“Alyssa, please, leave me alone. I’m sorry.” I plead. I’m massaging my temples, trying to force the pain out. I’ve never been able to get over the death of my twin sister. Because she’s been with me, for sixteen years. “Ava!” She whispers in her childish squeal. “Play with me, Ava!” I’m sitting on my bed, which is stripped to the mattress; Mom threw the sheets in the wash after I woke up with another nosebleed last night. “Ava, you’re going to die, you know.” “I know,” I whisper. “Sooner than you think.” “I know, okay! You’ve told me so many times before! Shut up, okay?!” I wish I knew how to talk to her without moving my lips. Always afraid that Mom will hear me; I’m waiting for the day that they throw me in the ward for schizophrenia. But I’m not a schizo, and I’m perfectly normal, and I know that. Except that, when Alyssa died, I wished for the power to speak to her again. I was five. Why did she end up with leukemia and I didn’t? Why couldn’t we have ended this together? Needless to say, my wish was granted. “Ava,” She giggles. I can feel the heat rising in my chest; I wait for the pain to shoot down my legs. Panic attack approaching. “Ava, dying’s not that bad, you know.” I’m staring at the bookshelf across the room when it starts to spin. “Mom!” I scream. Not remembering if she’s home or not; but I hear footsteps right away. “Mom, come here!” I say, fading already, choking on my own breath. “Hey, Ava, it’s okay. I’m here.” Alyssa gibes in my head. No one can hear her but me. “I love you,” Alyssa whispers. “I love you too,” I sigh. If I froze time when she and I were four or so, I’d see hairless Alyssa chowing down on Maw Maw’s hershey’s kisses. Maw Maw called them “silver bells”, but we weren’t interested in the name, we just wanted as many as Maw Maw’s pantry could hold. And Maw Maw would call us her “two little beauties.” I’d blush and grin. Alyssa would run a hand through her imaginary hair and smile as wide as the sea. “Ava, I’m all alone,” she says. “Alyssa, please,” I sob. My face falls into my hands. I’m shaking. Panting. Barely hearing the pounding of feet up the stairs, the creaking of my door, the smell of whatever Mom is frying entering my room suddenly with her. “I don’t feel good,” I gasp, my one plea I always return to when I can’t explain this, how I feel I’m going to collapse. Mom, I don’t even see her face; my eyes are closed and I’m looking at Alyssa. I’m still sitting on the bed but I’m hanging on desperately. Mom’s next to me and rubbing my back the way she always does when I panic. And Alyssa, she’s speaking to me. Her blonde curls, her rosy red cheeks that haunt me because the last time I saw them they were sheet-white in a coffin; she’s looking at me. Five-year-old Alyssa is saying something I’ve never heard her say before. “You’re going to kill yourself, Ava.”