

"Is it odd that we keep calling her that?" he says, reaching across the counter to put the kettle back. "But, yeah."

"I can't call her anything else," I say. "Not yet. And no, she isn't."

"I get that," he sighs, he turns around to face me while stirring his coffee. "But doesn't that mean that there's still a little. . . I don't know. . ."

"Doubt?" I offer.

"Mhm." He puts the mug down and taps his fingers against the counter. "I mean, you knew Mum better than any of us. Definitely better than me. Do you really, truly, honestly believe it's her?"

"If I had any doubts, I would never have introduced her to you." I lie. I hate lying, it's not me, it's not who I am, but I can't let him take on that doubt burden too. Not yet, not until I can prove there's no doubt left.

"I suppose so. I guess, I've just lived for so long with guilt that I killed her that it just doesn't feel real to be finally able to let that guilt go."

"You didn't kill her, Jamie."

"Yes, I did, Dad," he snarls at me. We've had this conversation a thousand times over the years, it's useless for me to try and sway his mind, but I find myself doing it anyway. "And you know I did."

"She died because the hospital staff were neglectful. She died because she developed a life-threatening condition and they left her too long untreated. You did not kill her."

"I contributed."

"I'm not going through this again. It's stupid."

"Fine," he says, he crosses his arms, his biceps pulling together as he squeezes intensely. "I won't mention it again."

I go to respond, but I fall silent as Jessie emerges in the kitchen doorway. "Morning!" she chirps. 

Isla is right behind her. She wears a smile that seems fake, but it quickly changes to a much real one as her eyes find mine. Her hair looks great. It falls below her shoulders, bouncy and shiny; and the ends have been curled which makes her eyes more blue. She wears some of Jessie's high school clothes: a baggy black shirt that waves around her body and tight, denim jeans that are held together with a black, sparkling belt. As much as I don't want to, I see Lily.

I'm beginning to see more of Lily in her now than I have in the past few days. But no matter how many times I see a resemblance, I still focus on the differences.

I always will.

"I made you coffee." Jamie says to both of them. 

"I don't drink coffee," Jessie rolls her eyes. "Amateur brother."

"I do," Isla grins. "Give me some caffeine."

Jamie smiles, handing her the mug, and she takes a sip while eyeing me over it. "I'm a better American now."

I smile. "You was never a bad one."

"Tell that to the portrait of the Queen that I worshiped."

It's comments like that, that makes me want to rip my hair out, because it's against everything that Jade said. Lily did have a portrait of the Queen, and she did actually worship it. Would Isla really get that information from someone else? What would be the point? It's her. It must be her. And yet, I still need to ask her the question, I still need to have the closure. I wait until Jamie and Jessie have taken their drinks into the lounge and I pluck up the courage to say it.

"Isla?"

"Mhm."

I glance through the air until she looks at me. "What's our song?"

She stares at me, dropping the mug slowly from her lips. "Huh?"

"Our song. What is it?"

"Why are you asking me that?" she laughs, dismissing it. "You know what it is."

"I want you to tell me what it is."

She bites on her lip for a moment, then turns away, putting the mug back onto the counter angrily. "Why?"

"Why can't you answer?"

"Is this a test?" she says, glaring at me furiously. 

I read her eyes, trying to find a fault in her anger, trying to find the dismissive proof that I know she's projecting. "It's not a test. You said you had every memory."

"I do."

"Then tell me," I smile quickly, and then it fades. "What's our song? Because it's the one thing you'd never forget."

"I haven't forgotten, it's just. . . hazy." She rubs her eyes, then flattens her palm against her face, I can't tell if it's an act or if it's genuine. "Why are you looking at me like that, Jason?"

"I asked you that question when you were twelve. And you couldn't give me an answer. You said you saw images and flashes. It wasn't all there. But now it's all there, right?"

"We're going around in fucking circles!" she curses. "We just spent the night together, again. And you still don't trust me?"

"It's a simple question."

"I can't believe this. After everything, we're right back there again. I'm sick of this. I'm done."

"Done?"

"Done!" 

She starts to move towards the back door, to make a dramatic exit that will psychologically make me feel guilty and go running after her. 

Not this time.

I block her path, and she takes deep breaths. "Get out of my way."

"Answer me."

"I-I. . ." she swallows. "I don't know why I can't remember. I just can't."

"But yet you remember the time you pulled me into the lake, right?"

"Yes, but that's completely different. That's an actual memory, it's not a symbol."

"It's not a memory."

Her eyes widen. "What?"

"It never happened."

"Then why would you. . ." she stares, and then her eyes widen even further. "You were tricking me!"

I glance into her blue eyes, trying not to lose myself to their delusion. "Some things just don't add up."

"Everything adds up," she laughs, narrowing those pools of sky at me. "You're just too afraid to admit it."

"What's my favorite color?"

"Blue."

"Wrong."

She rolls her eyes. "It proves nothing."

"When I jumped in front of that car for Lily, when I sacrificed my career for her, when I awoke from the coma that saved my life, what did she tell me?"

She thinks for a moment, her eyes darting downwards. "I told you it was my fault, that it should have been me."

"After that. What did she think I'd feel?"

Her lips tremble and she glances away. She can't answer that. She's trying to, she's scrambling her mind to come up with a sentence that could be close, but her hesitance has already given me what I need.

"She told me I'd hate her," I say. "And that she had to go. And she never came back."

"Like I said, somethings are hazy," she snarls. 

"Or it catches you off guard when I ask you questions, rather than you just tell me what you already know is true."

"What do you want from me?" she says, she begins to cry, her voice shakes as she holds in the scream she wants to let out. "I can tell you a million things that happened between us."

I let out a breath, looking up at the ceiling in a daze.

"I'll tell you what," she says. "I'll give you until tomorrow to think about it. Because I'm done with trying to convince you. I'm actually over it. I'm not going around in circles again, I've been doing it my whole life. You either believe me, or I'm out of your life for good. It's your choice."

I clench my teeth as she pushes past me, bashing into my shoulder as she reaches for the door. I let her leave, I wait until the door slams closed and then I let out a groan of frustration, wanting to smash every object in the room to pieces. 

I have so much anger, so much resentment. For everything. 

I don't know what's going on here, I don't know who did this, or why they did this, but my life has now been turned into a game. A sick game for sick minds, full of sick players and sick rules and sick consequences.

I don't know what's real anymore. I don't know who I am.

All I know, is that the love of my life took her last breaths as I watched hopelessly from a window. 

All I know, is that her heart stopped beating and nothing I could do would restart it. 

All I know, is that I'm running out of reasons to justify it. 

But reincarnation isn't one of them.