It is cold.

Rain is falling, pattering on the leaves around me, sliding in small icy streams down the back of my neck. I know I should seek shelter, but I don't move. I'm staring into the lake as if it holds all the answers to every question I've ever asked.

I think I have been cold a lot lately; it's hard to remember. Everything, all my memories and feelings, have been indistinct, fading into a hazy blur, since...

A jarring impact, glass shattering. Cries of pain; cries not my own. Flames leaping up, casting orange light across twisted metal.

Me, suddenly cold sober, staring in airless shock at what I'd done. Shattered. But not so shattered as two little bodies clad in frilly pink dresses...

Their names were Sarah and Marissa. They were twins. They would turn three years old in four days. Sarah wanted to be a princess; Marissa wanted to be a doctor. They were excited because they were going to have their birthday party at Grandma's house.

They had a funeral instead.

Sarah was the more outgoing of the two; she often spoke for Marissa. Now neither of them will ever speak again.

I cannot atone.

I cannot be forgiven.

Danny and I had been going steady since junior high. We had planned our future together -- kids, house, everything. We would marry right out of high school, and I would be a stay-at-home mom. We made promises, promises I fully intended to keep.

Two weeks before graduation he took me out to tell me he was breaking off the engagement. He'd met somebody else.

Do you know how it feels to have your heart torn from your chest and stomped on? I thought I did when he left me. I was very, very wrong.

I hardly ever drink. I've always been one of the good kids, the automatic designated driver, the responsible straight-A student who never takes risks.

Two beers.

I drank two beers to numb my pain, and then I drove home. I was sure I could drive. I felt like a better driver than usual. I knew I would get home safely. This was me; accidents didn't happen to me.

I never saw them.

There was the impact, then only flashes: flames, screams, the ground cold beneath my feet as I stood and stared at what I'd done.

I stared without even blinking until my eyes dried out and began to sting. I stared until something inside of me was as dead as those two little girls who would never have their party at Grandma's.

My blood alcohol content was below the legal level, barely. They treated me and sent me home.

And I knew, as surely as if they had condemned me and sent me to rot in a dungeon, what I had done.

Two beers stand between two beautiful, caramel-skinned little girls and the future they'll never have.

I cannot be forgiven.

I'm always cold now. Warmth is one of those things that has fled my world along with color and laughter. I live in a world of ice, displayed in the somber tones of an old movie.

I cannot be forgiven.

Sarah and Marissa, two little girls in a world full of little girls with dreams. Sarah and Marissa, two little girls I killed.

"Can you forgive me?" I ask, not expecting an answer. My breath hangs in the air around my face. It's starting to rain harder, soaking through my clothes, but I don't move. I don't think I'll ever leave this spot.

I found the broken beer bottle this morning and knew right away what I would use it for. One might call it poetic justice, I suppose, but poetry means nothing to me now. It existed with laughter and color, in the world I knew before.

Cutting my wrist hurts; I don't care. Pain is of no consequence. I deserve it. I deserve to burn in hell.

There's a lot of blood in the human body, but I've managed to get rid of a good deal of mine. I don't remember falling, but I know I'm on my back, because the rain is pounding in my face. I can feel the grass beneath me, but it's all receding, washing away with the tide. I have given the last thing I have to give. Can I be forgiven now?

My last thought before it all fades away is of two beers.

Two beers that forever stand between us -- tiny twin girls and a shy high school student - and the lives we might have had.