Echoing Silence

We were each other's only support system so confrontation between us was unusual, but in that moment confrontation had become inevitable making now the time to sink or swim. I turned around so suddenly that Devin almost fell backwards at the sheer force of my surprise attack, but Devin's lapse of readiness for this battle was only momentary. She quickly raised her eyes level to mine showing she was equipped and ready for fierce competition. Identical blue eyes stared determinably into mine. We looked identical in every way, except that Devin had recently dyed her normally black hair to platinum blond as her declaration of independence on the hold our mother had on her. But in that moment the blonde hair, or any other defining difference between us, faded away as we looked deep into each other's eyes. Behind both sets of eyes was one motherless similarity that echoed an ocean's worth of pain that had been accumulating for years with no relief. An ocean of pain could easily be hidden from the world, but not from a twin sister. As much as both of us wanted so badly to ease some of that pain for the other, we accepted that we had tried and failed for years and that we were both just incapable. The eye contact and the reminder of all the pain we had endured became too overpowering for both of us, and in a rare moment Devin accepted defeat by turning away from me. You won't find her was now one more stone in our carefully sculpted dam that held back a flood of unspeakable topics.

When Drea and Devin were ten, Anna ... Left them. Vanished. No explanation. Their mother just no longer wanted to be their mother, and this started an avalanche of unending mistakes that unguided children make. Now they're twenty-five, and she reenters their life. Yes, their life, not lives, they're identical twins who'd spent their life trying to heal each other from the pain her abandonment inflicted. Yet as much as they both should hate her, want to burn her to the ground, she may be the one person who can save them both, separately for the first time, and build them all back to ... Whole.