LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY containedchaos)

Who: Andrew and Amelia
When: December
Where: The Burnham City Apartments
What: Amelia makes a discovery and confronts her older brother



Amelia shuffled through the boxes in storage looking for her box of winter clothes, she had finally decided that it was far too cold for her skirts and tank tops. She searched high and low checking the label on each and every box. Hockey, climbing, skateboarding stuff, Lia's clothes for salvation army, shoes, every random aspect of Andrew, Ian, and Amelia's life, but still no winter clothes. She was getting ready to quit when she saw something of interest. Andrew's photos.

She grabbed the box and opened it up, assuming that Andrew would give her some half assed explanation of what was really in it if she just asked. The box was full to the brim with old photo albums and at the very bottom there was a composition notebook with Andrew scribbled across the top in childish hand writing. She smiled and pulled the note book out of the box and flipped open to the middle.

Adam and me went to the store today with mom. Then she brought us to the doctor because she thinks we're getting colds. We got lollipops though, so I guess it was alright.

Amelia was interested so she flipped a few more pages.

Kids were mean to Adam at school today. I beat someone up for it and dad yelled at me because I got detention. Oh well, no one makes fun of Adam without messing with me.

Today Adam and I went with mommy to the doctor. We got to see baby Amelia inside mommy's tummy. I think she looks like a sea monkey. Adam said she's small but she'll be fun. I can't wait to be a big brother!

"Who is Adam?" she pondered flipping through a few more pages. She got to the last page that had writing on it and read it.

Today was a bad day. Adam died.

She huffed and put the notebook on the ground next to her. She grabbed a photo album and flipped through the pages. There were older pictures of her family when she was a baby, but that was all. So she picked up another photo album and flipped through. Andrew in high school and college. Another, Andrew playing hockey. Another, another, another, she was getting nowhere, but there was one more album left. She picked it up and flipped open the first page. It was exactly what she needed. There was a picture of Andrew, but he wasn't alone, he had his arm around another a boy. A boy who looked just like him, but there was one difference. Their eye color. She flipped through the album and there were more pictures all through the journal. At the very end there was a note written in Andrew's handwriting.

Adam, why are you still haunting me? I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to save you. Isn't that enough? No.

Amelia grabbed the notebook and stuffed the photo album back into the box. She didn't bother piling it again and forgot why she had been in storage anyway. After locking the door behind her she power-walked the twenty feet back to the apartment building and ran up to the third floor. She burst into the apartment and headed straight for the living room.

"Who the fuck is Adam?" she threw the book at Andrew who was sitting on the couch. "Andrew?" her voice shook as she received a blank stare.

He knew this would happen some day, but he couldn't even find the right words to say. "Li… I…"

"Come on Andrew, just tell me…" she said more softly seeing how distraught he looked.

He looked at the notebook next to him. He thought he had gotten rid of that. "Li, right before you were born… something happened," he began. He had no idea how she had found out about Adam or what she knew. "I…" he had thought of the many ways he could explain this to her before, but saying it to her was not as easy as it was to think about how he was going to say it. "I had a twin brother and when we were ten years old… right before he were born… we were playing ball out in the back yard near the pond. The ball went flying over onto the pond, but it was frozen so we both went out to get it, we were goofing around the whole time," he stopped and looked up at her. Her face was pale and seemed distant.

He sighed and continued. "The ice started cracking, it was this terrible noise from all around us… just cracking and movement. We were terrified, we started running back to the shore but the ice couldn't hold any longer. We were both submerged into the lake and… I tried… I tried to save him, but he wasn't a strong swimmer. I just remember how cold everything felt. I screamed for help and kept trying to swim while holding Adam but we kept going under. He pushed me away from him and told me to swim. So I did. No one came to help us. No one knew we were drowning," he wiped the tears from his face. "When I got to land I screamed again, but I could barely move. Dad had just come home from work, he ran into the backyard and saw that the ice was broken. I couldn't say anything, I just kept screaming. He jumped in and swam out but it was too late. Adam… his face was just so blue…" his hands were shaking. "Dad made me promise not to tell you because he didn't want you to feel sad for something you didn't have to know about."

There was silence. He didn't know what to do and he didn't dare look at Amelia. He kept his eyes focused on the floor. Amelia's sneakers moved from one side of the room to the other and she was standing right in front of him. She put her hand on his shoulder lightly and took a deep breath. Andrew looked up. "I'm sorry," his voice cracked.

Amelia sat down next to him and put her arm around his shoulders. "I'm sorry Andy," she said softly. "I didn't mean to come off so angry."

"No, I should have told you sooner. I should have told you because I… I have multiple personality disorder. It's getting better and I have medicine for it, but you can only guess what my other personality is right?"

"Adam?"

He nodded. "I can understand if you're mad and if you don't want to live with me anymore…"

"Are you insane?" she cut him off. "There is nothing you could do that would make me want to move out. Living with you has been the best few years of my life Andy. You take good care of me and I love living here with Ian and Annie. I feel like I'm actually helping out. Sure, I'm a little upset, I mean, why didn't dad think I could deal with it, but it's not your fault."

"I could have easily told you, but I didn't. I could have…"

"Dad made you promise not to. I probably would have done the same thing," she leaned her head against his shoulder. "It doesn't change the fact that you're the best older brother on the face of the planet," she smiled.

Andrew's tears burst forward again. "Do you know how good it is to hear that?" he asked wiping his face frantically. "I've spent my whole life thinking I was a terrible brother because I couldn't save him…"

"Well you saved me Andy," Amelia said softly. "You did everything you could for us, for your siblings. You're my hero."

Andrew put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. "I'm never going to let anything hurt you," he said warmly. "My little sister."

"I know," she smiled. "Let's go get some ice cream," she said brightly.

"You're more like me than I could have ever imagined. Ice cream is my secret ingredient for making things better," he smiled and wiped his face again.

"I know," she hopped up off the couch. "Ice cream works wonders."