CW: The Dynamic Duo – Always Together.

“You nervous?” Tina asked her sister, in between sips of orange juice.

“Just a little,” Brooke responded as she chewed on her slice of toast. All the things that could go wrong…

“Aren’t you supposed to be the braver one?”

Brooke chuckled, thinking about all the crazy stunts they pulled as kids. Riding in a laundry basket down a steep set of steps, laying in the middle of the road and only rushing off when the approaching cars got close, wrapping one another from head to toe in toilet paper and then pushing each other into walls or breakable objects. All of them – Brooke’s ideas. Those were the times…

The ‘Dynamic Duo’ they called them at home and at school. You’d never see one without the other. Their mom often reminded them of how – even as babies – they used to sleep with their pinky fingers intertwined. The sisters had spent 25 years under the same roof, always being there for one another but now things were going to change.

With a heavy heart, Brooke looked into Tina’s green eyes. “I’ll miss you.”

“And I’ll miss YOU!” Tina grabbed her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “But it’s not like Jeff and I are moving to a different planet. We’ll still see each other ALL the time,” she added with a pearly-white smile and interlaced her pinky with Brooke’s. “The Dynamic Duo – Always Together. Right?”

Brooke glanced at her sister’s engagement ring now rubbing against her finger. “Mhm…” Withdrawing her hand, she reached for her coffee cup. “I know,” she began before taking a sip. “I know I’m being silly. It’s just-”

“No, you’re not. It will be an adjustment for me, too,” Tina said sternly yet softly, her eyes filled with sadness. Surely Brooke must have known that this would happen someday.

“OK, enough of this sappy shit!” Brooke waved her hand and rolled her eyes. “Are you excited for today?” she beamed.

“SO excited! Fiji’s beautiful and I can’t wait to see more of it!” Tina almost jumped in her seat. “I know it must have co-“

“Oh, please, stop it!” Brooke interjected. “It’s my pre-wedding gift to you,” she added. “Well, to me, too,” she added promptly.

They both chuckled, took final bites and sips, and left the cafeteria hand in hand.

After grabbing their backpacks filled with snacks, a change of clothes, and some toiletries from their hotel room, the two sisters embarked on a 15-minute walk to the travel agency. From there, they were bussed to the place from where their plane was to take off.

“This is going to be SO cool,” Tina exclaimed exiting the bus.

“So cool!” Brooke echoed her looking at the plane and all the gear in front of it.

The skydiving instructor walked up to them, introduced himself, and then proceeded to give them an in-depth presentation on what to do and what not to do. “Go get changed now,” he announced once he was done with his speech. “You have 15 minutes. Hopefully, that is enough time for you to put on the skydiving apparel and calm yourself down, but not too long for you to start getting anxious.”

Tina and Brooke nodded and headed for the bus to change.

“I’m just gonna go check out the plane,” Brooke said once she was dressed.

“OK,” Tina replied as she zipped her suit up. Now she was getting nervous.

Brooke walked around the plane and inspected its condition. No dents. She chuckled, not knowing how she would be able to tell if the plane were in good condition. The parachute backpacks looked much bigger and heavier than she had expected. I guess we won’t be walking with those anyway. She tried to amuse herself so as not to let the anxiety surface.

“Ready or not, here I come!” Tina yelled across the lawn.

Brooke ran to meet her halfway and they hugged, giggling.

“Let’s do this,” Brooke said and Tina nodded.

Hand in hand, they walked onto the plane.

Once the aircraft took off, the sisters kept quiet, both trying to center themselves and prepare for the biggest jump of their lives. Literally.

“I’ll go,” Brooke mouthed when they approached the set altitude.

Tina nodded and gave her a thumbs up. She wanted to smile, but her heart was about to rip through her chest wall. You can do this! she tried to calm herself.

As Brooke rolled out of the plane, reflexively, Tina tried to lunge forward and grab her sister. Thankfully, the instructor was there to stop her in time. Tina wondered if maybe jumping out of a plane wasn’t such a good idea, after all. But it was too late for that – Brooke was hurling away from her and toward the ground. Tina gulped. Somehow throughout the years, as if in preparation to live separately, the sisters rubbed off on each other and Tina became braver and Brooke more grounded. Skydiving was Tina’s bucket list item, not Brooke’s, and Tina would never be able to live with herself… What if something goes wrong?

At that moment Brooke’s parachute had opened and Tina breathed out a sigh of relief. A smile appeared on her face. They would have so much to talk about on their way back to the city!

While still slightly nervous, Tina almost lept from the plane. Free as a bird!

Once Brooke got out from underneath the chute, she looked up at her sister in midair. She was worried for her – she then understood how Mom felt as they did dangerous things without a care in the world. Doing and observing have totally different emotions associated with them. Brooke’s heart beat so fast and loud that – for a moment – she was worried that she would have a heart attack. Consciously slowing down her breathing, she kept her eyes peeled on Tina. “C’mon, c’mon!” she murmured, unable to assess if the parachute should have opened by then or if there was still time.

Tina’s body was growing larger and larger as it came closer and closer to the ground.

The scream became louder, too.

Until they stopped.

The noise from Tina hitting the ground caused Brooke to close her eyes and turn away. “Brooke!” she screamed, running towards her sister.

The doctor rushed toward them from the other side.

“BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE!” Brooke screamed, covering her sister’s mangled body with her own.

After having calmed down a bit, Brooke dialed Jeff’s number.

“Sup, T? How was the jump?” Jeff asked.

Brooke slipped the engagement ring onto her finger. It looked much nicer on her hand.

“B-B-Brooke…” she stuttered through tears.

“What about her? What happened?”

“Dead!” she wailed.

“Oh, my God, Tina! I am so sorry! Do you need me to come to get you?”

“N-no. I’ll make arrangements and be on the first flight out.” She blew her nose and ended the call.

Brooke looked at her twin sister’s body one more time. It was eerie looking at a reflection of oneself. A bloodied, smooshed, broken reflection of oneself. “That’s what you get for trying to leave me,” Brooke whispered. You are Tina now. She kept reminding herself the whole way back to the hotel. She would have the entire flight home to make sure she was ready for the role of a lifetime. While Tina always wanted to go skydiving, Brooke dreamt of a big acting role. Seemed like they both got what they wanted. She chuckled.

***

“Write a story inspired by the word ‘dynamic.'”
– prompt used for this CW piece.
[Source: BlogBattle]

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P.S. As always, you are more than welcome to use this prompt to inspire your post. If you decide to write something, be sure to pingback to this post so that I can get an alert and check out your piece. (A post on how to do pingbacks can be found here.) If pingbacks are not your thing, feel free to simply leave a link to your piece in the comment section below. The more, the merrier!

Stay golden,

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