This chap is told from Jade's point of veiw. I thought it was important to get this in early to explain things that happen in later chapters ;o) Hope you like!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in this fic. I don't own the song either which is by Dido and is called "Worthless".

I know why you're leaving

and I'll just let it be

I am left with nothing

and now you're lost to me

Things are always easy in books. There's struggles of course and conflicts and wars and deaths but in the end everything is always alright. They get married, have a couple of kids or just walk off smiling into the sunset. Everything is always resolved, there's nothing you're left wondering about. Every worry is set to rest, every problem has found a way of getting solved, every question has found a way of getting answered. If only real life were as simple. My experience of life is, there's always something hidden beneath smiles. There's always some question you haven't got around to answering yet, someone's story that hasn't been told and some worry that nags at you. Even when people die, they can't walk away smiling into the sunset, there's always something.

It's been a month since Kirsty left. When I came home that Saturday and found the house empty, I wasn't worried. I knew that Kirsty was grounded but she's always breaking the rules and by that time I had gotten really sick of it and I told myself that she wasn't going to listen to me anyway so there was no point in me getting involved. It wasn't so long ago that she and I used to be best friends as well as sisters. We knew absolutely everything about each other and we even had a weird psychic connection so we could tell what each other was feeling. But since she got to a certain age, Kirsty started changing. She didn't really want anything to do with me anymore and her feelings had become unreadable, like somewhere inside her she had closed a door on me and the rest of the family. She ditched our old group of friends and started to hang around with these mature, sophisticated looking girls from the hairdressers where she had quit school in order to work. I was really worried when she started going out to clubs at night but as usual she just said that I was getting as bad as Colleen and brushed my fears away like those sort of places were completely safe for a fourteen year old girl. When she had the drug overdose it really seemed like she had learnt her lesson. She was ever so apoligetic at first and Mum and Dad did their overprotective thing, desperate to make sure that she couldn't get into trouble like that again. I knew that Kirsty felt guilty about what she did but when you try and box somebody in, like Mum and especially Dad did, it always leads to rebellion of some kind. Kirsty started going out when she wasn't supposed to, lying to them and every day there seemed to be some sort of fight between them. She wouldn't let me in when I tried to be understanding although that was very hard when people are as annoying and stubborn as Kirsty was then. She wouldn't listen to anything Mum and Dad had to say and whenever I tried to make things right between them she accused me of sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted, acting like a school-teacher or a mini-Dani. I remember the night before she went off on the ill fated Mirigini and some row or another was hanging in the air between her and Mum and I had been trying to persuade her to make an effort. I told her I was sick of living in a war zone and she was behaving like a spoilt brat. She looked at me with her eyes narrowed, her mouth curling down like she had a bitter taste on her tongue.

"I thought you were on my side." She spat, "I thought I could trust you, Jade but just because I'm not as perfect as you you're all ganging up on me."

"That's not how it is and you know it." I folded my arms. "It's not about being perfect but you've changed and I miss the old you. I hate the new you. All she does is cause problems and hurt people."

I've regretted those words ever since and every time I think of that regret, which is pretty often nowerdays, I think of her face the way it was then. Her chin thrust forward and her cheeks red with rage but her brown eyes so full of hurt. In fact, if I looked close enough I probably would have seen tears hovering beneath them. She quickly wiped the look away though and looked at me with contempt.

"Changing is called growing up and I really hope that you do it soon. Maybe then you won't be such a selfish, snobby little princess!" She slapped me right across the face so hard that when I looked in the mirror I could still see the imprint of her hand in blood red. She looked a little shocked at herself but not as shocked as me, I held on to my cheek and sobbed.

"You cow. I'm going to tell Mum and she'll make sure you're not allowed to go anywhere."

"Yeah go running to Mummy like a good little baby. Do you think I care? Has it stopped me before?" She smiled wickedly and then slammed the door on the way out of our bedroom. I sat on my bed and cried into my knees. I think that was the moment that I knew and I might have been in denial afterwards and hung on to her because I was too scared of the truth but right then I knew that we had lost her. The Kirsty I used to know was gone forever.

When the boat went down I thought she would die and my depressing thoughts had been realised. When she came back I was so glad, so relieved she was alive. But as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, when she was rescued, even before then, she wasn't ours anymore. She was his. I knew as soon as I saw the look in her eye when I sat by her hospital bed. I knew as soon as I heard that it had been him who had been there with her for all those days in the bush. I knew as soon as I heard her saying that he had been a bit of a hero, saved Mum's life and apparently was "misunderstood". She tried to tell me that he had a hard childhood, they had confided all this in each other, she said, out there in the bush. I looked at her and thought "How can you do this to Dani? To all of us? When I look at that... that monster all I can see is hatred. Deep burning hatred for what he did to my sister. And if she really loved Dani, she would feel nothing but what I feel." So I hated her too. I hated her and I didn't want to understand. There was nothing to understand but the fact that she wanted to get back at us for the way we had treated her before, the way we had boxed her in. But why? Why did she have to do it in such a cruel, heartless way? To hurt Dani who had been through so much already at the hands of him. To hurt Dani who didn't and still doesn't suspect that her own sister could be so wicked. To hurt Dani who was nothing but kindness to her, feeling guilty for not knowing about the drug overdose, wanting to do something, anything, to make Kirsty feel better. God, I hate Kirsty for that. I look at her empty bed and I hate her for running away and leaving me. I hate her for changing. But most of all I hate her for the look on Dani's face. She looks so torn up inside. Torn up with guilt because she thinks it's somehow her fault that Kirsty ran away. I wish I never had a sister. I wish my sister hadn't changed. I wished I could slap her, pull her to her senses, make her see. But she's miles away, god knows where with him and there's been so much searching but she hasn't been found. She won't be coming back. We've lost her forever.

Dad caught hold of my arm as I was making my way down the stairs with this journal a little while ago. I could tell from the look on his face that whatever he was about to say had something to do with Kirsty and her disappearance. Everyone wears the same look around here. Dark eyes framed with lines and bags, sad little mouths that droop with the weight of so many worries, so many possibilities. It's hard losing a family member but it's even harder when you don't know what has happened to them. I prayed that she would just get in touch, just to let us know he hadn't hurt her or anything. Maybe I would hate her a little less then.

"Jade... Your Mum and I have been talking and we've decided to tell Dani the truth about why your sister ran away... and who she ran away with... If we keep this secret any longer then..." I knew what he was saying. If we kept the secret any longer we would lose Dani too. What trust we put in family bonds! And how soon these bonds can be broken.

"I don't think she'll be able to take it." I muttered. Dad rubbed my shoulder and tried to smile.

"I don't think any of us can take it but we have to, that's what life's about."

I opened my mouth to say something more but just then Dani's bedroom door slammed and she came jogging down the stairs towards us, made up to the eyeballs, in skimpy clothes with a light smile on her lips. "What do you two look so guilty about?" She asked, giggling. "Should I have felt my ears burning?"

"No, we were just talking about Kirsty." I said quickly and she didn't seem to notice the way Dad's huge brown eyes, exactly the same as my twin's, clouded over with guilt. Dani's back straightened a little and she chewed the edge of her lip.

"There hasn't been any news, has there?"

"No. Where are you off to anyway?"

"Oh. Just out..." She smiled secretively and adjusted her handbag across her petite frame.

"Going to see Josh then?" I said, noticing the way she was wearing her "special" clothes. She gave me a look like I reminded her of someone she really disliked then twiddled with her hair.

"Um... Yes. Yeah, I'm going to see Josh."

"Make sure you're back for dinner!" Dad called as she bounded to the bottom of the stairs leaving behind her a cloud of the expensive perfume Josh, her boyfriend, had given her for her last birthday. Dad looked across at me. So they were going to tell Dani at dinner. They were going to wreck her life at dinner. I shuddered, hugged my journal closer, then followed her down the stairs.

So, what did you think?? Please RR and let me know!!!