Ghost in Me and You

How to apologize to somebody who not in this world anymore?

Tiffany blinks. One of her hand stops it movement in Jessica’s arm while the other slowly drops from Jessica’s face to her blanket covered stomach. Jessica drops her left hand to the bed and without looking at Tiffany she turns to her side and opens the shelf at her left nightstand. She brings out a frame of photo and simply puts it beside Tiffany with her back still at the dark haired girl.

“You saw this before, wasn’t you?” asks Jessica.

Yes, she was. The photo stills the same as she remembered. Two girls, one with chocolate brown hair while the other has dark hair, with their arms around each other. Tiffany traces the brunette face in that photo. Jessica seems so happy in there and the other girl….

“Krystal Jung.” Tiffany raises her head at Jessica’s voice. Her voice comes out sharp in the darkness of her room. “She likes it better if people call her with her Korean name though, Soojung, so that’s what I always called her. She’s my little sister.”

“Jung Soojung.” Tiffany repeats. She sees the back of Jessica’s head moves down at that, a nod. Jessica still has her back at her and it takes everything for Tiffany to not touches it. She wants to. Oh god, she wants to (why?) but Jessica looks so fragile it makes Tiffany scared she wills breaks when been touched.

“And she’s…” Tiffany’s voice trails off. She has a feeling what happen but she doesn’t know how to say it.

“She’s dead a few years ago because of a car accident.” And when Jessica finishes her sentence, she doesn’t know what to feel.

***

“Sooyeon, this is Soojung. Your little sister.”

Little Jessica Jung Sooyeon just gave the baby in her mother’s arms a curious look. “Sister?”

Her mother gave her a warm smile and kneeled down in front of her, let her saw the baby better. “Yes, Sooyeon. Sister. Another part of our family.”

Honestly, little Sooyeon didn’t understand the term ‘sister’ yet but she knew this little baby was important to her mother and maybe would become important to her too. Sooyeon slowly touched the baby’s hand and held it in her own hand. Soojung’s hand was smaller than hers but they fitted together so well. At that time Sooyeon too focused at her sister, it made her didn’t realize that her mother warm smile grew wider when she saw their first interaction with each other.

***

“She was a few years younger than me, that little sister of mine.” Jessica chuckles, “She was a shy person but once she get comfortable with you, she was a real devil. I remember when we much younger she often hide behind my back when we met new people but when she became close with them she had no trouble to threw insults at them.”

Jessica’s voice stops being shaky and vulnerable, it comes out detached instead like she’s telling somebody else's story and Tiffany doesn’t know which one is worse.

“We’re sisters but our preferences differ in a lot of things but just like I said we are sisters so of course we’re alike at some things, like our incapability of showing feelings. From a lot of things we can be alike to, we’re ended up alike at that one.” Jessica lets out a laugh.