Page 121 of Rock Me

"Nothing. There’s nothing going on in my head."

I get a hard elbow poked into my side. "Yes, there is. Tell me about her."

"Ow! Do it again and I’m telling Dennis,” I warn her. “And by the way, I especially don't think about her."

"What a load of absolute bull elephant shit."

"That's a helluva lot of shit."

"Exactly,” she glowers at me.

"What do you want me to say, Anca? That I spend every day not knowing if I want to kiss her or kill her? That I can't believe I finally fell in fucking love and it was with someone like her? That I don't know how or why I wake up every morning, because I know when I do, she's not going to be here? That I'm still so disgusted by her that I can't even say her name? But if I could, if I could turn back time, I would get in that car instead of her, knowing that it would hit someone? Because I would rather it was me than her. Because I can live with my own shame, But I can't live with someone I'm ashamed of. That I miss her more than I missed playing the cello? And that I'd chop off both my arms if it meant things could be different?"

Anca sighs. "Yes. I want you to say all those things. And more, if you have it."

I shrug, "No, I don't have anything, Anca. Just you and the band."

"Only because you chose to walk away."

"Are you kidding me?” I bellow at her. "You, of all people, you're judging ME for walking away from her?"

"No, I'm not judging you. You are."

"The hell I am."

"You are, I hear it in everything you're saying. The conflict. Make up your fucking mind. Do you love her or do you hate her?"

"Both."

"No. You don't. You just think you should hate her."

"She got in a car drunk, Anca. And she hit me.”

She stands up abruptly and waves her finger in my face. "Oh, I know, I saw. I saw the blood, the tubes, the casts. Heard the doctors frantic, asking each other what to do, all while the fucking paparazzi were blocking the entrance ways for the exclusive scoop that you were dead. It’s a pint of my blood coursing through your veins right now. So, yeah, I bloody hell know, so don't you tell me I don't know what happened to you."

"Mom and Dad…"

"Died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Yeah, I know that, too. I was four years old and couldn’t understand why my mom, my hero, never came back for me. Tell me something, I don’t know."

She sits down, drawing in a long breath.

"Anca, I can't just forget."

"No one's telling you. But the grudge, that's for you to decide whether you can let it go or not. I've had a good life. Haven't you?"

"The absolute best." I tell her. Meaning every word. "I... I just don't know I could ever forgive her."

"You know the answer, you just said it."

"That's not what love is, Anca."

My little sister looks at me, as if I’m an absolute idiot. "It's exactly what it is. And for what it's worth. I forgive her. I saw how happy she made you, so I forgive her. It’s your choice."

I sit there, listening to my own breath, wondering what I can and cannot change.

Anca sighs and pats me on the hand. "Like I said, your choice. But right now, you're going to get up and drag your ass out here and listen to Brad sing karaoke. And that, my darling brother is NOT a choice. Come on, enough sulking. Time to get back to the land of the barely living."

She gets up and holds out her hand to me. I sigh and let her pull me to my feet.