Is this an apology?

Ava couldn’t speak.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jayne’s tone grew louder. “You wish I was dead! Well, I do, too! My only sister moves away and doesn’t even let me know. I get the message, Ava. I’m too messy to have in your life.”

“Are you threatening to kill yourself again, Jayne?” A red haze crowded her vision. “Because I’ve heard it too many times.”

“You—”

“This isn’t about what I’ve done. This is about you. I’m tired of hearing you’re going to kill yourself!” Ava sucked in a deep breath as all rational thoughts flew out of her head. “Do you know what that does to me?”

“You don’t know what—”

“Here’s what I know, Jayne. Your brain works differently than mine—differently than ninety-nine point nine percent of the human population. But it’s time you thought about someone else for once. Hearing you want to kill yourself, kills a part of me.” She slapped her hand over her heart. “And then you say it again. And again. Until I have giant dead holes in my heart. And you know what? They don’t heal very fast. Hell, some of them don’t heal at all.”

Jayne was silent.

Am I getting through to her?

“To you, you’re venting your frustration and trying to stir up some excitement in your life. But for me, you’re ripping out my insides!” She paused. “You’ve got to stop doing this to me.”

“This isn’t about you, Ava,” she whispered.

“Well, this time I’m making it about me.” Her heart pounded in her ears. “What you say and do affects me like no other person in the world. You’re my twin and I love you more than life . . . so I go out of my way not to hurt you. But you don’t think about anyone but yourself. You’re not going to kill yourself, Jayne. We both know that.”

“You hate me,” she hissed.

“I hate how you make me feel. Can you see the difference? I hate your actions and your words, but you’re threaded through my soul. Hating you would mean I hate myself.” Clarity shot through her. “Oh, my God. You really hate yourself, don’t you? That’s why it’s so easy for you to hurt me. It’s yourself you’re striking out at.”

“You are such a bitch,” Jayne cried. “You’ve got the perfect life, and you’re stomping all over me when I’m down.”

Calm flowed through her. I know I’m right. “You need help, Jayne. You need to stay on your medication and continue to see your therapist.”

“I hate you!”

The rage physically punched her in the gut. Her lungs seized.

“You’ll regret it when I’m gone,” Jayne shouted. “You’ll want to take back every awful word you said to me. You’re going to cry and scream and feel the pain that I’ve felt for decades. And I’ll be laughing at you from the other side!”

“You’re threatening to kill yourself again?” Exhaustion swept through Ava.

The call ended.

Ava pulled her phone away from her ear and stared at the screen, feeling another piece of her heart decay and die. What just happened? She started to call Jayne back. No. She’s clearly not rational at the moment. She took a deep breath and called the halfway house where Jayne lived. She got the manager’s voice mail and left a request for her to call back. She didn’t relate what Jayne had said to her, but asked if everything had been okay with her sister recently.

She shoved the phone in a pocket, moved back to the bench, and sat, feeling as if the world had been ripped out from under her feet. During the conversation she’d stood and walked a dozen steps away from the bench as if she could move closer to Jayne. There’s no reasoning with her when she’s like that. She took three deep breaths, forced out one long exhalation, and stared up at the blue sky.

What am I supposed to do?

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes, and she angrily brushed at them. How do I hate and love the same person simultaneously? Her heart ached for Mason to sit beside her. She needed his solid arms around her and his neck to bury her face in. She shivered, suddenly cold even though the air was over ninety degrees and the bench felt like a heating pad. Mason was better at these moments than she. He could calm her with a touch and help her rationally see what’d just happened.

How unfair that I bring that into his life.

She snorted, immediately seeing the error in her thinking. Mason had told her a dozen times he wasn’t affected by Jayne. He was affected only by watching what she put Ava through. I’m the one who needs to handle it better. Every time she thought she had her feelings and relationship with Jayne balanced and controlled, Jayne attacked from out of the blue.

Like today. Ava thought back through the conversation. That wasn’t a conversation: that was Jayne venting and me trying to keep up.

Will she try to kill herself?

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made the threat. Twice Ava had called local authorities when she believed Jayne was about to hurt herself. Both times had turned out to be false alarms. One time Jayne had gone through the motions with a knife, but never seriously cut herself. A second time she’d claimed she’d taken an overdose of medication, but stomach pumping and lab tests proved she’d lied. She knew how to push Ava’s buttons and get the attention she wanted. Sirens and flashing lights outside her apartment building made for a healthy dose of notoriety. Or unhealthy dose, depending on how one looked at it.