Another Chance

Part of me wishes I could go back as the person I am today, and stop what happened from ever happening in the first place. Although then I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this story at all, I’d likely have remained the same person I once was. I guess everyone was right about the whole hindsight thing after all.

It was the day of my late grandmother’s funeral. I was begrudgingly attending with my parents and twin sister Eloise, we were the only family she had left. I remember my mother that morning, cradling my father as he wept, both unaware of my sister and I peeking through their bedroom door. The whole affair made me entirely uncomfortable. Eloise, on the other hand, seemed to have been touched by some kind of angel from the moment she was born. She always knew how to react to everything, to make others feel something I’d never quite been able to touch. As we both were looking in on our parents holding each other, she nudged my arm and whispered,

“Come on Livvy, we gotta go in”

I proceeded to hide behind the door while she went in and put her arms around my parents. As I watched my perfect sister comforting them, I felt that familiar prick of resentment rolling around my body. If only I could go back now and hug them all.

The funeral went as you’d expect - crying, speeches of how fulfilling my grandmother’s life was - I didn't care for any of it. Sure I was sad, but I struggled to be around anyone showing emotion. I didn’t feel like crying and mostly just wanted to go home to play my Xbox. It was just as I was trying to sneak out into the garden to get away that my mother called me over.

“Liv! Eloise! They’re reading the will in the study, quickly!”

I rolled my eyes, when would this day be over? My mother must have sensed my apprehension because she strode over to me, the look in her eye that she always seemed to get whenever we talked. It was a mixture of sadness and disappointment, a look that I seemed to be getting more and more often.

“Please, Liv. It means a lot to your father”, she pleaded.

I sighed, pasting on a smile.

“Fine”. I followed her through to the study, pulling away slightly as she bent down to kiss my head.

The following twenty minutes went by in slow motion as I daydreamed about the new character I was going to unlock in my game that night. It wasn’t until I realised that everyone in the room was looking at me with strange expressions on their faces that I snapped back into reality.

Eloise had her mouth wide open in shock, the corners of her mouth curled into a smile, her eyes glassy with tears. I looked back at her blankly, raising my eyebrows slightly in a questioning manner.

“Livvy”, she whispered, seemingly out of breath. “Look”. She nodded her head over to the lawyer sitting in my grandmother’s old chair. He was holding in his hands two bags full of cash, along with a letter reading,

“To my dearest treasures in life, may this money help you along your journey, use it wisely little ones, love, your grandmother.” I looked slowly from the bags of money, to my parents, to my sister.

“Liv, she gave us $10,000 each”, Eloise breathed.

It was at that time that the corners of my mouth curled into a smile.

It had been about two months since the funeral, and everything was back into it’s normal, excruciatingly dull rhythm. I was continuing to devote most of my time to getting A’s in school and playing my Xbox, whilst Eloise continued her routine of friends, parties, brunches with my mum and whatever else she did with her life that made her the perfect twin.

For the time being my parents had put the money in our safe at home. Of course, being intellectually superior to everyone in my family, I had figured out the code, just in case of emergencies.

Exactly sixteen days went by until I ended up opening it. The school day had just finished, and I was in a particularly foul mood. I was putting away my books in the cupboard while Eloise was standing outside, surrounded by people smiling and laughing at her while she told a story I couldn’t hear. They all looked at her with such adoration in their eyes. It was disgusting. I must have been staring because Eloise caught my eye, and started to wave me over. I scowled and turned away, shoving my books into the cupboard with increasing aggression. I couldn't believe her. Just because she was blessed with the ability to talk to people without making everyone around her uncomfortable, didn’t mean she had to rub it in my face everyday. I felt my resentment towards her fester inside me, building and building as I continued to cram my books inside the teetering cupboard. Just as I thought I was about to burst, I felt one of my books ricochet out of my hand. I pulled my eyes away from Eloise and her friends to see what my book had bounced off. Right in the very back corner of the cupboard lay a small, tattered looking black notebook. I squinted and leant in closer to get a better look. I had been putting books away in that cupboard for years and had never noticed this moth-eaten excuse of a book before. For some reason I couldn’t look away from it. I reached into the cupboard to pick it up, patting the dust off the worn leather as I went. I turned the book over, coughing as the dust tickled the back of my throat. I looked back at Eloise and the girls outside, who were starting to disperse, giggling as they went. No one even noticed I was still inside. I started opening the book slowly, so as to not break the spine. Narrowing my eyes I flicked through the yellowed pages, it was completely empty except for one page in the middle. It read,

“Need another chance? $20,000 and everything you could want will be true.”

Below was scribbled an address. I recognised it immediately, not far from where I lived. I looked up from the page, my mind racing. It must have been a prank from one of the juniors, and not even a good one. I scoffed, rolling my eyes about to put the book back, when I saw it.

The page was completely blank.

I madly flipped back through the book, looking for the page again, but nothing. The book was empty. Without thinking I shoved the book in my bag, and began to run home. As I sprinted, I passed Eloise, who shouted out after me,

“Hey Livvy, wanna come to - “ I ignored her and continued to run, the rest of her sentence drowned out by my heaving breaths. I wasn’t particularly the active type.

Over the course of the time it took me to get home I had realised two things.

Number one - it would be insane of me not to go to the address of the mysterious vanishing page, and number two - I only had half the amount of money the book said was needed.

I got home and marched straight into the study, punched in the numbers to the safe, grabbed my bag of money and reached for Eloise’s bag before hesitating. A slight stab of guilt poked at me, was this really the right thing to do? The feeling was rapidly replaced with the same rage I had experienced at the school. Eloise owed me this. I grabbed both bags and didn’t look back.

As I arrived at the house that was written in the book, I felt a twinge inside me. A bead of sweat rolled down my nose and onto the footpath. Shaking my head to try and clear my thoughts, I knocked on the door of the house. It was a deep echoing sound that released from my knuckles into the door, sending a shiver through me. The door opened slightly, two beady eyes that had no substance stared back at me, a wrinkled hand curled around the doorframe.

“What do you want?” came a gravelly voice, impossible to distinguish whether it was male or female.

“I… I found this”. I shuffled through my bag to find the little black book, and handed it over. The eyes on the other side of the door widened as if in understanding, taking the book from me.

“The money?” croaked the voice.

“I have it”, I said, lifting my chin. The figure in the doorway nodded. I was then told to write down in the book my one true desire, and when I closed the book it would become my reality. The figure warned me there was no ‘erasing’ what I chose to write, so to be wise.. I nodded in agreement, hoping they couldn’t hear how loudly my heart was beating against my chest. Ten minutes went by, me pacing up and down the verandah of the house. The figure never moved from behind the door, watching me closely. Finally, I scribbled down a sentence as quickly as I could, fingers shaking and my head pulsing. The figure in the doorway looked at what I had written and wrapped it’s bony fingers around both the book and the bags of money I had brought, snapping the book closed. I looked from the book up to those beady eyes once more, and felt guilt overcome me.

“Wait! I want to change something! I …” I felt a gust of wind blow into my face as the door was slammed shut. Panicking, I started running once again, wiping my wet face with the back of my hand as I went.

“No, no no no, I didn’t mean it”, is what kept bouncing around inside of my head, getting louder and louder with each step I took. I practically leapt over my front lawn as I bounded into the house, waves of dread pushing me down further and further.

“Eloise! Eloise where are you! We need to talk! I’m so sorry I..”

I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw my sister come out of her room, smiling right at me. I exhaled, relief flooding through me.

“Oh thank god, Eloise I have the craziest story to tell you, you’ll never believe..”

“Hey mum, hey dad, how was your day?” Yelled out Eloise, smiling sweetly as she started walking towards me. I turned around, confused and saw my parents in the driveway. I turned back to Eloise and smiled.

“I’ll tell you later then”, I said winking at her. She continued to walk towards my parents, and I turned around to go to them too. Just before I reached them however, I fell to the floor as an iciness passed through my body like I’ve never felt before. I struggled to catch my breath, and I looked up just in time to see it. Eloise had passed through me. My parents had just gotten to the door when they saw me on the ground.

“Liv! Are you alright?”, my mum put her warm arms around me, trying to help me up.

“Honey, what happened?”, said my dad, as he too came over to help.

I couldn’t take it. The realisation of what I had done was too much. All I could manage to whisper to them both was

“Eloise. It’s my fault she’s gone. I’m so so sorry.” My chest heaved up and down as my parents continued to hold me. My mum shot a concerned look to my dad, then lifted my chin gently so our eyes were level.

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry you're upset, but you've got to tell us.”

“Who is Eloise?”