The moral of the story is that you never fall for who you’re supposed to.

To you, the one who took everything that was once mine, the one I’m still learning to forgive.

People want to be good, but the world we live in won’t let them. You were the one who taught me that. You told me to learn to give people second chances because everyone deserved to feel loved.

You called me a pathological liar once. You were right; I am but, so are you.

You taught me that family is the most important thing but, I didn’t understand that until I didn’t have you guys anymore. I didn’t understand it when mum took your side and dad took mine. I didn’t understand it until I broke their marriage. But I guess age isn’t synonymous to wisdom.

I knew all the things we did had consequences, but I never believed in the law of karma. If we did a lot of bad things but were able to do more good than bad, would that cancel out the bad? I thought it would. I thought if there were more good things, we would be too busy reaping the benefits of the good we had done that the bad would come and it wouldn’t kick us down. I thought that I would enjoy the benefits of the good I had done for so long that I would be long gone on this Earth and not have to face the music for my actions.

I was wrong. You were right, again. Our actions have consequences and we will face them sooner or later. That doesn’t mean I believe in karma though. What it means is that I should have told you.

We were getting so much better at pretending everything was okay until he came along and messed everything up. Nothing is okay.

You asked me a question once and I told you I didn’t know the answer. I should have told you no because that was the right answer. I did know then. I just pretended like I didn’t.

I loved him. I loved him and you took him from me. We were best friends, Noah and I. We did everything together. You’d tease me about him all the time and I’d blush and deny that I had feelings for him. I didn’t. Not until he was yours anyway. You took my best friend and made him your boyfriend.

That was what stung.

I looked exactly like you. We were the same height and had the same curly brown hair. We had the same face for goodness’ sake! But he had never looked at me that way, the way he looked at you.

I knew all the little things about him no one seemed to realize, like how his favourite colour was yellow but not the yellow that was the colour of the sun or sunflowers. His favourite colour was the yellow that was at the centre of daisies. He loved explaining it to people, but they’d look at him like he was crazy so he told them his favourite colour was white when they asked to get to know him.

The day you asked him, he told you it was white and winked at me. I was the only one that knew what it meant and I felt special because both of you never bothered to make time for me when you hung out. I fell for him while he was yours but I never told you because I never planned to act on my feelings.

I didn’t act on my feelings but your paranoia drove you mad. You knew I liked him. You knew before I did and you took him from me. I was angry. I was more than angry. I was raving, so I kissed him right in front of you so you would feel everything I felt when I had to see that.

I regretted it immediately but when you asked me I told you I didn’t know if I did. I did though. I swear I did. I just wanted it to hurt you the way it was hurting me. I wanted you to feel how I was feeling. Then you looked at us, and I looked at you and saw him look at you and I realized that even if he had fallen for me, he never would have looked at me that way.

You didn’t speak to me after that, not until four months passed. A lot changed in those months. Mum and dad got separated and our family fell apart, mum with you and dad with me. I hadn’t seen Noah in those four months at all. I don’t know what telling you will achieve but, I feel you should know. Four months of you not talking to me had nearly driven me insane and then just like that Noah died or at least I thought he did. The descriptions matched perfectly and there was no one to identify the body. We could have but we decided it was best not to get involved. He died in that plane crash. I was so sure because you decided to identify the body after all.

He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. I visited him every day with daises and talked to him for hours.

I wasn’t talking to him, I was talking to a stranger. You had stolen someone’s identity because the name on the gravestone said, Noah Davis. It had his name and his birth date. I cried thinking about him and he was alive!

You made me feel like an idiot when I told you I saw him standing there on Merriweather Street, smiling at me as I carried my groceries home. You made me feel like I was seeing things but, I wasn’t. He was there and he did smile at me. He smiled the way he always had and I froze, groceries and all. Different people stopped to look at me strangely. But I could only snap out of my trance when I was hit from behind and dropped the groceries. When I looked up, he was gone. But, he sent me a letter last week so, I know I didn’t imagine it. He really was there.

You lied to me. Noah wasn’t dead. He went by Corbin Meyer now; the man that had actually died in the plane crash; the man with no family. There was no trace of him before the crash anywhere. The both of you had stolen his identity (which meant you had been in contact with him) and no one had noticed. He wanted a fresh start and you used the opportunity to get rid of him. He sent me the letter because he wanted to close this chapter and start ‘afresh’.

Maybe all this wouldn’t have happened if I never kissed him. I would have been able to live with seeing you guys date and probably break up, so in the end, I’d have the both of you together but separate, ‘my sister’ and ‘my best friend’ not, ‘my sister and my best friend’. Or, maybe things would have ended the same, we go our separate ways. Who knows?

Charlotte Joko Beck said, “You can’t fix everything.” While this is true, it doesn’t mean we can’t try. Forgiveness is a journey. You didn’t know that. Forgiveness is also a choice, and it’s not easy. You taught me everyone deserves a second chance, but it was so easy for you to write me off. I get it now because you were in pain. You were right though, everyone does deserve a second chance. But I was right because I told you those aren’t easy to give. But, we get chances every day to be better and make up for our mistakes. Not everyone does but the chances are worth it for those who do.

I didn’t love him, I thought I did. I loved the way he treated you. I didn’t love him; I felt left out. I wanted someone to treat me the way he treated you.

There’s no do-over or time machine, but there are second chances and there was a time before Noah. There was a time when it was Heaven and Nevaeh against the world. I hated the name Nevaeh and wondered why you got to be Heaven. I hated it until I didn’t because Nevaeh means ‘life’. You were ‘heaven’ and I was ‘life’.