Nothing But Bad

Eight

Arden
•••

Tomorrow, I leave to go back tomorrow.

   I get to go home tomorrow.

   It's sad that's what I consider it still.

   "You seem nervous." Sky observes. I noticed that about her. She never asks questions, always states what she sees. I don't know if it's because she doesn't have any questions. I don't believe that it's possible for someone not to. It's in everyone's blood to be curious, to want to know things.

   I can't understand her, even when I try so hard to. She's impossible to read. She never shows emotions on her face, never has questions, always has a calculated answer. A calculated look.

   "I'm not." I mutter, brushing my hair with a brush. Skyler is sitting on my bed. She doesn't hide the fact she stares. Her eyes practically burn holes in the back of my head. The past few days, we have spent more time together. I'd like to say I was warming up to her, but I have no way of knowing. "Are you ever curious? You never have any questions, you never daydream about things." I ask her. I wanted to know what went on inside her head. I wanted something to show me she was human. Something to take away the dislike I have for her killing our mother.

   I know it's not her fault, but her and my father are the only people to blame. I was supposed to have her back. I did this all for her, and they took her away before I could even see her again.

   Her next words cause me to drop my brush in shock. "I know you don't plan on following our father's plan." I know I should have played it off, laughed even. But what I knew about her, was that she only said things she was certain about. I knew there was no changing her mind about anything.

   "Does he?" I whisper. I look at my twin through the mirror, and she stared right back.

   "No." She says, she then lifts herself off the bed and starts to walk in the direction of the door. I stand up and catch her arm.

   "Are you going to tell him?"

   "No." She grabs the hand I have on her arm, and gently pulls it off.

   "Why not?" I can't meet her eyes, a wave of nausea hits me and I'm afraid I'll yack if I look into them.

   "Because I'm curious." The right tip of her lips curls into a smirk. There, there was a sign of emotion. I finally meet her eyes, ones that look exactly like mine. My stomach curls when I see them. I hate looking at myself, at the person I've become. And it was like looking in the mirror with her. I guess I wasn't good at hiding my distaste. "You look as if you hate me."

   "I don't hate you." I whisper, "I hate myself. I look in your eyes and see my reflection. I don't hate you. If anything, I love you." It was the truth.

   Her smirk falls, and her face is back to it's default form. "You don't even know me." Also true. I don't understand why, but I did love her. Maybe it was because even though our eyes were almost exactly the same, hers looked just a little more like our mothers. Maybe I loved her because she was my childhood. She was the innocence I used to have. I wanted nothing more to cling onto it as tight as I possibly could.

   "We could leave." I grab her forearms, the innocence, the thing I needed to keep me from spiraling into a path I know I'm already heading into.

   "I can't leave." She says, shifting out of my touch. "I don't..."

   "Like being touched." I finished for her. "Sorry I forgot."

   "I don't know what your plan is Arden, but I feel like I want you to succeed." I shouldn't believe her, I know. But I had a feeling she was speaking the truth.

   "Come with me." I beg again. "I can change my plan. We could run, hide even." Maybe I'd even change my plan and forgive them. See if they would actually take me back, if that meant the safety of my sister.

   "I don't want you to change a single part of your plan." She says, "I want you to do what you have to do. I spent my whole life watching you Arden. I spent my whole life wishing I could live yours. So don't change anything for me, live for the both of us."

   Guilt, that's what I felt. "I don't understand why my plan can't have you in it."

   She tilts her head, calculating her next words. "You're stupid to think he would let both of us go. You have a chance, you're expendable." Her words hurt. I know she means no harm in them, but that doesn't ease the pain. "He will never let me go." She turns swiftly, exiting the room before I have a chance to stop her.

   I spent the rest of the night, tossing and turning. I was always lonely. Even though I did have some friends, I even had a boyfriend, but I always felt like I was in a cage. If it was bad for me, I couldn't even imagine how bad it was for her.

   You're expendable. The wind seems to sing her words over and over. An unbearable melody. My father still thought it, and I knew that. There was no other reason why he would be fine with sending me back. There was no way he knew they wouldn't kill me on the spot.

It made me hate him more.

   Did my father need me alive to control me with the bloodstone? Could he somehow still control me, and manage to control the army though that as well?

   I didn't want to find out.
•••