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“When I lost Jen, it felt like I had lost my whole entire world, you know?”

The words, the way absurdity after absurdity would just endlessly spew from out of his lips, how utterly wrong they all sounded, no basis whatsoever, no rationality… simply only more of the same… over and over… for her to deflect, to firmly refute… vying and trying to make sense of it all.

“Then, here, I look at ya, Amelia…”

But there were just so many things wrong, false, or just outright ridiculous…

“And I think… there are still plenty of other worlds out there in the sky, right?”

How was she ever to actually deny them all?

She couldn’t.

“It’s like that old Disney song, know that one?”

.....

Or more precisely, after being subjected to so much of it, to so much of him, as firmly as she tried to deny it, despise it, proclaim him a fool and never more mistaken about his own proclamations…

“With you, it’s like a whole new world …”

She wouldn’t.

“Or however the fuck that actually goes, I forgot.”

Amelia didn’t want to.

Her eyes felt heavy and begrudging trying to keep them from going astray, to be overwhelmed by the sudden happiness illuminating the dwindling gloom from his expression. Even with bruises, even in agony, he smiled so easily… loved so easily.

Before she believed the only reason he could claim to love her the way he did was because he just loved too easily – so shallow and frivolous. Yet she was wrong again.

Always wrong again.

She had it all backward, all wrong, because the senseless fool he was… the only reason he could even love so easily was because it was her. No lesser cause, and no grander explanation.

So complexly simple.

Between the two of them, they shared a gaze, the luster in his eyes reignited mirroring the blackness in hers, and suddenly without thinking, without really knowing why…

Amelia spoke.

“When my sister… when Adalia and I were first born, she was… extremely ill. She is still ill.”

Tyler reacted, a confusion burying solemnity, his smile quickly fading.

“Yeah, I can tell. Didn’t say anything though. Didn’t wanna be rude,” He shifted himself, clamping down immediately on his playful demeanor. “What, uh… what does she have?”

“Something incurable,” Amelia vaguely said. “Something she would not have been afflicted with had we not been born twins, or…” She paused, hesitance momentarily freezing her lips. “...have I not been born at all.”

Tyler didn’t speak, surprisingly, hauntingly mute. But in his eyes, the way he looked at her, perhaps just this once, she wouldn’t have minded hearing his voice.

“For as long as I can remember, I have always been taking care of my elder sister. It’s all I’ve known, all I’ve cared for. I did not have the time nor the desire to indulge in anything else. Every day, always by my sister’s side, and if I am not, then she is always in my thoughts. As such, I do not know what it is truly like to be among others. I do not think things the way you do, I do not feel things as you do. Because as far as my priorities lie, nothing else besides my sister matters to me.”

“Ain’t a very active lifestyle you guys had, I’m guessing,” Tyler remarked, his voice sounding light yet uncharacteristically stiff. “Nothing, nothing though? Like, you never went out, no having fun with the girls, or stuff like that? Hobbies, no? Still gotta live a little, right?”

“Live? I?” Amelia said. “And what of my sister? Barely even able the privilege of living but another single day? If she does not get to live, if she is not allowed the meagerness of a normal life… then tell me, why should I?”

“Hey, you shouldn’t… Amelia, it ain’t your fault that…”

“But it is. Oh, it is,” she interjected. “As twins, as the youngest, if not for me – she would have no need to always assure me as you are now, to tell me I am blameless before the apathetic cruelty of nature, that to vehemently despise myself for something I had no hand in is nothing but foolish...”

“End of fuckin’ story,” He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I’m with her, you ain’t gotta think any more than that.”

“Then I ask, would you be able to help yourself if you were in my position? To wake up, to draw breath… knowing the only person you ever loved constantly fights for hers every precious second… just because you so happen to be born. Granted, not of your choosing, not of your fault, but then sitting with her day after day, just helplessly watching, fearing that every breath would be her last… would you… can you really still choose to just simply absolve yourself of all blame in the matter? Could you?”

Amelia gave Tyler all the time he needed to ponder, to answer. But it seemed even with all his senseless, incredulous notions of life… she had finally found something that was completely foolproof.

“I stole my sister’s breath,” Amelia quietly said. “I stole my sister’s life.”

Why was she saying all this? More mystifying yet, why was she telling it all to him? What spurred this? This absurdity, this nonsensical ramble… the strange feeling inside her only swelling more and more.

Really, what was the reason?

Strangely enough, however, the more she spoke, the more things felt right to her… and presently, after already expressing so much… she felt nearly at the cusp of finally understanding.

Amelia continued.

“Before tonight, that is all I used to think. For every single day of my existence, that is all that ever mattered to me.”

Without sense, without logic – the words that left her lips.

“Then I come to you, I talk to you, I listen to you, and sometimes, for some strange reason… very rarely, very briefly…”

Only feeling.

“...I do not think that with you.”

A firework exploded, but she didn’t flinch. A blinding flash of blue filled the air, but she didn’t bat a single eye. It was as if it all seemed to come to a stop. All the pain, all her annoyance, dispersing with the light as it faded from the room.

And it was upon seeing the surprise painted starkly blue on his puffy face, seeing every bulging muscle, the twitch of his cheeks easing slowly a softness, a gentleness that finally, after so long, she finally understood the reason for it all.

That strange feeling within her finally had an answer.

Why she had come here in spite of all primal aversions, why she had persisted in paying no heed to every urge insisting to leave… that despite frustrations, despite annoyances… despite him… she still remained to stay.

Like him, the reason was just as complexly simple. It was just that once again, she had it all backward.

She was not here in spite of him.

She was here because it was him.

And just as with everything else regarding him, it did not make a single sliver of sense to her.

But, for now, she’ll continue to indulge it.

Strange and intrusive the swelling feeling was inside her, admittedly, quietly… it was not a feeling entirely unpleasant.

“Tyler…”

His eyes widened, hearing the utterance of his own name from her lips, and Amelia had to resist the great impulse to roll her eyes… fighting the even stronger urge tugging the corner of her lips.

“For now, I am unable to reciprocate your feelings… for I don’t even know myself the feelings I harbor for you.”

“O-Oh…” He responded daftly, blinking lost and confused. “Does that mean, uh… okay, what does that mean?”

“It means that I simply wish to learn more of this feeling, and I suspect that lingering longer with your influence would bring me to a closer understanding.”

“Ah,” Tyler nodded again, his nods as empty as the head shaping it. “Alright, that’s… that’s sure… I can roll with that, great.

A silence, a smile, and Tyler blinked hard.

“So when you say influence, do you mean like…?”

Amelia groaned.

“Whenever, if ever, I find myself of time in abundance…” She said, heaving, and for some reason, finding it strenuous to look him again in the eyes. “I wish to spend at least some of it with you.”

If his eyes were wide open before, they could not compare to how there were now.

Bulging seemed to be the better term.

“You’re… not joking?” He asked with all air sucked out of his words. “You want to…? Like really want to…? With me, I…?”

“I do not jest, Tyler,” She said. “If you would have me, as I am, flaws, caveats and everything else… then so be it…”

Then, it happened, she lost – her lips briefly pulled into a smile.

A smirk.

“I am yours to endure.”

At once, Amelia expected him to begin cheering, to holler and screech, his cries carried across the entire building.

But instead he was quiet, he was reserved… all the joy, all the rapture he felt from hearing her… manifesting into a single look upon his face with the way he stared at her…

The way he smiled at her.

“Christmas…” He broke into a chuckle. “I don’t think any other will top this, would top you. Amelia, I…”

“Do not say another word,” Amelia interjected. “I am not finished.”

“What? Got more to say?”

“More to do,” She clarified, huffing, hastily regaining back her composure. “Tyler, I… it regrets me to say… but I am indebted to you.”

“Indebted?” Tyler sprung up again on his bedside, wiggling and shifting himself until he was leaning over the edge toward her. “Like a favor? You owe me a favor?”

“Precisely. Your injuries, a simple apology would not be sufficient. Not to me. Reparations must be met.”

“Nah, no – Amelia, you don’t owe me shit.”

.....

“This is not an argument,” Amelia snapped back. “I merely mean to say that if there is anything within my ability I am able to do for you… I ask that you do not hesitate to ask.”

“Nope,” Tyler continued to refute, flailing his arms in sync to the shake of his head. “Got nothing. Ain’t asking.”

“Then ask not for yourself, but for me, if you wish,” She said impatiently. “My conscience will not simply allow this transgression to readily pass. Give it a moment, why don’t you? Think about it.”

With heavy reluctance, Tyler sealed her lips to let her suggestion stew. And brazenly, Amelia could see him actively try… prominent creases forming on his forehead, his brows sinking as low as his heavy frown.

Then suddenly they all lifted, and with an imploding realization, he gazed frozen at her.

Amelia cocked her head.

“Actually…” He began slowly. “Some actor friends of mine called in for like a favor a few days back…”