DOE

P A I N F U L R E A L I Z A T I O N S

I walk you back to our house. I say goodbye to you, and then I trudge back to Jasmine's house. When I get into her bedroom, I feel lonely. It's weird being in a empty house, all alone. When I crawl into Jasmine's bed with the lights off, I'm completely weirded out.

I feel like the unicorn is glaring at me. The mannequin head I deattached from the duffel is still on the bedroom floor. It looks like it's staring right at me.

I try to distract myself. I think of the waiter at Smooth Smoothies. He had sounded just like The Cab Driver. I had never noticed his face properly when I saw him but now I can remember it, and it looms eerily similar to The Cab Driver's.

I need to get out of Jasmine's body. But how? If Jasmine wakes up, it's very likely I won't know where she'll be next. It would be much more convenient for me if Jasmine would be unconscious, throughout the period of my trying to get you back to normal. So what do I do?

I climb out of bed. I rummage in Jasmine's drawers, till I find a bunch of tranquilizer darts.

Tranquilizer darts.

I have absolutely no idea what tranquilizer darts are doing in Jasmine's drawers. Then I notice.

There's a painting on the wall that I haven't yet noticed. It's of a girl screaming. There are some darts stuck to her chin, some on her forehead. It's only half finished.

Arty girls.

Anyway, they've got to do the trick.

I slide out of Jasmine's body. Jasmine gasps. Before she can say anything, I grab the gun, load and shoot. She falls back on the bed, the dart lodged in her neck. I set the gun down. When I read the back of the gun, it says that she would be knocked out for...atleast 13 hours per dart. That's perfect.

Home is where my heart is.

When I reach home, I crawl up immediately in my favourite spot. Carter walks into the room briefly. He grabs a bowl of whipped cream, heading back into the kitchen. Mom's probably baking a cake with them. Yum, whatever. I wish I could join them.

I lie back and look at the mural on the ceiling. It's painted to look like a night sky, by Dad. It's dark blue, with little golden dots everywhere.

They blur and move around as my eyes fill with tears. I rub them away, horrified. Realization floods through my body and it seizes my lungs, taking away every little breath and shred of hope.

I had so much more life to live. Graduate. Get a job. Marry. Have kids. Live. And then die. Die, after all that. Death when I'm 50, 60 or 90. Not death when I'm 16.

I won't ever be able to hug my mother, again. I won't ever be able to live. As of right now, I don't even have a family.

It rocks me to the core and leaves me gasping.

I never even had a boyfriend. I won't even be able to ever experience first love.

We're twins, and you've got the better life.

You've got so much more to live for. It angers me that you're dwindling away your perfect life -the life which I wanted- by moping in the corner for your ugly, no-good troll of a twin.

I want to slap you.

Okay. I don't. I love you. All it takes is a little bit of TLC...you'll get the life you're supposed to enjoy.

I'm going to make you better. I haven't got much else to do, anyways.