Quiet Like a Ghost

Chapter Three: Silence

It's eight at night and everyone's gone except for Dahlia, who came over after getting another tattoo for some reason. It's the lyrics, 'It's moments like this where silence is golden' from her favorite Bring me the Horizon song, Go to Hell For Heaven's Sake. I guess she wants to go back to being overlooked and quiet. We are watching her favorite tv show, Supernatural, and she's explaining why Crowley is locked up in Sam and Dean's bunker. I could care less but it makes her happy talking about it so I listen.

She's been silent for a minute, staring at the screen blankly. I look at her, tears are building in her eyes, but she refuses to let them win. " Dahl." I sigh hugging her as she bursts out crying. "What am I doing with my life? You told me to do whatever made me happy but I don't know what does." She sobs harder, "Shh, Dahl, you'll figure it out." I whisper, soothingly petting her frizzy straight hair.

She falls asleep in my arms, her small figure sleeping soundly against me. I wish I could just magically just make her happy but I can't so I must wait for her to work things out. I pick her up and carry her to my bed so she could sleep comfortably. Once she's in bed I walk back out to the couch and close my eyes.

I'm awoken by someone straddling me, "Morning." Opal says. "You have a habit of sneaking into my house." I smile, caressing her cheek. "She didn't. I let her in, now, Opal please get off my brother." Dahlia whines. I sit up and Opal sits next to me.

"Why are you here?" I ask her. "I was going to invite you to breakfast." She smiles cuddling into my chest. "Ew." Dahl complains. "Dahlia, busy yourself." I tell her as she walks away. "Sorry about her, she's kinda immature and I'd be happy to go, let me change." I say to Opal happy to spend time with her, fully clothed. "Okay." She smiles and gives me a quick kiss, letting me go.

I change into different jeans and a clean t-shirt. I don't know what we are going or what we're doing today so casual is the goal. There's a light knock on the door. "Come on in, Dahlia." I tell her going to fix my makeup.

"How'd you know it was me?" She asks. "Opal would've just walked in." I say as she comes into my view from the mirror. "Do I want to know what you two did?" She sighs. "Nope." I say and Dahlia gives me a disgusted look but changes the subject, "Let me help you." She smiles noticing that I am failing at adding the right amount color on each eye. "Thank you."

When she's done, I meet Opal in the living room. "Took you long enough." She makes fun of me jokingly. "Shh." I make a girly giggle noise making her laugh and hugging me.

"Are you going to leave?" Dahlia whines. "Yeah ans if you're going to invite Balz over stay out of MY bed!" I tease her as Opal pulls me out the door. "What?" She asks as Opal shuts the door.

"Dahlia and Balz?" She asks as we walk out to her car. "Oh yeah..." I nod chuckling. "How cute! Ship it." She says getting the driver's seat. "Anyway, and if you don't mind we're going to my sister's for breakfast." She keeps talking, noticing I wasn't going to respond. "Okay, yeah that's good." I agree as she continues to talk about her sister.

"She's my twin actually, she's slightly different, purple hair, green eyes, and she's slightly more colorful than me." She continues, fumbling over her words. She seems like she's jealous of her sister, and not confortable being the talkative one on top of it. "Opal." I whisper, watching her drive with a stressed look on her face.

I reach to place my hand on her thigh as she breathes out a breath she must've been holding. She's worried I'll fall for her sister. I have an urge to hold her and tell her how I love her but one, she's driving, that would be stupid. Two, where the hell did love come from? I've had maybe two conversations with her and slept with her once. But all the same, her smile makes me feel young again and her touch feels like heaven...

We must have gotten to her sister's because she snaps her fingers in front of my face, "Caught in thought?" She asks, smiling her wonderful smile. "Yeah, sorry." I chuckle. "Good thoughts?" She wonders, I nod.

"God damn, Opal. You take forever." The sister exclaims pulling us in. "Says the girl who is always a hour late, Devin, meet my twin, Penelope." Opal says grabbing my hand. Penelope looks like Opal except for her unaturally bright green cat eyes and bright, regal purple hair, cut in an A-line haircut. "You can call me Pen." She smiles, deviously.

Honestly she was scary. She looked like the female stripper version of the Joker from Batman. "Devin, or Ghost, whichever." I manage to whisper. "Oh, he's quiet." She smiles, guiding us to the little breakfast nook. Her house was very plain for such a odd person to live in.

Opal must've noticed my look as I glanced around the room, "It was our parents, she took their deaths a lot worse than me." She whispered as Pen got the food from the kitchen. I nod, understandingly.

"Hope you like lemon!" She smiles placing a plate of two yellow pancakes in front of us. "Yes, thank you." I say, I do like lemon but never had it in pancake form.

We're silent as we eat the surprisingly good lemon pancakes, until Pen interrupts the wonderful silence. "So, Devin, what do you do?" She asks. "Uh, I play bass guitar in a band." I tell her, swallowing the piece of cake in my mouth. "Oh? Very successful?" She asks, genuinely interested. "Yeah, I'd say so. We're called Motionless in White, heard of us?" I ask. "Only from Opal over here, she's a pretty big fan, has she told you?" She says purposely embarrassing Opal. "No, she hasn't but that's good." I smile and take Opal's hand as she blushes.

I learn Pen is overly extroverted, talks a little too much for my taste and is a bit of a drama queen. "Like seriously? He's such a dick!" She exclaims to Opal would is so not listening to her shit. "Do you want to get out of here?" I whisper in her ear. "Yes, but she gets mad when I just leave." She whispers back, kissing my cheek. "Then I'm getting some air." I smile kissing her hair and excusing myself to get out.

Out in the backyard, there's a small garden, a nice patio, and a poorly kept playset for kids. It was all very old and it was clear this was where Opal and Penelope were raised. There was imprints of two identical sets of tiny hands on the concrete of the patio.

'Penelope Lily D'Angelo, age 7' marked one set and the other was more lightly written, hard to read, 'Opal Rozalynn D'Angelo, age 7.' Even the way these were written it was clear which twin was quieter based off the roughness of the writing. Opal was much more patient and shy, as Pen was more abrasive and loud.

"You okay?" She asks, wrapping her arms around me. "Yeah, just learning your middle name, Miss Opal Rozalynn D'Angelo." I smile. "Oh God. Don't." She says, her eyes watering. "I'm sorry, what's wrong?" I ask, pulling her glance up to me. "My dad would always call me Opal Rozalynn, never just Opal. You just made you think of him." She sniffles, a tear running down her face. I pull her even closer and hold her tight, I like I reopened a deep scar on her heart, which kills me.

"Are you two going to come back in?" Pen asks as Opal gives me a 'I-swear-to-god-if-you-say-anything-about-this-I'll-shoot-you' look and wipes her eye, "Yeah." She says and pulls me back into the house.