Aubrey wiped the cool cloth against her face. Hopping to the hamper on one leg, she managed. She hopped back to the sink of her bathroom grabbed her crutches and moved onto her bed. Sore, bruised, and hurt from days before Aubrey settled into the bed, crutches on the floor under the bed, and pulled the sheets over her body. She laid there thinking about the day of the car accident. How she had been lucky compared to poor Victoria, but unlucky when she was compared to Emma and Marty. If only Marty would have kept her eyes on the road. If only she had done so. Thoughts like this kept Ree up all night long. She grew restless tossing and turning in the now tangled up sheets. Finally the darkness of sleep enveloped her.

“Aubrey!” came Victoria’s voice.

Aubrey turned her head in Tori’s direction. She watched as the car they sat in smashed into the car in front of them. Headlights flashed. Ree stared forward. Marty sat in the driver’s seat panicking with tears. Tori was motionless in the passenger’s seat. Her head was cocked to the side, blood seeping through her clothes. Emma -behind Tori and next to Ree- was wailing. Headlights leaked light unto the scene of pain and metal from behind. All was to late. The car smashed into the rear of Marty’s car. Ree shouted in pain. Her neck jolted, her legs went weak. She shut her eyes as the time passed. She heard people around her screaming in horror. Impatient people honking their horns giving Aubrey more of a headache. Her heart pumped hot blood into her body. The blood cells raced to the wounds that covered her, seeping like Tori’s blood unto her clothes and the surrounds. At the sound of sirens and flashing colors of red and blue Ree fell into darkness.

Ree woke up, jolting up right. She felt a numbing pain in her rib cage. Her heart was racing from the nightmare. It was just a nightmare in real life, thought Aubrey. Just a nightmare.

She glanced at the clock still sitting up right. Is it really nine already? questioned Ree internally. I’ve got to hurry.

She grabbed her crutches and moved to her dresser. She combed her hair in the half body mirror on the dresser’s top. Moving to her closet she opened the doors and peered in. Ree eyed the jean skirt hanging in front of her and the elegant red top besides it. That’ll be nice. She slipped them on around her huge cast on her leg and hurried down stairs after brushing her teeth.

She managed not slipping down the stair like she almost did last night. She hobbled to the kitchen; the table was sit for three, not four. “You look nice, Ree.” Her mother’s voice was sharp, but hinted a bit of a cry. “Tori would love that outfit.”

“Mom, if you don’t like talking about it then don’t bring the topic up,” Ree replied as more of a demand then a request. “I don’t want to talk about it, either.”

Her mother went back to the pan. “How many hot-cakes?”

Ree sat there in the chair for a moment. It feels so different without Tori here. I miss her. “I’ll have two, please.” Ree swallowed back the tears.

After her mother placed the pancakes on Ree’s place, she stated, “We’ll be leaving soon for the first awake at eleven. The first people should be arriving about one.”

Aubrey shrugged. Let’s please just pray the next view days pass quickly. Mother, you don’t know how hard it is upon me. She was my twin! Her mother left the room.

Tears welled in her eyes. Slowly the warm water streamed down her face. As she bit into the pancakes she cried. Her own mother not in the room, she finished, put her plate in the sink, and hopped back up the stairs.

She passed Tori’s room, passed her mother’s room, and Jonathan’s room. Coming upon her room, she stalked in with her crutches closed the door and went right to her closet. She got down on her bruised knees, pain shooting up through them. She ignored the unbearable hurt. With the closet door open she moved things on the floor around finally finding her scrapbooks, and remaining photos of Tori, Marty, Emma, and her she never used. Other photos were in the boxes she pulled out, but she only wanted her sister and friends.

Her face wet with tears, her pallid skinned hands trembling, she took her long fingers and finger nails and ran over gently touching the surface of each photograph she her self had taken of her sister. Her sister’s crystal blue eyes in one she held now looked up at her painless and so alive. My eyes too.

Ree sat there for minutes at end just staring at the photos of memories. Now those were her nightmares. With each photo she took out she slowly put away. She hugged the scrapbook, hopping to her bed. She left the closet doors open and her crutches on the floor. She laid her head on the pillow, closed her eyes, still hugging the scrapbook Tori and she put together, and wept. My Memories and Nightmares, I shall title this scrapbook. Tori, I miss you.