the girl named winter

| 56 |

f i f t y - s i x

d a y s

b e f o r e

IMPORTANT NOTE

bold - him
italics - Winter

C:

••••••••••••••••••••

I take today's classes alone since Veronica couldn't leave her twin's side at the hospital bed.

Spending the day with reveries and daydreams, I slam my locker shut loudly in attempt to wake myself up.

After going home to do my homework (while daydreaming continuously), I hail a cab to take me to the hospital.

I open Marie's door without knocking politely. There she lays on the bed with her brown umber hair fanning across the pillow. Her pouty lips are white and she looks more dead than a corpse.

Veronica's red head turns to look at me. Bags hang under her eyes as she sniffs, her nose reddening.

I cock an eyebrow, sitting beside her. "You look like hell."

She gives me a small smile. "Thank you," Veronica says hoarsely.

"Did she wake up earlier?"

"Yeah, to eat. And to vomit the food I fed her." She covers her face with her hands. "Damn, I don't know what I did wrong."

I hold her shoulder comfortingly. "It's not entirely your fault. You couldn't stop that mosquito from biting her anyway."

"I don't know. I hate this. I hate worrying about her." She looks up and stares at Marie. "Do we really look alike?" she whispers.

"If you didn't dye your hair a different color every now and then..."

She laughs softly.

I grin. "Like a carbon copy."

"But who do you think is prettier?"

"If you're doing this to cheer yourself up," I stop dramatically to pretend that I was differentiating them, "it's definitely you, my dear."

She shakes her head and once more turn to look at her shoes.

I clear my throat. "So there's this weird thing that happened yesterday."

She gazes at me as if to ask me to continue.

"I... uhm... I was getting coffee from the machine down the aisle and I put a coin in and pressed -"

"I know how coffee machines work, Winter," Veronica scoffs.

"Okay, okay," I say breathlessly. "So it suddenly made weird noises -"

"You broke it?"

"It went bat shit crazy, alright? I didn't do anything wrong, I swear!"

She grins at me. "Uh-huh."

"And then I went back to sit and... yeah I was thinking some deep shit back there, when there appeared a coffee beside me."

"The coffee machine walked?"

"No, it somehow resurrected and became a human that handed me a cup of black coffee."

Her eyes widen. "Did you saw the face?"

I take a deep breath. "No. I told you, I was in some deep shit."

"Then?"

"There was this note that said 'smile for me, stranger' with that god-awful smile."

Her lips turn into a straight line as she angrily say, "Don't say God."

"Sorry."

"And there's nothing wrong with a smiley." She shrugs. "It's cute."

"If you had more energy and you didn't have a corpse for a sister, I know you would be ecstatic about this."

"That's right." She gives me a weak smile. "Did you smile?"

"What?"

"It asked you to smile. Did you?"

"No," I deadpan.

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because?"

"Because I didn't feel like it." I roll my eyes and slump against the chair.

She holds my gaze. "You didn't drink the coffee."

"That's not a question."

"Sure it is." She smiles at me wickedly.

"It could've had poison, alright? This is a hospital!" I cry. "This is where people die and - "

Marie makes a sound.

Veronica panics. She quickly takes Marie's hand and gently intertwines it with hers.

I look away. I feel bad for talking about death beside this Stage 3 malaria patient.

Marie slowly opens her eyes, squinting at the light above her in the process. "What's that noise?" she asks hoarsely.

Veronica cries, throwing herself on top of Marie.

My eyes sting with tears.

"Veronica?"

She cries out, "Marie, you're awake!"

Marie's identical brown eyes twinkles as she gives her a small smile. "I just fell asleep. No need to be excited about that."

Veronica hugs Marie.

Marie closes her eyes as she weakly returns the embrace.

I stand up awkwardly. "I'm going to give you two some space." When I reach the door, I look back at Veronica who's still smiling at me.

"Smile for me," she taunts, snickering.

I stick my tongue out.

"Is that Winter?" Marie asks, looking at me harder.

"Hi, darling," I greet her. "Good evening."

When the door is closed behind me, my phone vibrates from my pocket.

You didn't smile

I raise an eyebrow at the anonymous text and quickly type back a response.

sorry but you texted the wrong number

I didn't

how can you be so sure?

I know you're the one who broke the coffee machine, emo girl