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stupid, really."
    "Let me be the judge of that."
    I sighed and fished out Adam's present from my bag. I hadn't even bothered gift−wrapping it.
    "A mix CD?"
    "I told you it's stupid."
    "Quit saying that!" he exclaimed. "Let's just listen to it."
    Before I could protest, Adam slipped the CD into the car stereo. Next thing I knew, Snow Patrol's Just Say Yes started playing in the background.
    "I like this one!" he said.
    We listened for awhile, and Adam drummed his finger against the wheel as the song reached its chorus. He began to sing along with it.
    Just say yes,
    Just say there's nothing holding you back...
    And I finally gave in and started singing with him too.
    It's not a test,
    Nor a trick of the mind,
    Only love.
    We were a little off key, but we didn't care. Adam gave me a look that clearly said, see, it's not stupid! and I felt a whole lot better.
    We were reaching the second chorus when Adam's phone rang. He slid it out from his pocket and when he saw who it was, the smile immediately disappeared from his face. He punched the end button without even answering the call.
    "Who is it?" I asked. We missed the chorus.
    "It's my brother," he said gruffly.
    Of course. There was only one person who could easily shift Adam's mood from sky high down to the far reaches of hell: his brother Eric, his identical twin brother who was his opposite in so many ways. It was easy to forget that Adam had a brother, let alone a twin. Eric was considered the black sheep of the family. I'd only met him twice before their parents decided to send him to an exclusive boarding school in New York. I've never heard of him since, except on some occasions when their parents talked about him when they thought Adam and I were out of earshot. And from what I heard, boarding school had only made Eric worse.
    The phone rang again and Adam just glared at it.
    "Aren't you going to answer? It's his birthday too," I reminded him as I turned the stereo's volume down a little. "Maybe he wants you to wish him a happy birthday or he's calling to say it to you. Either way, I think you should answer it."
    "Right." His expression softened a bit, though his grip on the steering wheel didn't.
    He pushed the ‘answer’ button and I held the phone to his ear so he wouldn't have to wedge it between his head and shoulder.
    "What do you want?" he asked.
    I could hear Eric's voice at the end of the line, though I couldn't understand what he was saying. Not that I intended to eavesdrop.
    "No, absolutely not!" Adam said. "I already helped you the last time."
    Another pause.
    Adam set his jaw as he hastily grabbed the phone from my hand.
    "So now it's my problem too?" He was almost shouting now. "You know what? I have an idea. Stop being a pain in the ass!"
    He pushed the end button and tossed the phone on the dashboard. His face was red and I noticed that his knuckles were as white as the bone underneath the taut skin.
    It had stopped raining and everything was quiet except for the song that was still playing softly in the background. I was about to ask Adam what just happened when the phone rang again.
    "Maybe I should just turn it off,” he said.
    "What does he want?"
    "Nothing important," he said, but he kept on glancing at his phone.
    "Just answer it. Maybe he has no one to celebrate his birthday with."
    Adam rolled his eyes. “Believe me, he has a lot of friends to celebrate his birthday with.” But he reached for his phone anyway. He almost had it in his hand when a bump on the road made it slip from his grasp. I considered bending down to reach for it but Adam waved me off.
    "I got this," he said.  Little did I know that those where the last words I’d hear him say.
    I always thought that terrifying accidents only happen in movies, but the moment the car swerved followed by a loud crash, I was convinced that terrifying things did happen in real life. And it could happen when you least expect it.
    In an instant, whole world stopped. Everything became quiet,