I’m terrified. She’s the person I know better than anyone else possibly could. All these people I see every day, they couldn’t understand my relationship with Tila. How for so many years we were two people, yet we were the same. We couldn’t hide from each other. All our strengths, all our weaknesses. We knew it all.

She kept all this from me. If she hadn’t been caught, if Vuk hadn’t attacked her, would she ever have told me?

She would never have been able to keep those secrets from me if we were still connected. Perhaps we should have fought the doctors harder. Claimed religious reasons—they wouldn’t have been able to argue with that. But we didn’t know that then. We were so young. So very innocent, compared to how we are now.

I want to let go of the anger, but I can’t. Tila killed someone. She killed him to protect herself, and to protect me. I can’t blame her for that. I don’t think I ever did.

It’s easy to take a life. We’re such delicate creatures. Nazarin slumbers on, and my thoughts continue to circle. Thoughts of death, and blood, and wondering what will happen tomorrow, when I see my sister for the first time since they dragged her away from me.

Part of me wonders if I still want to see her.

32. Tila

THIRTY-TWO

TILA

I’ve been moved back from the prison in the Sierras (or wherever it was) to a holding cell in San Francisco. The guards told me I’m getting out in a few hours. So this will be the end of my testimony, which is good, I guess, because the notebook is almost full anyway. I still can’t believe it, though I should know better than to ever underestimate Taema.

I’ve tried to tidy myself up a bit, but the girl in the mirror still looks like shit. Circles under my eyes, and my hair frizzy thanks to the cheap prison shampoo. Now I’m sitting here on the uncomfortable bed, alternately writing in here and looking out through that tiny window at the blue sky.

I’m scared to see Taema, after all this. Will she blame me? Will she be hurt at all I kept from her, even if it was to try and protect her? I don’t know.

I’ve decided to spend my last moments in jail writing out what really happened. I’m taking this notebook out with me, and nobody else will read what I write in here now except my sister.

T: