Gia sat on the corner of her bed, lost in a sea of confusion. It had been nearly three weeks since the accident that claimed her twin sister. "She's holding up well," she had overheard her mother say into the phone just a few hours before.
"Holding up well," Gia thought to herself. The words sat in her stomach like hardened concrete.
She unwound her legs from the position they had been in for nearly an hour, and stood gingerly at her bedside. The room swam with hundreds of tiny pin-points of light as she glanced over at Veronica's now empty side of the room. Gone at twenty-three. It just didn't seem possible. Gia still felt her presence, fully expecting Veronica to come bounding through the door at any minute. She felt her hands tighten into fists. Three weeks would soon melt into a lifetime, and she would still be left with nothing of Veronica but memories and a few scrapbooks they had made together.
"The scrapbooks," Gia whispered. In a fog, she glided across the room to Veronica's desk. Sitting there amongst CD cases and receipts was a neat stack of photographs, all labeled with sticky notes as to their origin. They had just started organizing pictures to go into their twentieth album. They had made one every year since they were three; filled with memories of a time when life was more simple. Gia slowly lifted the top photograph from the stack. It was a picture of her and Veronica at the family beach house. They were smiling.
Gia recoiled and dropped the picture as if she had grabbed a hot poker. No, this wasn't real. Ronnie wasn't dead. Bad dream, she thought. Bad dream. She felt the all-too familiar sting of tears come to her eyes. She shut them in a futile effort to stop the inevitable. Ronnie wasn't dead. Ronnie wasn't dead. She repeated her mantra over and over in her head as the first trickle of warmth dripped down her cheek. Get a grip, Gia. Ronnie is gone, and you can't do anything to bring her back.
Anger surged through her as her hand involuntarily swung out and connected with the pile of pictures. They scattered across the room. Gia kept lashing out, taking down anything without arm's reach. Candles, figurines, books -- nothing was left untouched. Veronica's desk was transformed into a whirlwind of flying flesh and tears.
Gia collapsed to the floor, her chest heaving with grief and frustration. She looked to her right, and saw the unfinished scrapbook laying open. Veronica's curved script annotated each picture, but there were two blank pages left. They had planned to finish those pages once Veronica got home from her vacation.
"I have to finish them," Gia whispered. But how could she finish it without Ronnie? Each scrapbook told the story of one year of their existence. With Veronica's life snuffed out, it would be impossible to complete.
It had to be done. Ronnie would have wanted it like this.
Gia stood in one fluid movement, and walked to Veronica's closet. She carefully opened the door and was met with a mountain of her dead sister's clothes. Her breath came in short, sporadic gasps as she reached for Ronnie's best dress. Trying not to look at it, she slowly put it on. She and Veronica had been identical twins, so the dress was a perfect fit.
Gia closed her eyes in silent prayer as she reached for her camera. The cold, unfeeling plastic felt like a brick in her hand. She set the camera up on her tripod, and aimed it at the pillows on Veronica's bed. After setting the timer, she padded softly across the floor, and sat down with the camera's red light blinking in tandem with her heartbeat. She took her hair down, letting it cascade over her shoulders like Ronnie used to. The flash was quick and blinding, leaving her completely disoriented. As she composed herself, she crept back to the camera, almost as if she was expecting it to bite her.
"Review," she said as she pressed the button. The camera came to life, flashing a picture that made Gia's blood run cold. It was Veronica. From top to bottom, it was Veronica. A single tear splashed on the camera's viewfinder as Gia marveled at the photograph. Veronica wasn't dead. She was right there, sitting on her bed, cracking her infamous lop-sided grin.
Thoughtlessly, Gia rested her hand on the "Erase" button. "This isn't right," she thought to herself. The fabric of Veronica's dress fluttered against her calf. "Just isn't right." She quickly dismissed the thought and quickly moved her gaze to the "Print" button. She pressed it slowly, relishing the moment. The hum of the printer jolted Gia back into reality. The glossy 4x6 print slowly emerged from the machine, revealing line by line the expressive face that Gia had loved for twenty-three years. It was Veronica.
She lifted the scrapbook from the floor, and gently placed the picture in an empty slot. She would finish it after all.