by Tatiana Vila
“Exactly. With you it’s always guessing—which is hard since you never seem to feel any human emotion.” He bowed in mock chivalry. “Ice Queen.”
Stabbed in an open, burning wound. That’s what his words had felt like. I felt my cool façade crumbling and didn’t bother to hide it, didn’t have the strength to do so. Even if I was standing in front of the person I hated the most, it didn’t matter.
The most overwhelming sensation of emptiness and loneliness spread through me, and for the first time, the whole weight of those two words fell over my shoulders. Ice Queen. Ice Queen. I was worthy of that title. I’d earned it with my bitter actions, and with the recent selfish act with my sister, I’d secured the crown.
My face must have showed something because Ian was suddenly standing in front of me, a few inches barely separating us. Hesitantly, he slipped the crook of his finger under my chin and, slowly, very slowly, lifted my head up until my eyes met his. I couldn’t help but stare. The emerald in his eyes was stunningly intense, as a forest after months of rain, and his scent…his scent wasn’t far away. A cloud of woodsy notes and lemon surrounded him.
An unknown feeling played in the depths of his eyes as he watched me, and I wanted to slap his hand away from my skin. I wanted to push him away from me as far as the moon, as far as some toxic, gaseous nebula where only the Hubble could take pictures of his poisoned, decaying form. But something…a small, tiny part of me, buried deep inside of my chest under layers and layers of thick bitter feelings, pulled me back, engulfing my head and chest in a crisscross of conflicting emotions. That something wanted to let his hand linger, to let the distance between our bodies shrink, to let the emeralds of his eyes search my face, as they were doing in that moment.
Eyes rimmed with red, splotchy cheekbones, and slightly swollen nose, I knew I couldn’t look more vulnerable. The shade of sadness was written all over my face. And this close, the sharp warmth of guilt welling up out of his skin was dizzying. From the distance, I knew he hadn’t noticed the sorrow-stricken remnants of me. He’d been too caught up in his own bubble of rage to see it. Now that he’d stepped out and was close to me, regret was practically searing his skin.
His hand tightened. “Dafne, I…” He didn’t finish.
I looked away, the warrior in me not letting the softness in his eyes fool me.
He released my chin and sighed. “I'm sorry. The thing I said…it was uncalled for.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw worry creasing his forehead. His hand clenched and unclenched as if not sure about closing the distance between us again. He wanted to, I could see that. But like everyone, he feared my reaction. Not knowing how to take in that information, I moved away from him and sat down on the corner of the bed, my shoulders slumping.
Tired. I was so tired.
I closed my eyes and thought of Buffy crying alone in her bedroom and wondered why Ian was standing in my room instead of comforting her. He was her boyfriend, her riding knight with loving words as a life-saving weapon. I was the Ice Queen. A waste of his time. He’d as much as said it. Knights weren’t supposed to save Ice Queens, only charming princesses.
Ian kneeled next to me. “I’m sorry,” he repeated softly, his voice suffused with remorse. “I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You love her,” I said, surprising myself. I was offering an explanation for his reaction, and somewhat defending his reaction, which meant I was defending him, something I wouldn’t have thought of doing in a million years. He remained silent. I turned to look at him. “You acted upon your feelings and stood up for her. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Not when you hurt other people’s feelings.”
I glanced away, escaping his emerald eyes. “I don’t feel any human emotion, remember?”
“That’s not true,” he said quickly.
“It is.”
“It’s not.” He glided to kneel before me, his deep eyes level with mine and his chest pressed against my knees. A shiver raced up my spine. “You’re not an Ice Queen, Dafne. You love your grandmother and your sister more than anyone else I know—even if you don’t let people see that.”
I didn’t have the strength to deny his words. “I do love them. And I care for them more than I do breathing. But don’t fool yourself, Ian. Just because my heart opens to my blood relatives doesn’t mean I care about what happens to others. Beyond my family, everything is a meaningless mess to me, not even a blip in my radar. Do believe that, because it’s true. If I have to step on somebody for my family’s benefit, I will, without second thoughts or regrets, no matter what the consequences. I don’t care about anything else that’s my own.”
He studied me for a little while and surprised me by saying, “I don’t believe that.” Then, he raised his hand to my face and touched my cheek. I froze. His thumb brushed the skin beneath my eye, which I knew was red and puffy from the tears I’d shed, and stopped on my temple. “Yesterday, during the movie…I saw you. You care for others. Deeply so. And I realized…that’s why you hide. You care too much, and by hiding you’re protecting yourself from getting hurt.”
Naked. His words left me completely exposed and unarmed. He’d discovered the truth that I’d always guarded as my most precious armor, the armor that I needed to survive, and the fact that it’d been Ian, one of the people I disliked the most, put me in a constricting situation. I felt as if I’d been stripped from my wings of mighty eagle and had replaced them with the brittle ones of a butterfly.
As if a switch was flipped, anger sparked inside my stomach and spread a tidal wave of rage and resentment throughout my entire body. I pushed away his hand from my face and glared at him. “What game do you think you’re playing?”
“What are you talking about?”
I jerked to my feet and strode past him. “You, caring about me… I'm not stupid. There must be something you want out from this.” I turned to look at him. He was already standing, a scowl framing his eyes and hurt gleaming in them.
“Why does it have to be an ulterior motive? A friend can worry about a friend.”
“We’re not friends.”
“But we’re in truce, and in my world, that entitles caring for the other person if you want to.”
“Well, then, your world is in a parallel dimension if you think we’re in truce.”
His lips pressed into a hard line. “I already told you I'm sorry for what I said. What else do you want me to say?”
“Nothing, since your words are clearly lies.” I was being petty. I knew that. But I couldn't let him stand close to me, too many dangerous emotions rose whenever he was near. I needed a wall. I needed to push him away.
He raked his hand through his hair, nearly tearing some strands out in frustration, and took a deep breath. “Dafne—”
Then, something happened. “Buffy,” I cut him off. A hard wave of anxiety suddenly pressed my chest. “Something happened to her.” I could feel it. It was as if the thread that linked us deep down inside had been severed. She wasn’t on the other side anymore. I couldn’t feel her. Somehow, my twin was gone.
I stormed out of the room and ran down the hall. Buffy’s door was locked. I shook the handle stronger, rattling the door with all my weight. “Buffy!” I called, dread soaking my voice.
No answer.
I was about to try and kick open the goddamn door when Ian appeared next to me, pushed me aside and shoved his foot on it several times, until the sound of splintering wood reached my ears. The door cracked open and we were inside.
“Buffy?” She was lying on her bed with her head tossed to the side, a book splayed open across her chest. “Buffy?” I said louder this time, shaking her arm to wake her up. Because that’s what it looked like, like she was sleeping. Her breath was coming out in soft puffs and her face looked pleasantly peaceful, as if she was having a nice dream. But how couldn’t she have heard all the noise we’d made? There was something very wrong about this. Very wrong.
> “Buffy?” I repeated several times, shaking her harder with each calling. Nothing. Ian joined me, voicing her name with me, hope fading in his voice to despair and fear.
“Call 911,” I told him after a few distressing tries.
Ian dashed out of the room without second thoughts.
With my insides squeezed into a tight knot, I pulled out my cell phone from my pocket and thanked God I had Gran on speed dial. She picked up at the second ring.
“Dafne, honey, I still have one more round of poker to—”
“I'm not calling for that.”
At the hardness and hurry in my tone, she worried. “What’s the matter?”
“Gran, it’s Buffy.”
In a mumbled rush, I explained to her everything, the fight we’d had, the weird feeling that had wrapped my chest, the door being kicked open, Buffy not waking up…
“Calm down, honey. I’m on my way,” she told me, and before hanging up, she added, “Stay with her.”
I did. I pulled her to me and laid her head on my lap, caressing her fine hair while I asked her to come back. Ian strode in the room somewhere in between, and I thought I heard him say something like “they’re on their way,” but I couldn’t be sure. I could only stare at Buffy and hope she would open her brown eyes and chastise me for being mean to her.
The hoping took a long time, though, and before I could realize, paramedics were surrounding us, talking and moving and checking the sleeping rag doll that was my sister. I remembered one of them asking me something and Ian answering him back when I didn’t. I remembered somebody saying I was in shock and then trying to pull me away from Buffy when I held on tighter to her. But what I remembered the most, what took me out from the haze, were the words “She’s in a coma.”
I heard someone scream and felt Ian’s arms wrap from behind me to tug me up. The screams continued, long and painful, filling the room with ache and sorrow, until Ian whispered soothing words to my ear. That’s when I recognized the voice behind the screams.
It was my voice.
CHAPTER 8
The beeping sound of the heart monitor was the only thing that soothed the anxious storm crashing within me. Not even the shot of sedative they’d given me before coming to the hospital had worked. I could barely blink. I could barely move, afraid any motion would change the steady rhythm of the beeps jogging across the room—if you could call it a room. A square piece that boxed you in with sharp scents of bleach and alcohol and lifeless colors wasn’t cozy in any way—four identical walls, four equidistant corners, all layered with the same pale shade. White-gray flooring, ivory sheets, eggshell curtains—everything screamed insipid and…dead.
I let out a breath. God, I hated hospitals. The coldness permeating the halls, the anguish imprinted in the waiting areas, the sadness wrapping the chairs—I hated the whole thing. I didn’t want Buffy to be here. But unlike my surroundings, her body hummed, softly, with life. The warmth of her skin seeping through the thin sheets and the singing of her heart were the only connections I felt to the world in that moment. Everything else in me was numb and hollow. A zombie would have looked more human than me.
I heard footsteps. A faint breeze touched one side of my face and a moment later, the light weight of a hand fell on my shoulder. “You should rest, Dafne,” Gran said. “Let me take over.”
“I'm fine,” I lied. I was rounding thirty-six hours of sleeplessness with a dead empty stomach. I was far from being fine. But the idea of leaving Buffy’s side wiped out my body’s needs. All I cared for was her health. Mine be damned.
I changed the subject before Gran continued with her quarrel. “Could you please ask someone to give Buffy a room with a window? I don’t want her first sight to be a pale box when she wakes up. At least a window will give her something bright and colorful to look at.”
Even without looking, I knew Gran was smiling. “They’ll transfer her upstairs tomorrow—a nice room with a big window.”
I turned to look at her. “Really?”
She placed two fingers forming a V shape, like a peace and love sign over her heart. It was her own wacky, hippie way of pledging something. “I promise,” she said.
I wanted to smile but the skin around my mouth was too stiff. Gran noticed and the smile disappeared from her face. “Dafne, please,” she insisted. “Get some rest. I don’t want to have both of my granddaughters in the hospital. One is more than enough.”
I leaned back in the stiff chair and ran a desperate hand through my hair. “I can't leave her, Gran,” I sighed. “I can’t. I’ve done too much of that already. She needs me.”
“Yes. But she needs you to stay healthy, too, not half alive.”
I understood her reasoning. I understood her words, the worry behind them. I knew the sleeping bulk my sister had turned into wasn’t even aware I was here, waiting for the slightest movement of her fingers, of her eyes. The real Buffy was far away, somewhere between this world and her mind’s eye, floating into visions that couldn’t be shared. I wondered if in this world, she could see the other people that had fallen into unbroken sleep, like her, leaving loved ones with the sour embrace of hope while waiting for the dreamy journey to end.
I wondered if she could see Mom and Dad.
A tear escaped my eyes. “She's not dead, Dafne,” Gran said with a soft voice. “She hasn’t left us.”
Yet, I thought with images of her taking Mom’s and Dad’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, my chest tight with heavy emotion. “So you can go and sit on that couch if you’re planning to stay.”
I heard a quiet sigh and a few seconds later the squeak of leather. I made a mental note to write the hospital about the vile use of dead animal skin. Why people insisted on using leather furniture, I had no clue. Especially a hospital. Wasn’t death saturating this place enough?
I wondered how doctors and nurses could cope with all these layers of murky emotions coating the air, how they could work amid all the draining imprints of passing humans. Some people say that ghosts don’t exist, that the noises we hear in the hours of darkness are only lingering echoes, strong impressions of those who have crossed to the other side. True or not, I could feel those impressions crowding every single space, pressing down my chest with an unknown weight. I wanted to leave. I wanted to feel the lightness of fresh air. I wanted the warmth of the sun against my skin.
I wanted Buffy.
My mind reeled.
The door opened behind me, snapping me out of the chaos of my thoughts. Before I could turn, the sweet scent of roses and cinnamon hit my nose, revealing the identity of the woman standing still a few feet away from me. If my chest had felt heavy, it weighed tons now, as if a huge ten-wheeled truck full of gravel had just settled on it. The pressure was suffocating me, almost unbearable.
“Morgan,” Gran said with bright surprise, happiness brimming in her eyes. “Thank you for coming.”
In one of Mom's many travels to Africa, a villager told her that eating a wild yam named Cassava increased ovulation and, therefore, the possibilities of having twins. Apparently in a region where this root was a staple of the local diet, women had the highest rate of twins found anywhere in the world. Since she wanted to have twins really badly, she started eating Cassava root, and taking folic acid daily to increase her chances—some foolish idea one of her friends had given her. Not that eating some African root wasn’t crazy, but folic acid sounded more dangerous, like something that could burn your insides. I didn’t trust pills, or anything that was written in a prescription, or anything that was sold in a pharmacy. I didn’t trust the FDA. Period. I was all for holistic, home and herbal remedies, anything that nature provided. Naturopathic medicine was the real deal. The FDA wasn't.
Dad loved Mom, was crazy about her. He agreed on everything she proposed or said. If he rejected her methods for conceiving twins, he never said anything. The only thing that mattered was Mom being happy, so when a radiant smile stretched upon her face the day two heart
beats touched her doctor's stethoscope, Dad had felt complete, a king among men.
I’d asked her once why she’d focused her mind and body on having twins, and her answer had been obvious, one I should have expected, “I wanted to make sure my kids would have the wonderful experience of sharing life with another half of themselves, like I did,” she’d said with that radiant smile Dad had loved.
Yes. Aunt Morgan was her twin. Not a fraternal twin like me and Buffy, but an identical twin. She was my mom’s mirror, her exact copy—same sandy blonde hair, same sapphire eyes, same heart-shaped face, same rosebud lips. Looking at her was like watching my mom’s ghost. The sight of her was a punch in the stomach. She must have known how hard it was for Buffy and I to lay our eyes on her. Sometimes I wondered if that was the reason behind all that compulsive work and crammed schedule. Sometimes I silently thanked her for that.
Today though, wasn't one of those days. I couldn’t stand her presence in the confined room. The echo of my mom’s death filled the entire place.
Leave. Please leave.
“Don’t stay there, Morgan,” Gran said, clearly wishing the opposite. “Come join us.”
The soft taps of her brown ballet flats joined the beeps of Buffy’s heart, but somehow, Aunt Morgan’s walking sounds had overlapped everything. My ears and all that was sensory in my body were solely focused on her. I was like a lion prowling quietly, waiting and sensing every move she made, and once she came into view, watching warily every curve and hollow that made her what she was: an aching reminder of death.
“How is she?” Aunt Morgan asked. She stopped at the foot of the bed and stared at Buffy. The glint of sadness, and something more that I would’ve bet was guilt, shone behind black rimmed, squared glasses.
“All her vital signs are good,” Gran said, looking at an angel-faced Buffy sleeping. “She just needs to come back from wherever she is.”
Aunt Morgan gave a soft nod and dropped her crossed arms. As we had come to know as a nervous glitch of hers, her hand pinched a small piece of her long skirt between her fingers and started rubbing the flimsy fabric.