"I hate you Claire! I hate you!" the furious teenager shouted at her older sister.
"Celeste, calm down!" Claire begged to her sister.
"No! I'm never going to listen to you again!" the teenager screamed before turning around to run into her room. Claire watched with pain and anger as she combed her fingers through her hair. The older sister put her back against the wall and tried to surpass the urge to cry.
Claire wasn't that much older than her younger sister, or it didn't seem like it at most times. But the loss of their parents had taken a hard blow on the youngest Foley child. Even if it had been only three years before. Before Claire had realized it, her little sister was on more than one pill to help curb the teenager's destructive tempers and violent mood swings. They didn't help. Nothing could help, Claire feared.
Suddenly, a thought inside Claire's head snapped inside of her. Something so horrible it made her bolt into her sister's room. What she found in the middle of Celeste's room only awakened a new fear as Claire quickly ran to the telephone to call the ambulance. Hoping, just hoping, that she'd be alright...
. . .
Never before could Claire ever recall being this scared before as she paced in front of the hospital room her sister was in. In what seemed like forever, the doctor did eventually come out.
"Are you the caretaker of Lani Celeste Foley?" the doctor asked her.
"Yes, I'm her sister." Claire said with an incredible calmness that surprised herself.
"Your... sister is in a stable condition." the doctor told her, news that made Claire relax immensely. "She would like to talk to you, but after I would like to talk to you as well for... other arrangements."
"Of course." Claire agreed. "Thank you."
The doctor nodded, then let Claire into the room. There her sister lay on the hospital bed looking at the ceiling with a dulled face. A look Claire recognized that meant that Celeste was in a deep thinking state. Slowly, the elder sister walked toward the younger. When Celeste noticed her sister, she did all in her power not to cry as she uttered the words;
"I'm sorry..."
Claire gave a short run and hugged her sister.
"No." Claire said. "It's not your fault, and it never will be. I love you."
Celeste closed her eyes as a single tear slid down her cheek as she hugged her sister back.
"I love you too." she said, and for the longest time, the two sisters would not let go of each other. But Celeste was the one who broke the two apart. She looked at her sister with dull eyes.
"Mother's first name was Lani too, wasn't it?" Celeste asked. "She didn't like her middle name, so she and Father gave me a new one."
"That's right." Claire agreed, remembering the day of Celeste's birth almost like yesterday. They were both so young then, who would have thought that day would become one like this...
"Is that also why we chose to treat my middle name like it was my first name?" Celeste then asked. "So we didn't confuse my name with Mother's?"
"Yes." Claire agreed again. "That is why we did that. It was my idea, if I remember correctly."
Celeste nodded then thought some more. When she thought of a new question, she looked at Claire again.
"Does your boyfriend... uh, Hershel, right? Does he... will you tell him anything about me...?"
Claire jumped a little. Hershel Layton was the furthest thing from her mind right now. As horrible as it seemed, but it was true. Hershel and Celeste had had so little contact, he wouldn't have even known her if he was looking right at her.
"I will only tell him what you want me too." Claire told her sister reassuringly. "I can't hide the whole world from him, because he's rather brilliant in his own right, but if you don't want me to..."
"Don't." Celeste told her sister. "I don't want him to know about me. The ways I've hurt you in just tonight alone... Claire, if he makes you happy, I don't want to get in the way of that."
Claire looked at her sister with her head titled a little. Nothing stopped the older sister from wondering if something had messed with the workings of her little sister's brain during the events of tonight. But, it was still a wish.
"I promise." Claire told her sister. Celeste smiled and lay back on her pillow with peace. Claire looked at her sister and smiled. But, although her eyes were closed, Celeste was not done asking questions.
"What are they going to do with me?" Celeste asked.
"I..." Claire stammered a little, not sure how to answer. Celeste opened her eyes to look at her sister with curiosity. "They might decide to place you in a rehabilitation center."
"And...?" Celeste asked, sitting up again.
"They might want to place you in a local center." Claire told her sister. "But you and I know that the local centers might as well be called asylums."
"So..." Celeste asked, confused on how this was going.
"So," Claire said slowly, "If it was possible, I wanted to send you to one in America. I had been... researching, just in case. Bill Hawks, one of the men working on that project that we've talked about before, he has given his word that he will pay for the best service that a Prime Minster could give."
"He's not Prime Minister." Celeste pointed out.
"I know." Claire agreed. "But he is a man of honor... and money."
Celeste nodded.
"But... if I'm sent to America," Celeste started to say, "What will happen to you? What if we never see each other again?"
Claire shook her head. Her sister was thinking further ahead than what Claire had.
"Bill had ordered one last run of the experiment before we completely close it down." Claire admitted. "Dmitri is... unsure of the machine's stability. I am going to be the first to use it. If anything happens to me, I made Bill and Dmitri swear to make sure you never existed. You would disappear with me. But in reality, you would be safe in America. No one will be able to get you, and you will be well looked after."
Celeste thought this over, then nodded. Tears were fighting their way out, both in Celeste's and Claire's eyes.
"Forever is an awfully long time." Celeste finally said, her eyes dulled over.
"Only when I'm without you." Claire said, giving her sister one last hug.
Optional listening; You Tube /watch?v=B2XK9Dia38o