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(Author Note: I recently found a bunch of old writing on a hard drive, and figured I would share some of it, since not destroying everything I write has been going decently well since I started this blog. This opening of a story is from a document that I haven’t touched since 2007. Based on the date, I was still in second year of university and planning a trip to live in Europe for two years starting the following Summer. This is a strict copy/paste – I haven’t done any editing.)

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That’s how I felt, just peering at him. Had he really just said what my ears told me he had said? My eyes had watched the sway of his lips and could back up the ears’ story in case they needed a second opinion or a witness.

But my brain was having trouble believing it.

I closed my eyes and covered my ears, trying to keep the information inside my head so that my brain would have no choice but to process it. My hands were then pulled off my ears and wrapped around his neck, and although my containment plan hadn’t worked, this action spoke louder than the words I was trying to process could have.

Mitchel had died.

It’s one of those feelings that only belongs in nightmares. You know, you can wake up and know it was just a bad dream and the feeling is completely dissolved, and it just leaves a slight distaste in your mouth until you fall back asleep.

Why wasn’t this horrid feeling dissolving, like it was supposed to? Why was it knotting up tighter and tighter in my chest? Would this metallic taste ever leave my tongue?

“Sarah, I’m so sorry,” his words tried to caress my ears to take away the pain of the former attack. My ears couldn’t take any more prodding, be it well meaning or not. I took my arms back from him, dodging his eyes carefully. Mine were clouded with tears but felt better not looking directly at his. He tried to hold onto me but I resisted, trying to squeak out words of explanation with no such luck. I couldn’t look at him any longer without the fear of never coming out of the emotional hole into which I was digging.

When I thought I’d never be free, he let go of me slowly, placing me on my bed. Later I would be grateful for this action, as I doubt that I could have stood alone. I curled up with my back to him and let a pool of tears form on my pillow. I could feel the weight of is body on the end of my bed, ever close in comfort but far enough away to give me the space I desired.

Mark was Mitchel’s twin brother, after all. Even though I knew their slight differences, their faces were enough the same that I felt that a ghost was depressing my mattress.

It took me many minutes of grasping for air to come up with the one word I needed to know. “How?”
The mattress shifted behind me, but no response came. I rolled to face him, feeling that I would explode if he had become the more silent of the two of us. He usually was, but I needed him to talk to me more than ever.

Mark’s eyes seemed to be boring holes in the pictures on my walls. One, not knowing any better, could have believed him to be a statue. But I knew better and needed to know more.
I started to reach for his hand when his lips parted. “He fell.”

And with that, Mark walked out of the room, closing the door behind him and left me to figure out the rest.