Epilogue: Annah

I listen as the preacher speaks about what a wonderful girl Jayde was, her hopes and dreams, her achievements. He never knew her.

I don't know if I ever did, either.

Wait. That's not true. I did know her, maybe the best that anyone ever could, but it still wasn't enough to stop the lifeblood seeping out of her as she lay dying on the floor.

I still have nightmares about that night. I wake up screaming, my hair matted with sweat, thinking that I can see her sitting so proudly in her little chair like it's a throne of gold. And Nikki holding a gun to her head.

Right after the gun went off, I ran like hell out the door and called the cops. The name Kasperoni helped tremendously with that. I hid in someone's front garden beside a pair of randomly cast-off Marc Jacobs until they arrived, then directed them to the house.

Nobody was inside. But I know Jayde was, lying dead on the floor even though they stopped me from seeing her. Then came Mom and Dad's constant tears, the counselling sessions I bluffed my way through, the burst of vindictive pleasure when we learned that Steve Duscall's gang had been found hiding in Fox's caravan. Now they're serving time along with their esteemed leader.

I thought they were my friends. I really did, because they didn't hang out with me for my name or my sister. No. They only hung out with me because Steve told them to.

I miss Steve. He had no part in this, the murder of my twin sister, but I'm not naïve enough to think that maybe he would've stopped them if they went after her. Chances are he would have been the one to pull the trigger himself.

Then again, they'd never have kidnapped her if she'd let sleeping dogs lie and not got Steve in prison. Why did she do that? I know she thought I was in danger. Perhaps I was. But I was happy, for one of the only times in my life, where I wasn't second best or in Jayde's shadow.

She took that away from me and I hate her for it.

But I love her too, because she sacrificed herself for me, and who's to say Nikki and Hugo and the others wouldn't have turned on me anyway? There are so many 'what ifs' and unanswered questions. Yet there are too little answers or definite conclusions.

So many things that I'll never know.

Now I have my parents' full attention, people fawning after me in school. I have everything I'd always wanted… and guess what?

I'd give it all up just for her to come back once more.

I know that's impossible. But it doesn't stop me wishing, and I blink away the single tear that threatens to fall from my brown eyes. The fact that I'm not bawling my heart out clearly shocks some people. Some old lady in the bench across glowers. I do what Jayde would have done and flip her off – I'm not going to bring out the crocodile tears just because it's expected of me. I won't degrade my sister's memory that way.

Then the funeral's over, and I'm standing up and walking robotically out of the cathedral.

My parents murmur a comforting word or two through their own tears and I get into our – no, my – Aston Martin. I don't have to share any more. I follow behind my parents' car back to our house but don't get out once I've parked. It reminds me of that day when she kept me back to warn me, and I smile reminiscently.

Just because she's dead I'm not going to start thinking that the sun shone out of her every orifice. I know what she was, and an angel's not one of them. But I'd rather think of her as she was, with her bitchiness and imperfections and love for me, than lose the glorious reality to some kind of haloed maiden like the preacher made her out to be.

There's still the sweater in the backseat. And that's when the tears come, pouring up and dripping out of me in one big wave. I try to stem them but it doesn't work, and I'm sobbing and choking, and finally, finally, they die down and I'm left with red-tinged eyes and glittering tracks down my face.

This is too clichéd to say, but Jayde wouldn't have wanted this. She would have wanted me to go out there and made sure they saw what I was made of, be strong. Stand up for myself. Et cetera, et cetera.

Right.

I reach into the glove compartment, where I know Jayde kept her emergency makeup. I apply bright red MAC lipstick, Dior mascara and pale golden eyeshadow. My reflection is visible in the side mirror. I smile – I look wilder, dangerous, just what I was aiming for.

I get out of the car and slam the door shut.

THE END

AN: The end of my first ever completed short story! Please review xx