What's that thing people say about silence being deafening? Not only is it deafening, it's also physically palpable. That afternoon I felt like I could taste it, or maybe that was the blood I was tasting from where I'd bit my own lip while launching myself at McKenzie. For a while, the two of us just sat upright on the couch looking straight ahead, not daring to move and certainly not daring to make eye contact.

Tick, tick, tick...

All I could hear was the second hand of the huge grandfather clock killing time. Murdering it one second at a time. In a way, I envied it. I wanted to murder someone right now..... I felt very murderous.

I was still seething. Only this time it was the more silent dangerous kind of seethe. I was busy cataloguing everything. Every last thing that McKenzie had ever done to me, and I was racking my brain for her Achilles heel. Where could I hurt her that would have the most effect?

Throwing myself into a physical fight with her was child's play. The stakes had now been raised. I was in it for proper revenge. Despite what my dad had said, I wanted to make her feel like I did right now.

I heard the fabric of the couch ripple and out of the corner of my eye I saw her cross her legs. She was wearing her short pastel pink skirt, she had the smoothest, longest legs I'd ever seen. They were always tanned, even in winter. Always shiny, like she rubbed glitter on them every morning. The skirt was attached to some tight shirt- obvs (as she would say). Her long blonde hair was so shiny, it was like a mirror. Shiny was kind of her thing.

McKenzie clenched her hands in her lap and started wringing them. Anxiety? So unlike her. She was probably just warming them up for another bitch slap session. Her muscles tensed and I looked back up to her face in time to see a small tear escape her eye and roll down her cheek—Are you fucking kidding me?

I jumped out of my seat, and glared down at her. "You're crying?! What the hell do you have to cry about?"

"I didn't want things to end up like this," McKenzie wailed and then burst into tears. Not just tears, she was sobbing.

I backed away, almost frightened by this very uncharacteristic show of emotion. I didn't know whether to believe it, or whether to nominate her for an Oscar. I guess she could read my mind, because she glared up at me.

"I mean it!" she cried out again. Wow, if she was acting, those snot bubbles were a stroke of genius. "I really, really didn't want this to happen!" She began looking around helplessly for something to blow her nose. Okay, I guess she was being serious.

"Well, what the hell did you think was going to happen when you did it?" I wasn't ready to join her in sobbing. I still wanted an explanation.

"You're as blind as him, you know that," she said, looking up at me. Her face was ugly and smeared with black mascara, and I had never seen this version of her before. Ever.

I shook my head. "Blind? Can you be a little more cryptic please?"

"BLIND!" She screamed the word at me. "You were my best friend! You know that? You were my everything. I looked up to you so much... my big sister, even if it was only by two minutes. And then one day some guy moves in next-door and you dump me. Just like that!" She started to sob again and my mouth fell open in shock. "For ten years I've been trying to get your attention. It's totally pathetic, I know. I've done everything to get you to talk to me, to look at me, to spend five minutes of time with me–like we used to. Even if we're fighting it's better than nothing, at least you act like I exist!"

I stepped back as her words punched me in the gut with forced. Her sobbing tapered off and she hung her head.

"So, yeah. You've been as blind as Connor this whole time."

I was stunned. Floored. I didn't know what to say. She had me in a total stupor.

"But I didn't mean for it to go this far... I swear," she whimpered softly and an unfamiliar part of me wanted to reach out and comfort her. "I shouldn't have read your emails and pretended to be the mystery kisser, but I just wanted to hurt you as much as you've hurt me and I...." she shook her head, bit her lip and stopped talking. I could see she was fighting back another wave of sobs. "I took it too far."

I reached for the bookshelf next to me. I had to, it felt like my legs would give way under me and that I might fall if I didn't grab ahold of something. Had I really done what she'd just accused me of? I thought back to when we were younger and remembered she had always tried to play with Connor and me. We would tease her because she couldn't climb the tree, or run as fast as us. She was so girly. We were playing in the mud and making secret forts, while she was wearing frilly pink dresses.

It felt like someone snapped an elastic band inside my brain. She was right. I had deserted her. I'd dumped my twin sister, my best friend, for him. All her bitchiness, it was all to get my attention.

I looked down at McKenzie, she was nervously fingering the hem of her skirt like a small child. She looked so vulnerable. The cold façade that she wore like armour was gone. She looked like that little girl I had played with all those years before.

My heart broke.

I had abandoned her, for Connor.

Was he really worth all that?

I had this strange desire to sit next to her. "Um...I..." I started the sentence with no real idea about where it was going—What the hell am I supposed to say to all that? But McKenzie looked up expectantly. Clearly she was waiting for me to give a meaningful response.

"You what?" she asked, wiping a tear from her face.

"I guess I also never meant for it to go so far."

"And...?" McKenzie prompted me more.

"Shit! I don't know." I sounded frustrated, and I was aware that this was probably not the reaction she wanted. "I mean... I knew from the moment I did the whole "mystery mint kisser" thing, that I was in shit. In fact, I knew from the moment we kissed in the dark, I was in shit. It's all just such a mess and now Connor says... he says..."

"Says what?" she asked, looking concerned.

"Says he loves me! Okay. After all this time... he loves me." I bit my lip hard to stop my own tears. Despite McKenzie's show of emotion, I still didn't feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable in front of her, especially when it came to Connor.

"He's always loved you," she whispered. "I mean, who wouldn't?"

"Huh?"

"Sadie, you've always been..." She paused as if she was searching for the words. "You've always been the cool one."

"Sorry, what?"

"You don't give a shit what people think about you. You say what's on your mind; you stand up for yourself, even when we were younger. The boys were scared of you because no one messed with Sadie Glover. Everyone knew that. And I'm... whatever. Whatever, Sadie. I feel like I'm pouring my guts out to you here and you're saying nothing, so whatever."

She crossed her arms defensively and pouted. Her face returned to its usual McKenzie look and when she spoke again, her voice had totally changed. "OMG, I'm just so over this conversation right now I could die!" she blurted while straightening her skirt and wiping the mascara from her face, eliminating all traces of the McKenzie that had just fallen apart.

Suddenly, I got it all—Light bulb moment.

This McKenzie that sat in front of me right now, the one that bitched and moaned and pouted was not the real McKenzie at all. It was all for show. It was all part of an elaborate, well-crafted defence mechanism. I had abandoned her and this was how she coped. My heart broke and I knew, unequivocally, that I had to fix our relationship because I was the one who'd broken it.

"McKenzie..." I inched towards her.

"What?" She snapped.

"I'm sorry. I mean it. I'm really sorry."

She eyed me suspiciously, as if she didn't believe the words coming out of my mouth.

"For what?" she whispered, looking emotional again. She was on a roller coaster. I'd never seen her that "un-composed".

"For abandoning you like that to Connor like that. I didn't know it bothered you so much, because I didn't think you even liked me. One day you just stopped liking me and I thought you didn't care—"

She cut me off with a scream. "I had to stop liking you! Don't you get it? If I let myself love you, it would have just been too...." She burst into tears again, and this time, without second-guessing myself, I rushed over and hugged her. She hugged me back so hard that it hurt.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry McKenzie." It was all I could say and I kept repeating it over and over. It felt good to hug her again. All those childhood emotions came rushing back. Sadie and McKenzie, the inseparable twins, joined at the hip, partners in crime. That's what everyone had said about us.

"Me too," she said burrowing into my neck, which now felt wet and sticky from all the tears and snot. "I'm sorry I messed stuff up with Connor."

I shook my head. "It's okay." And in that moment I meant it.

We both pulled away from each other and for the longest time, just stared at each other. McKenzie curled her nose up and wiggled it at me and I smiled. Her famous nose wiggle had always made me laugh as a child, but she hadn't done it in years. Soon my smile grew and without thinking about it, I was chuckling.

"It looks even more ridiculous now!" I said in between laughs.

"What does?" She wiggled her nose again and we both burst out laughing.

"So what does this mean?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "I don't know. But maybe we could start over or something?"

I nodded at her. "I'd like that. Very much."

"Me too," she said as a tear rolled down her check again. This time I joined her.

"CRAP!" She shouted. "I wish I could stop this crying, it's so messy and my mascara is not waterproof!"

I laughed again. That was such a McKenzie thing to say—In a good way.