Tara doesn't remember the night Talia died. I envy her for it, sometimes. She's free from having to replay every detail, every last word, in her mind.

I can't stop.

The night that Talia died – it was all my fault.

Talia and I argued on the night she died. It's getting easier to say – she died. Talia died. My girlfriend died.

No. My ex-girlfriend. She was my ex-girlfriend when she died.

Nobody else knows, because I didn't tell anyone – not even Tara. Not the whole story. Once, a year ago, I let it slip in anger. I don't know if she remembers. I hope she doesn't.

The night started off okay. Talia and I were going to a party – I don't even remember whose party it was, just that it was a big one. I remember feeling irritated. I was often irritated back in those days. I didn't know when exactly, but Tara had started avoiding me. My relationship with my best friend was rapidly going down the toilet and I didn't know why. I found out why that night. And when I did, I wished I hadn't.

That night, Talia had cajoled Tara into coming to the party. I'd wanted to pick Talia up, but she'd pointed out that Tara wouldn't be able to escape as easily if Talia drove her herself. Talia had noticed too. She had been trying fix things between us. I almost wish she hadn't.

I had been against coming in separate cars. "What if you decide to drink?"

She'd laid her hand on my arm and flashed me a beautiful smile. "Then you drive us home."

To my dying day, I will remember her smile, the way she looked up at me as she said those words. I should have driven them home.

I should have driven them home.

I wasn't that surprised when I met up with Talia at the party and found out that Tara had managed to give Talia the slip before I had arrived. This had been becoming the norm. Tara was avoiding me. She had been for a year now.

"You two have to talk," Talia insisted. "This is getting out of hand."

We didn't spend much time looking for Tara. There was no need. The party had just started, but she was already drunk out of her mind. We found her at the center of attention, dancing on top of a table with a bunch of equally drunk guys cheering her on.

"Dylan," Talia said from beside me, "you have to talk to her."

"Trust me, I will." I pushed through the crowd and hauled Tara away. She struggled, but I pulled her into the kitchen where it was slightly quieter.

"Okay. What the hell is your problem?"

She was belligerent. "What problem?"

"Your problem! Why are you behaving like this? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing." She turned to go, but I grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Tara–"

She whirled around, teetering drunkenly, eyes flashing. "All right. You want to know what's happening?"

I should have seen the spark in her eyes and known that nothing good was coming. I should have left it well enough alone. But I didn't. "Yes," I said.

And as I stood there, staring her down, she leaned into my face and snarled, "What's happening is that I love you, damn it! I loved you long before Talia!" Then she pulled me down with surprising strength and kissed me right on the mouth.

I was so caught off guard that I froze for a moment, before coming to my senses and shoving her away. "What the fuck–"

A wounded noise by the doorway made me look up. Then I was moving, reaching for Talia, trying to explain. Talia was stepping backwards, away from me, a horrified look etched on her face.

"Wait," I said, but Talia didn't wait. She turned and ran.

"Wait," I heard Tara echo weakly from behind me.

At the sound of her voice, I felt red-hot anger rise within me. I turned on her. "Did you do this on purpose? Did you see her standing there and thought it was a good idea to play this... this joke! Are you that jealous of your sister you have to fuck up her relationship too?"

"I'm not lying," she whispered.

I didn't for a second believe her.

She was lying. She had to be. We had been friends for almost all of our lives - and she chose now, the exact moment when she knew Talia was watching,to 'confess her feelings'?

Impossible.

Tara had forgotten - I used to be her best friend. I'd lain beside her on the floor, listening to her complain about how perfect her twin sister was, how inferior she felt next to Talia. Talia was better at everything. She got better grades. She was nicer. She had more friends, more boys after her... Even their own parents, Tara had told me, preferred Talia over her.

Once, when we had been ten, she had turned to me after such a rant and asked, achingly, "Do you like Talia more than me, too?"

"Of course not," I had scoffed, with all the confidence of a ten-year-old boy convinced that most girls had cooties. "She's such a girly girl. She's boring. I'll never like her more than you."

"You better not!"

Sometimes I had the feeling that if Tara hadn't loved her sister so much, she would have hated her. Maybe a part of her did.

"You were the one who told me to get with her," I reminded her, my voice sounding harsh even to my own ears, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't believe that Tara, of all people, my best friend, could do this to me. "Are you regretting it now? Do you think I'm stealing your sister away from you? Or that I'm with her so much I don't have time for you? Because if you remember, you're the one who walked out on our friendship first."

"I don't want your friendship if you're with her," Tara choked, shoving past me to stumble out of the kitchen.

I stood in her wake, watching her move further away but unable to bring myself to follow. So, was that it? She no longer wanted to be friends because I was dating her sister now? If I was on Talia's side, I could no longer be on hers? Did it always have to be a competition?

Then I scoffed at myself, because this was Tara we were talking about. Of course it was a competition. She was always secretly comparing herself against her sister and coming up short. I doubt even Talia knew just how much of an inferior complex Tara had when it came to her twin sister.

Hands fisted by my sides, I strode through the house.

I found them both outside, Talia bundling Tara into the passenger's seat of her car. She slammed the door shut on Tara's lolling head just as I reached them.

I grabbed Talia's arm when she turned to go around the car. "Talia, listen," I said, "I didn't..."

"I know you didn't," Talia said softly. She wouldn't look at me even though I was trying hard to catch her eye. "I heard everything."

"Then you know there's nothing–"

"It's over, Dylan," she whispered. "It has to be."

I stared at her, feeling like someone had thrown me into a parallel dimension. Everything was going so wrong, all at once.

"Why?" It still made me wince, every time, remembering the way the crack in my heart had shown up in my voice too.

"I can't date a guy my sister is in love with."

"Can't you see that she's lying?" I shouted then, my frustration taking over. "She's jealous of you, she always has been. This is just a way to screw things up for us–"

Talia shook her head. "She would never lie about something like that."

In that moment, I hated Talia. Did our relationship mean so little to her, that she would throw it away just like that? Based on one impulsive, drunken lie told by a selfish, jealous sister?

A sister who had thrown away our eight years of friendship with the same cavalier attitude?

"Fine," I remember saying, clenching my jaw hard to stop the boiling pressure behind my eyes. "Go. I don't care."

It was then, when I was stomping away, that she said the last words she would ever say to me. "Dylan..." She sounded like she was crying, but I was too angry to turn around to make sure. "I'm sorry."

And my last words, ever, to Talia were, "Go to hell."

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