Mania

Camilla

We were told that she only had weeks left two months ago. 17 years just wasn't enough. That means that I should have been prepared. But somehow I don't think that I could ever be prepared for something like this. I know that I should be grateful for the extra time that I was given with her, but I'm selfish and i'm angry that she was the one taken, chosen, and diagnosed instead of me. Or at least with me. Twins are supposed to do everything together, right?

I shared everything with her. I went to all of her treatments, cut my hair with her, and sat with her all of those long nights when she would restlessly toss and turn. The only thing that I could never share with her, and ever wanted to share with her, was the pain. The pain of her bones turning brittle and the pain of simply eating.

That's why when I hear the monitor flat line, everything goes black. I can just stand there in horror, and denial in a nightmare state. Stand there as the emaciated form of my sister Teresa is worked over in a desperate attempt to bring life back to her. But I knew that she was gone. I blame all of these emotions for what I saw. For what I couldn't have seen. Because there is no way in heaven or hell that I could have seen my sister's soul leave her body...because that just isn't possible.

I try telling my shrink this, over and over. But she thinks that what I saw, and the boy that I met after were just things my mind came up with to deal with my grief. And maybe they are but...They seemed real, and still do. No matter how crazy it is. What felt like the dream was walking outside to a solitary bench and just sitting. I don't know how long I sat there, just staring straight forward, waiting for it to set in. Waiting for the tear that I thought I would feel when Tess finally left...but all I felt was empty. It wasn't until two weeks later that he appeared. I had just been staring at my face ,her face, in the mirror. Wondering how someone with the same face, and the same body, could somehow not have the same soul, when he was suddenly there. He was sitting on my bed, dressed as any normal boy in a black hoodie, jeans and converse. He had slicked back black hair that was about shoulder length..and red eyes. Contacts? I still don't know. He seemed real, he seemed there. I remember standing up abruptly before falling down when a sharp, aching pain shot up my legs. Tears stung in my eyes as i looked up into his red eyes...He touched my head and everything stopped hurting, then I fell asleep. I woke up feeling better than I have in months. My body felt stronger, and I felt like the pain of my sister's death had shrunk; if only by a little bit.

Of course my therapist thinks that I used this boy as a "metaphor for the pain of my sister's death" but that can't be it. Those eyes were just too...vivid. Not to mention that I think I keep seeing him everywhere. He's always just on the edge of my vision, but if I turn to look he's gone. There's also the pain in my legs. It had been happening more and more frequently, all over my body. It had been going on for about three weeks, but I refused to say anything and accept it as penance for watching my sister's pain for all those years.

I knew then that I had the same cancer that took my sister. I knew the symptoms like the back of my hand. The pain, the weakness, the sleepless nights. I just want to make up for all that time that I could do nothing. I knew that I had cancer then, the same way that i know that I don't have it now. And this is why I knew that that boy had to exist. He had to exist because he's the one that "saved" me.