For a second, I wondered if this was a dream; Vicky half-naked in my arms, holding me tightly and brawling her eyes out. My fingers burrowed into her hair as I held her. Her soft skin brushed against mine and desire flickered to life. I was thoroughly aroused and if it wasn't for her crying, I might have taken her right here.

She was breathing erratically, and that's when I sensed something was truly wrong.

I tipped her chin up to face me, "Where is your inhaler?"

"M-m-my bag downstairs," She managed to choke out.

She was losing her breath and looked paler than usual. Her face was draining out of all the color and I needed to act fast.

I picked her body up from the dresser and placed her on the bed. "Do not move from here, I'm going to go down and find your bag. Okay?"

She held onto me, tightly, "Tyler, don't...don't...leave me..." there was fear so clear in her stormy gray eyes.

I smoothened her hair and kissed her head, "I need to either get your meds or the inhaler. I'll be here before you know it. I promise." I assured her even though it was killing me to leave her alone like this.

Getting her into the discarded t-shirt was going to be difficult so I pulled the bed-sheet lying there and wrapped it around her half naked body.

"Stay here, baby. I'll be back soon."

She nodded as she coughed and practically fought to breathe. "Ty..." she breathed.

"One minute. That's all I need." I said as I barreled out of the room without even having a shirt on, not giving a flying fuck that people had stopped and continued to stare at me as I ran down the stairs like a madman.

I looked at every single corner of the basement and came empty. The billiards table was crowded, but I plowed my way through the people and looked into every inch. I had at least spent five minutes when I found the bag lying on the kitchen table.

"Hey, man, what's gotten into you?"

I turned to stare at Archer, "your sister is having an episode."

As soon as I said that, he dropped his hand from the arm of some girl and followed me to the bedroom upstairs.

When I saw Vicky lying on the bed with her eyes closed and white mucus-like liquid spurting out of her mouth, I almost had what I'd call my very first coronary. She was out-cold, not breathing, not blinking, just lying on the bed, unmoving.

And that scared me BIG FUCKING TIME.

"Vic...Vicky!" I was by her side in an instant, and I picked her up into my arms and pushed the inhaler into her mouth, pumping relentlessly. "Breathe, baby, please..."

It was also the time when I had my first encounter with real fear. Fear of losing someone precious to me, fear of losing a part of me that I never knew existed.

I threw the inhaler aside and pumped her chest, "She's not...breathing!"

Archer stared at her and me in complete silence, he was going under shock I believed and he wasn't able to react. His body had gone stiff, his expressions were unreadable.

I ignored him and I wiped her mouth with my discarded t-shirt to perform CPR on her but she was still unresponsive. I never cried and I thought I was going to cry like a bitch.

"What the fuck you standing there for? Call 911! We need the goddamn ambulance!"

It's when I screamed in his face that he snapped out of the trance and reached out for his phone and began calling the emergency.

"You know what, Fuck it! I'm taking her to the hospital myself." I said as I picked her limp body up and carried her downstairs.

Now we had a huge audience, the size of a movie theatre and news was going to spread like wildfire.

Not that I cared.

I placed Vicky in the backseat with her brother who was still acting mute. I pushed the car into drive and slammed my leg hard on the gas and drove so fast you would think I was a Formula One racer. Throughout the drive, I kept thinking about what would happen if Vicky really died.

Archer sobbed in the backseat while continuously calling out to his sister, "Vicky...wake up. Come on, Vicky."

I was pissed with a capital P, "This is your fucking fault, Archer, don't go brawling like a pussy now that she's dying."

"She won't die! Stop saying that asshole!" He bellowed from the backseat.

Right. I needed a person to assure me that she wasn't dying because if Vicky died my future was bleak. Without Vicky in it, there was absolutely no future because all I saw without her was clouds of darkness and no light. Absolutely nothing. Life without Vicky is what I knew had to be depression.

I was so furious with Archer, I could punch him through platform number 9 3/4 into the Hogwards Express, I trembled with fury. Vicky was his sister, and he knew her condition, couldn't he just put some ground rules on her that she wasn't allowed to such parties because the smoke wasn't good for her? Didn't the parents realize that?

Oh right, the parents were so busy solving their marital issues that they didn't have time to give a damn about their sick seventeen-year-old daughter.

Scenarios began playing in my head. What if the doctors said that she needed more medical assistance?

Yeah, I'd fly her to the best hospital in a jet if that's what it took, but there was no way I was letting her die. Especially not when the both of us were still virgins.

We admitted her directly to the hospital. I would have preferred to put her in the hospital owned by my uncle but that was an hour away from here and I couldn't take that risk with Vicky when she was in such a critical condition.

Archer and I watched as Vicky was put on a gurney, with an oxygen mask covering her mouth. All I had to do was tell them who I was and show them some identification and they carried on with business. I was ready to fight them hard if they didn't.

She wasn't dead, and that was a relief. The doctor named Kelly told us the attack was so severe that she had gotten unconscious, but a little more delay in getting her untreated would have been deadly for her life.

Archer still wasn't acting like himself. He'd gone pale all of a sudden. I touched his hand, "you okay, man?"

He shook his head, "I don't feel fine. Look, my hands are shaking." He showed me his hands, palms up.

"Wanna lie down?"

"No. It's okay. I'll be fine." He assured me. "It usually happens when she gets sick. I guess it's because we're twins, we're somewhat connected. It could just be psychological, I don't know. I just feel unwell."

"She'll be fine. I know it."

He passed me a look filled with gratitude, "Tyler, you saved her life. You saved my sister! I don't know how to thank you."

"Thank me when she wakes up," I told him.

We sat next there for an hour, battling with our thoughts and giving each other space until Mrs. Lane came barreling inside the hospital, crying hysterically and demanding to see her daughter.

Give me a fucking break!

Her mother was part of the reason Vicky had decided to show up at the party. If her parents hadn't had the big fight, she wouldn't have left the house at all.

"How is my baby?" She asked the doctor politely.

The doctor spoke with her for a few minutes, and then he said something that made her turn in my direction. After the doctor left, she power-walked towards me and pulled me into a tight hug.

"Thank you, Ty! Thank you so much! We owe you!"

I said nothing because if I did open my mouth, the lady wouldn't appreciate the words that would tumble out of it. I was holding back. It was really hard to control your basic instinct to speak bluntly.

"Now's not the time but I still need to know..." Archer said after a while when we were seated in the nearby plastic chairs.

"Need to know what?" I asked.

He cleared his throat, looked at me and then looked away. There were pink spots on his cheeks. "At the party, when I walked into the bedroom upstairs with you, I noticed that Vicky wasn't wearing her top. And then you weren't wearing your t-shirt either. Is there something you're not telling me that I should know, Tyler?"

Busted!

"You're right, now's not the time."

"Dude, if you're playing with her. If you're fucking with Victoria..."

"Calm your tits." I snapped. "It's nothing what you're thinking."

"Then what triggered the attack?"

"Maybe you should ask your mom and dad," I said curtly. There was no holding back the anger. I would blow up in a second.

"Why would I ask them?"

"Because clearly there are some things going on in your house that you're not aware of and Vicky seemed to be troubled by it so she came to the party looking for me. We started talking, I took her upstairs and tried to calm her down and you know the rest."

I edited the part where I asked her if she wanted to be boned or the part where we took off our tops and that my hands were enclosed on her breasts. Nope, wasn't going to say that.

"Still doesn't explain why you two were unclothed." He pressed.

I decided to check my phone, and scroll through it without actually paying attention to it. There were nearly two hundred messages in my Instagram DM's that I hadn't even read, I figured now was the time to do it.

"So now what? You guys are going to be together?"

"That depends on what Vicky wants," I said truthfully. "If we start dating, would you have a problem with it?"

"I wouldn't have a problem as long as Vicky doesn't have a problem, but that would surely change a lot of things between us."

We remained quiet for a long time because I didn't know what to say. Say if I did start dating Vicky and if I fuck things up (which I most likely would) then I wasn't just losing one friend but two and that was a big fucking gamble.

"I won't hurt her, I promise you that."

Archer looked straight at me and nodded, "Well, then it settles it."

My phone vibrated with a text message.

Mom: Where are you? It's pretty late and Morgan told me you're not home yet.

Me: I was at a party. Vicky was taken to the hospital. I'm with Archer.

Mom: At the hospital?! Is she fine? Can I come to see her?

Me: Maybe tomorrow. There's no need for you to visit now. I'll keep you posted.

Mom: Okay, love you.

Me: Love you too.

Dr. Kelly walked out of the room and I had my heart in my throat thinking of the worst. Mrs. Lane stood up abruptly and bombarded the doctor with questions. The relief I felt when I heard him say that Vicky was doing fine now was unreal.

"I can only allow one person to visit at the moment since I don't want her to feel anxiety again. I hope you understand. She's still a little dizzy."

"I'm her mother. I would like to see my daughter." Mrs. Lane said almost forcing her way towards the E.R.

I was the one who brought her in, and I was the one shitting bricks here thinking about her, surely I deserved the first visit.

Dr. Kelly blocked her way. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Lane, you can visit but maybe a little later. She's been asking for one person in particular." The doctor looked between me and Archer. "She keeps mumbling the name 'Ty'. Anyone of you is Ty?"

"That's me." I didn't need to be told twice as I brushed my way past a Surprised-Pikachu-Faced Mrs. Lane.

Mrs. Lane had done enough damage. It was time she passed over the reins of her daughter's life over to me since I was far better at taking care of her than she ever would be.

I had no doubt about that.