AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A voice hums close to my ear, the same voice that has always been with me since before the time of memory. Instinctively, I curl closer to the voice, closer to the person who was born to be my other half.
“Please don’t take my sister away,” Lita sings. Her hand holds mine. She lays on her side with her knees drawn up, her head on a pillow just above me.
She stops singing when she sees my eyelids flutter open. Bright light filters through the shutter planks. Though I’ve slept so much since returning home yesterday and the hours have blended together, I can tell that the sun sits high in the sky right now.
“Hi.” My sister smiles down at me. “How do you feel?”
“Bruised.” I cough and wince. “Thirsty.”
She turns to grab a tumbler sitting on the nightstand. “Here. Drink some ice water.” She directs the straw to my mouth as if I’m a child.
I drink greedily until I need to take a breath. “Thanks.”
She sets the tumbler down and helps me sit up, taking care to fluff a pillow and place it gently behind my back.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Half past noon. Conner has been keeping constant watch over you but I took over so he could have a break. He hasn’t even eaten yet today. I’m not sure he slept at all while you were in the hospital.” She leans back into the pillows and sighs. “You’ll be all right. The doctors all said so.”
“Guess I’m tough to kill.”
She stares at me. Her chin trembles. “If you ever scare me like that again I’ll kick your ass just like the old days.”
The laughter that bubbles out of my throat hurts only a little. “Yeah, you wish you kicked my ass.” I roll to my side. Our noses are only inches apart. “I’m sorry that I scared you.”
She makes a face. “While you were lying in that hospital bed I made a deal.”
“A deal with who?”
“I don’t know. Whoever it is that decides who lives and who dies. I offered to trade my life for yours.”
My throat tightens. “I’d never want that. Anyway, there are no such deals. I can’t even count how many times I offered up my soul if you could be given a second chance. No one was listening.”
“I’d never want you to give up your life for me either.” She sighs. “Haven, you were the first person I looked for. When I woke up and there were all these strangers around. They knew me and I didn’t understand why I didn’t know them. You were theonlyone I wanted to see. It hurt to speak but I kept repeating your name over and over. Did they tell you that?”
“No, they didn’t.”
She gnaws at the corner of her lip. A shadow falls over her expression. “I can’t explain where I was all that time. It wasn’t really a place. It had no name. But I know that you were always close, always watching over me.”
“I’ll never stop watching over you.”
Her eyes are watery. “Nothing is fair, is it? Somehow I found a way out of that lost world but so many others never do. And I don’t know why I get to be here.”
“I don’t know why either. But I missed you, Lita. Every day I regretted the fact that I should have been a better sister.”
She sits up on her elbow. “You are thebestsister, Haven. The very best in the world. So brave. Crazy smart. And no one has a bigger heart.”
Gazing at her, I whisper our magic words. “Please don’t take my sister away.”
She lets out a soft cry, perhaps some part of her remembering the countless times I uttered that sentence next to her ear. She throws her arms around me and hugs tightly. We’re still locked in a twin embrace when Conner cracks the door open.
“You’re awake.” Conner stands at the foot of the bed. He’s disheveled and unshaven. He’s beautiful. And his smile is happy.
I sit up and reach for him. “My hero.”
Lita scoots off the bed. “This is my cue to exit. You guys deserve to have a moment alone.”
My twin sister pauses at the door. We exchange a glance that has more love and understanding packed into it than can be properly expressed in words. She shuts the door softly behind her.
