Ana Van der Witt (geminana) wrote in tiberiusswann, @ 2011-09-22 18:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | ana, ava |
Friday, January 30th, 2009
Who: Ana and Ava
When: Friday evening
Where: BGH
What: Ana rushes to be by Ava’s side after hearing about the crash.
While she waited for the sun to begin its descent over the horizon, Ana sat unmoving on the floor next to her bed, staring at her phone as if it had done something wrong. It wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t heard from Ava Wednesday evening since it was her anniversary, nor was it too surprising that she didn’t hear from her the next day either. But once Friday rolled around, Ana became worried. And apparently, her being worried was entirely justified.
The conversation Ana had just had with Starbuck still felt like a blur. Ava had run into Charlie on Wednesday night and got into a car accident afterwards. The car accident bit had struck her the worst. Memories suddenly flooded back to her of the day she was riding along with her parents, only to have them taken away from her in the blink of an eye by a careless truck driver. Ana was bed ridden for a long time and in all that time, Ava never left her side. Right now, Ana felt the intense need to be with her twin. She couldn’t lose her.
Once the last slivers of light faded away from the evening sky, Ana grabbed her coat and rushed out to Lola. The Camaro’s engine roared to life as Ana peeled out of the parking lot and sped toward Ric’s home. She couldn’t believe she had to hear this news from Starbuck. It frustrated her greatly, but her twin’s well-being was of more concern at the moment.
The drive didn’t take long at all and Ana soon found herself parking and quickly hurrying up to the door. Not bothering to knock, she merely walked inside and began calling out. “Starbuck? Ava?”
---
Ava had woken up just in time to clear her head enough to hear Starbuck tell someone that she had a crash. It took another couple of seconds to work out he was on the phone, and a further few to process the name she heard mentioned. Ana. This really wasn’t an ideal way for her twin to find out about the accident, but instead of rushing in there and taking the phone off him she just let him finish up and waited for him to return. She knew that her sister would be upset by the news, and the side of the conversation she heard just seemed to support that, but she still questioned him when he came back to the bed, too worried about Ana to be angry that the nymph had told her.
Although she did try to go back to sleep, she was too worried to relax enough for it, so instead she drove Starbuck made with her pacing and organising her room, asking him a million and one questions about how Ana sounded on the phone. It was probably a relief for him when the sun set and not too long after that the younger twin could be heard downstairs.
Coming down to the kitchen so Ana could see that she was ok, Ava let Starbuck take his leave, with a grateful kiss on his cheek, then she simply turned to her twin and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m so sorry.” She said quietly, the tears that came easily heard in her voice.
---
Ana was grateful that Starbuck had patched Ava up, but she still felt annoyed and hurt that she was just hearing about it now instead of when it had happened. Annoyance soon melted away as she saw Ava and Starbuck descending the stairs, the younger twin wrapping her arms around the older twin as well. Ana gave Starbuck another silent thank you and returned her attention to Ava as he walked out the door.
“I was worried sick about you,” Ana replied, her own throat began to tighten as tears threatened to make an appearance. “Why didn’t you tell me? I couldn’t stand not knowing if you were ok.”
---
“I didn’t know how to tell you.” She started, not letting go of her, speaking through the tears. “I knew it would be hard for you, and that it would bring memories back and..... I didn’t know how to tell you without drudging it all up. I’m so sorry!” Almost more than anything else to do with the accident, she was most upset with how it would all affect Ana. Ava had been suffering from nightmares herself since the accident, the normal nightmare about her parents’ and Ana’s crash when they were young, except now she was the one who hit their car, and she was worried it would cause the same in her twin, or worse.
----
“Stop saying you’re sorry. It was worse not knowing what was going on.” Though that could be debated as well. As soon as she heard Ava was involved in a car crash, Ana began reliving the horrible events of the day their parents died. The hole their parents left suddenly felt bigger and she was afraid again. Afraid of losing Ava or losing her mind by being unable to shake the grip that those memories had on her.
It was surprising that Ana was even able to drive at all, but she did and the need to be by Ava’s side was what made her do it. The nightmares of that car crash all those years ago never went away. Her body healed, but her mind and heart never did. “You can’t leave me alone,” Ana replied, tears starting to stream down her own face as she held on tightly to Ava.
---
Logically she would have known that keeping it from Ana was stupid. Infact she DID know it was stupid, but she couldn’t find the words, so she just kept putting it off, until one phone call and one friend who didn’t know better did it for her.
It was clear to almost anyone who knew the twins that probably their biggest fears were living without the other. Hell, Ava had arranged for both of them to become vampires just to avoid the possibility of losing her sister again, and it was clear in the way Ana was clinging to her and begging her not to leave that she felt the same. It broke the older sister’s heart to hear those words. “I’ll never leave you. Nothing can take us away from each other.” She promised, and she sounded like she intended to make that true no matter what.
---
Ana clung to Ava in silence a little while longer. After a few moments, she pulled back slightly, her brow furrowed as she regarded her twin. “Can we sit somewhere? Like your room?” she asked as she dried her cheeks. “I don’t want anyone interrupting and I want to know everything that happened.” She knew Hope was now back and probably at the BGH and she didn’t want her or anyone else’s prying eyes working their way into the twins’ conversation.
---
Ava simply nodded when Ana asked if they could go somewhere. “We can go to the room I’m staying in.” Taking her twin’s hand, she set off for upstairs, not wanting to lose contact with her. It comforted Ava to be touching her twin.
Once there, she led Ana to her bed and sat down. “Where should I start from? Running into Charlie or Hope returning to the house which has to be the only thing that could have made that start to my anniversary worse than it was already set up to be?” Ava asked wearily.
---
It comforted Ana as well to be holding her twin’s hand. So what if they were grown women? Her twin was the only one that could get her to calm down at a time like this. Sitting down on the bed with her, Ana quickly surveyed the room before her eyes landed back on Ava. “I don’t give a shit about Hope unless she did something to you.” Ana was certainly back in defensive mode. “Is she the reason you didn’t come to class and went out on your own?”
---
Oh how it would be nice to blame someone else for everything, but she couldn’t, even if it would be easy. “No.” Ava replied with a sigh, shaking her head lightly. “Hope has nothing to do with anything. It was my anniversary, the day I was meant to be renewing my vows, not avoiding divorce papers. I just.... found myself at the park, the place we got married, and he was there already, on the bridge.” She sounded almost tired as she told her story. “He heard me curse when I slipped and he looked at me, then turned away. I offered to leave, and he told me I could stay, and then he said that obviously the place didn’t mean as much to me as it did to him if Iwas willing to go, and.... well it turned into an arguement. What else was bound to happen with us. We can’t even have one conversation without it turning into a fight. He threw Maggie’s upset at me, and the fact he offered to come back and I said no. He asked me why I hadn’t signed the papers... It was a mess, and I told him that we obviously weren’t meant to be and it was for the best, that I’d sign the papers, and then I left.” She shrugged, letting Ana process that before she moved onto the harder subject.
---
Ana watched her intently, her brows furrowing deeply as she listened to her twin’s story. She couldn’t imagine how complicated and difficult it must have been for Ava to see Charlie in the place where they had gotten married. But at least she didn’t know how Charlie really felt about the divorce papers. That burden lay with Ana and she promised Charlie that she wouldn’t tell. He didn’t want a divorce. The papers were just to give Ava the closure that she seemed to want, but Ana knew her twin didn’t really want it. “Why was he even back here? I don’t get it.” Why go back to a place that would bring back memories of the only thing you can’t have?
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“I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “He just said he had to come.... I didn’t pry any further. I just decided to stop all the fighting by leaving, so I got in my car and I drove away.” Now came the bit she didn’t really want to admit, that she had caused an accident because she was too stupid to pull over. “I started to cry, and the more time, the further away I got from him, the heavier it got, until I got to the corner.” Ava took a big unnecessary breath and then just continued. It had to be said. “I didn’t look. I just pulled out, and there was.... there was an SUV... he was going a little faster than he should have been apparently? I don’t know, I just... heard. He went into the side of the car, mangled it. The EMTs said I was lucky to only have cuts and scratches.... really lucky.” It was only at the end that the tears started to fall again and she started to shake a little. “It was so stupid.”
---
It was clear to anyone that Charlie still cared about Ava and that was why he was back in Boston on their anniversary of all days. Ana didn’t know what he was hoping to get out of the trip, but she knew that he still cared deeply for her twin. As Ava moved on to the more difficult part of the story, Ana felt her own body begin to tense. She felt an overwhelming sense of cold as her heart and throat began to squeeze tight. Emotions began to flood in as Ava described how she was crying and pulled out without looking. Ana closed her eyes, tears running down her cheeks, almost able to hear the impact of the cars as Ava described it. Hunching over, she wrapped her arms around herself, retreating within, trying to fight off the demons that haunted her since that fateful crash all those years ago. “You shouldn’t have been driving like that,” she managed to choke out.
---
She didn’t even have to think. As soon as she saw Ana curling up like that, she moved closer and wrapped herself around her, holding her sister close and petting her hair. “I know. Like I said, it was really stupid, and I wish I could go back and make the decision to call someone or get a cab. Anything but get in that car and lead us to this moment.” Ava got out through tears, her voice thick with them. “I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I took that risk. I’m sorry I did this to you.”
---
She couldn’t move right now. The emotional pain was too intense for Ana to do anything other than let Ava hold her and stroke her hair. Ava’s words barely registered with her as Ana tried to cling on to the present instead of being pulled into her dark past. She was surely going to have nightmares about Ava’s crash now. It seemed she’d never be free of those images. “Please don’t do it again.”
---
“I won’t. I promise.” She whispered, just continuing to hold and support her as best as she could. “We’re going to be ok. One day. We’ll be ok as long as we have each other, and I won’t ever risk that again. I was so scared at the thought of leaving you alone. I was so scared to lose each other.” Even Ava wasn’t really sure which crash she was talking about now, maybe both. They seemed so intertwined in her brain. “I can’t lose you.”
---
Nothing else could really be said right now. Ana’s mind was too caught up in both crashes to make much sense of anything. Instead, she continued to lean into Ava and the older twin continued to hold her, neither saying a single word for a long time. They just needed to be next to each other, holding each other, knowing that for that moment nothing could pry them apart.