i was quietly reading a book on my window sill, not really paying any attention to the world around me. it was a nice book as far as i remember, enough interesting for me to consume its pages with curiosity. enough for my heart to skip a few beats when linda came crashing into me, wrapping her long, pale arms around my neck. »god, linda!« i choked with a small smile on my lips and then pushed her away gently. she was such a vivacious ball of energy, my total opposite. we were day and night, the sun and the moon. we were the perfect cycle, the completion of one another. i wanted to whack her ginger head with a bat so many times, but i could never hurt her in any way. she laughed and i watched how she threw her head back, slapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the beautiful sound. i watched her eyes crinkle in the corners and i loved it more than anything else in the world.

we were nine and complete. we were perfect.



dark clouds were gathered above the city, as if they knew what was coming. normally, i would be content because a soft tapping sound of rain never failed to calm me down. my padded window sill would remain my shelter for the rest of the day, accompanied with a book and linda's hourly disturbance. but not that day. not when my twin was standing on the top of our apartment's balcony fence, balancing herself in the cold wind. her wet hair was fluttering hopelessly, whipping her shrunken cheeks, stained with dry tears and raindrops. it was the last time i got to see her. she whispered »i'm sorry« to the rain, but i knew it was for me. and then she jumped.

she was fourteen and gone. we became i.



there are times in your life when you just want to give up on everything. to quit. but you don't, because you go to sleep and tomorrow is better. because you have friends to make you laugh and family to care for you.

real struggle is when your heart is brutally ripped out of your chest and thrown at the wall, shattering like a piece of glass. that's when you're left with nothing but emptiness, and even death sounds better than scraping along. i wanted to follow linda so badly – i wanted to stand where she did and let myself fall to the unstable embrace of wind. but they - my parents - didn't allow me. they isolated me from the outside world and suddenly i found myself being controlled like an unknown beast. their suffocating claws didn't let me go until i finished high school, finally crossing the line to adulthood. my hard work got me an invitation to withmore and i grasped it with both hands. i ran away from their surpress with a stone pumping the blood through my body and a twisted sparkle shining in my eyes.

i was eighteen and drowning. i was alone.