The Bond

    Question: what keeps us from revealing our deepest selves to the people we love the most?

     "Hey, are you alright?"

     Drew got no answer as he stood in the doorway to his sister's shadowy room. To her, he was nothing more than a silhouette, the only barrier against the intrusive nuisance, light. Realizing that he wasn't about to leave anytime soon, Andrea removed her earbuds and put her pencil down. The annoyance in her eyes was plain as she finally looked his way.

     "Yeah, I'm fine. Now will you close the door? You're either in or out, not halfway," she ordered. "Just get out, Andrew," she thought, turning back to her sketchpad. "You really don't want to know."

     Though she'd restarted the nocturne on her iPod, Andrea could still sense the world around her, or at least the world of her bedroom. She heard the door close. She saw the light disappear. And she felt the mattress dip at the edge of her bed. For all her attempts to ignore her vision, she could not ignore her brother's presence.

     "You're lying."

     Andrea kept drawing as though she was oblivious to his words. She couldn't show him. There was no way. The only means of avoidance now was her drawing, the last ditch barrier between the two of them. A shallow sky, a cold moon surrounded by slight yet suffocating closed, and a beached vessel ablaze with dark flames.

     "He has no idea," she lamented to herself, "And it has to stay that way."

     This time, she was so wrapped up in her own mind that she didn't notice Drew get up, nor did she see the anger in his face. She gasped as he tore the sketchpad from her grasp.

     "Stop lying to me!"

     "Andrew! Give it back, dammit! That's mine!"

     Just as he was always able to do when they were children, Drew held Andrea off long enough to make his point, long enough for her to capitulate. Now however, rather than stomping off to tattle to Mom or Dad as she once did, she simply shrank back, balling herself up against whatever her brother might say. The worst part was his honesty. Well, there was that, plus his obnoxious tendency to be right almost all the time. That was the thing about being a twin; they knew each other too well. And no matter how hard she'd tried lately, she couldn't escape. Drew was always inside her head, hacking his way through as easily as he pleased.

     "What are you hiding from me, Andy?"

     Andrea's heart stopped; he hadn't called her that in years. His tone had become gentle, and the pain in his plea became hers. She watched in stunned silence as he carefully placed the drawing on the dresser before sitting next to her. As Drew put his arm around his sister and pulled her close for a hug, she thought of a time long vanished.

     "Do you remember," she said quietly, "How we used to mess with Miss Heath in Pre-K?"

     Drew smirked.

     "Heh, yeah. It's kind of scary, how we were so delinquent at only four, you know?"

     "Yeah," Andrea sniffed. "She never did figure out the solution to the Andy-Andrew game."

     "Here."

     She took the tissue from her brother, wiped her nose, and gave it back to him, replete with boogers. Tears began to rush down her cheeks.

     "You've always taken care of me, like I was the baby."

     "You're my little sister. Of course I did, and I always will, even if it means holding your snotty tissues."

     Andrea gave Drew a good squeeze, a sort of thank you for his attempt at humor.

    "I'm not that much younger than you," she protested, her smile feeble and waning. "But just... We're older now. We've grown up. We can't play Andy-Andrew anymore."

     That was a blow. She felt bad for forcing the reality on Drew, even though it was clear he'd known it for a long time, just as she had. He'd been the one to grow up faster, both physically and emotionally, but he'd always let one foot drag so that he'd never be too far ahead of her. What he never realized, surprisingly enough, was that Andrea had always known what he'd been doing and why. Now, they'd reached a point where he could no longer hold himself back for her sake. She'd known this was inevitable, but the timing couldn't have been worse. There was a nightmare of which Drew was entirely unaware.

     "You're sitting almost completely in the dark, except for some candles, your drawings are explosively sad, and," he looked at her playlist, "This music has to be some of the most depressing... Andy, you've been like this for two months. They're trying to hide it, but I can tell; Mom and Dad are freaking out-"

     "I know. Mr. Gardner said the same thing at school last week. I guess they called him. And apparently Miss Thomas told him that I hadn't smiled, literally, for however long in Bio, so because of that, he was concerned, wanted to help me, blah, blah, blah. Why she had to say something... Bitch..." 

     Andrea winced at her own words. She genuinely liked all of her teachers, Miss Thomas included, but they had no idea what they were poking their noses into, and she'd be damned before she let any of them find out.

     "You're scaring me too..." Drew whispered.

     At this, Andrea lost all ability to hold it together. She hadn't meant to frighten anyone, especially her brother, the person she cherished above all others. Her body shook terribly as she sobbed in his arms, more from the violence of her torment than from the intense weeping itself. More than anything, she wanted to tell Drew and at last unburden herself. After all, he was the one person in the world she knew she could trust with this. She knew that telling somebody, in this case him, was necessary if she ever was ever to rid herself of the beast on her back. But somehow, she couldn't release the words. All she could say was, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry."