Burning Bridges

Chapter 1

Growing up with a twin is the most amazing thing in the world.  We were so close that we didn’t even have to talk to know what the other was thinking.  It used to drive our parents crazy the way we would just walk in the room the other was in and with just a look know exactly what the other had been or was going to be up to and the other one was always ready to get in on whatever was going on.

High school was no different.  Our friends used to get so frustrated at us because we could have entire conversation with just one-word sentences and they never knew what we were talking about.  We were inseparable from birth.  Mom said that she couldn’t even put us in separate cribs.  We even shared the same bed until we were thirteen, and then we still shared a room even though we didn’t need to.  No one ever asked where just one of us were or what was going on with one of us, it was always Roni and Tori did this, or has anyone seen the twins? In college it was more of the same, the first two years we shared a dorm room and the second two we shared a little two-bedroom apartment.  We were twenty years old the first time that we had a room that we didn’t share.  We were thirty by the time we lived in separate houses.  That’s not to say that we always stayed together.  Tori had a bad habit of doing some pretty dumb things. 

She would take off, sometimes for weeks at a time.  No warning.   I would just find her stuff gone and her number changed.  I always knew before long she would be calling me to come get her, buy her a ticket, or bail her out.  I always did.  I can’t really tell you when things started changing with her.  I mean, we were so much alike for so long and then we just weren’t.

People say it took me a lot longer to notice that she and I didn’t think the same any more than it did everyone else.  I guess I just wanted to believe that she was going through some things and she handled it differently.  However, when we were nineteen and she decided she was going to kill herself over a boy, I had to admit that she really had started down her own road and it was one that I was not going to follow.

The next thirteen years of our lives would make it more and more obvious exactly how different two people raised the exact same way, with all the exact same opportunities could become.  This would show how people make their own decisions and no matter what those decisions or consequences of those decisions are, we cannot blame ourselves for what others do.  We cannot fix people, we cannot force people to change, force them to grow up, force them to get help when all they want is for us to solve their problems and enable them to become so dependent on us that it becomes a sort of abuse.

I had to learn that enabling Tori to behave anyway she wanted knowing I would always take care of her, was giving her permission to abuse me in ways that would later come to light.

Anyway, as I was saying, right after we turned nineteen Tori and her boyfriend of close to a year got into a huge fight.  They had broken up and she was really upset about it.  Currently, we were living in our dorm room at University of Wyoming.  That was Tori’s idea, she read a few books about cowboys in Wyoming and decided that is where we should go to school.  So, Tori and Jackson met our first day on campus and started dating right after we got back to school from Thanksgiving break.

They had a great relationship and Jackson even came down to Florida to spend time with her during the summer.  In fact, he flew home with us in June and then came back in July for a week and drove down to bring us back to school.  I didnt see this break up coming at all because Tori was still over the moon happy and Jackson seemed the same way.

I had been at the law library for the past couple of hours doing my homework, and trying to catch the eye of this gorgeous Criminal Justice major who seemed to live at the law library, so I was surprised when I opened our door to hear crying coming from our bathroom.  Yes, we had our own bathroom and were so thankful for that.  As a freshman, we had to share a common bathroom with the whole floor, so this year we were super glad to have gotten one of the few sophomore dorms rooms with a bathroom.

I walked over and knocked on the bathroom door, "Tori?  You ok in there sis?"  I asked.

The bathroom door flew open and there was blood all over the place and she grabbed me around the neck crying, "No, Roni it’s not.  I just want to die, Jackson and I broke up and now my life is ruined, it’s over."

I don’t think I processed what she was saying right away because I noticed the razor on the sink and the blood that was pouring from her arm.  I grabbed her arm and that’s when it hit me that she tried to slit her wrist.  I grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around her wrist.  She kept fighting me telling me to let her die.

I should have told someone then; I should have at least called our parents.  Took her to the hospital, something.  Once she calmed down and I got the bleeding to stop I realized that it wasn’t a deep cut, just a bunch of small ones.  When she begged me not to tell anyone, that she just was so upset and I wasn’t around and she didn’t know what to do, I felt bad for her and guilty and I didn’t tell anyone. 

I made her promise to never do anything like that again.  After that night I was scared to leave her alone for a long time.  She was depressed for a while.  It turns out that Jackson was dropping out of college because he joined up with the Rodeo during the summer and someone had gotten really hurt and there was an opening with some guys he wanted to work with and he was offered the spot.  He didn’t want to break up with Tori, but Tori being her normal self, thought that if she made him choose between the rodeo and her, that he would choose her and stay.  He didn’t.

After about a week of moping around she started going out with different guys.  In fact, one of the reasons that we got our apartment our third year of college was because I was tired of having to find somewhere else to sleep or study because she brought her dates home.

Her relationships were always whirlwind after that.  She would meet a guy, swear he was her soul mate, sleep with him, have a pregnancy scare, then it would be over, and she would fall into a deep pit of sadness until a new man paid attention to her.

This continued until right before graduation when she met Ian.  Ian was some i***t that she met online and invited over.  From the first moment we met him it was obvious that him and I were never going to get along.  Maybe that was part of the charm for her.  Tori was crazy about him.   No matter what I said or what he did, she thought he was perfect. 

Within a week he had moved his stuff in.  After a month I couldn’t take it anymore.  They ran around like the apartment was theirs and I was an unwanted house guest.  Any time I questioned her about it, she would go bat s**t crazy and start accusing me of trying to ruin her relationship.  Graduation night was the final straw on that one.  We had been planning a small graduation party at our place for months.  Once Ian found out about it, he invited a bunch of his pot head friends to come over and it completely ruined the night for me and all our guest.  The only people having any fun was Tori, Ian, and his groupies.  Finally, I had enough and decided it was time for people to go.

"Alright everyone, party is over.  Please grab your coats, if you are too drunk or high to get home on your own, we will call you a cab." I told the room.  My friends all hugged me goodnight and left while Ian’s buddies didnt seem to pay any attention to me at all.

"Um, hello.  I said its time to go home.  It’s been a long day and I would like to go to bed."  I said a bit louder than before.

"So, go to bed then, we aren’t bothering you." Ian said to me, not even bothering to look my way.

"I’m not going to bed with a bunch of people I don’t know sitting in my house."  I said.

"Well I know them and it’s my house too." Ian replied.  For some reason that just set me off and I was over being nice.

"Actually  no Ian it is not your house, for one your just my sisters flavor of the month, two you do not pay any bills here or contribute to the house at all, and three you can leave right along with your friends. NOW." I yelled at him.

He looked at me for a minute and then he looked at Tori.  She was pissed, I could tell she was about to blow her top.  I don’t know why I thought it was going to be at Ian for daring to talk to me that way.  I never thought it would be me that she would rage at.  I was wrong.

"How dare you say he doesn’t live here?  He is not just my boyfriend.  We are getting married.  This is my home too and if he goes then I go, and you can just pay all the damn bills yourself."  she shouted at me.  I didn’t really stop to think about the situation, I just responded in my anger.

"Fine, bye.  For the record, ever since you met captain dumb ass and his feathers over there, I have been the one paying all the bills, by myself." I screamed back and walked over to the door and threw it open.  "Let me get the door for you."

Ian and his friends looked from me to her and back to me to see what was going to happen next.  I guess his friends realized it was time to get because they got up and started filing out the door.  I stared Ian down until he decided he better go with his friends.  "Babe, I’m gonna go with the guys and give your sister a chance to cool down.  I’ll see you tomorrow."  he told Tori.

She freaked out at him, saying if he left without her that she would kill herself.  I was still angry so when she pulled that one, I told her, "Make sure you cut with the vein this time and then put your wrist under running water, so you die faster.  If you want to be stupid enough to kill yourself over a moron, I’ll help you.  Just call me Dr. Kevorkian."

I guess that freaked Ian out because before I realized it, he had taken Tori and they were gone.  I was all alone finally.  It was a long time before I went to bed that night.  I kept expecting her to call home or come back in and go to sleep like we normally did when we were mad at each other.  The call never came, and she didn’t show back up for two days and that was only to get some clothes.

It was about a week before I heard from her after that.  She came by while I was on my way out the door.  She knocked on the door which shocked me in the first place.  The day she came in and got her clothes she just used her key and stormed in slamming doors and making as much noise as possible while she packed up a few things, then slammed out the door.  She didn’t bother speaking me the entire time.

I opened the door.  There she stood tears falling down her face.  "I'm so sorry sis.  I don't know what got into me.  I was just still stressed out from finals and graduation and everything I was thinking.  I should have never let things get that far, is there any way you can forgive me and let me come back home?"

"What about Ian?" I asked.

"Well, the thing is I am pregnant, and I don't want to raise my baby alone, and if Ian keeps hanging out with those disgusting people, we have spent the past two weeks with, that is what’s going to happen.  I was hoping that you and me could sit down and come up with an agreement for Ian and I to live here like before, but we could split all the bills three ways instead of you paying it all yourself."  She said crying harder and harder, to the point that I couldn’t even guarantee that was exactly what she said. 

"I can't do this without you.  We have always done everything together.  I do not want to go through my pregnancy and have my first baby without my sister, my best friend."  She told me.

I loved her, what was I supposed to say.  I should have told her that she could just get the rest of her stuff.  She probably would have learned a little more about life that way.  All I can remember is fearing that if I turned her away, she would try and kill herself and this time my niece or nephew was involved. 

Mom and Dad wouldn’t have turned her away at this point.  However, there is no way they would have signed on to having Ian living with them.   It was still a couple of years before our parents turned their back on her at this point.

I looked at her for a few minutes.  Then I told her, "I have to get to work.  You and Ian can move back in, however there is going to have to be some house rules.  I am off tomorrow.  If you guys are serious about this, then make sure you are both available in the morning so the three of us can sit down and talk and make sure we are all in agreement, otherwise he can't be here.  Tori, you and your child can always live here.  I do not have to put up with him, and if he is going to continue to act the way he was before I won't." I finished and took my keys out of my purse so I could head off to work.

"I understand, do you want us to wait until tomorrow to come home?" she asked.

"No, Tori.  You can come home while I am at work.  I will see you guys for dinner.  No company please?"  I finished.

Her entire attitude changed, suddenly she was grabbing me and hugging me.  Telling me how much she loved me and missed me and was so grateful to have such an amazing twin sister.  I was happy that she was going to be home.  I was not thrilled about Ian of course, but I don’t want my sister’s child to grow up without its father either.