Page 21 of My Twin Sister

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and I try to hide the overwhelming relief.

He stands and we go upstairs, murmuring our goodnights as we go. I hear the buzz of a phone as I walk away and I look back. Grace looks at the phone screen and quickly presses it to her ear and hurries to the kitchen. Who is she talking to this late?

I keep following Wyatt upstairs but feel an internal tug as I get farther from Grace. My sister and I shared a room our whole lives before that night. We had the space for separate bedrooms, but we never wanted to split up.

That summer, we would finally be separating and the thought made my chest feel tight. But we’d graduated high school. We’d be going to college and moving out. She would marry Wyatt and start a family and I’d be left behind.

“My stuff is still downstairs,” Wyatt says, shattering the memory.

“Right. I’ll get it,” I say.

“I can—”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ll be right back.”

I retrace my steps to retrieve Wyatt’s pillows and mouth guard that stay tucked between the side of the couch and the wall. I keep my ears peeled, hoping Grace has gone downstairs to her bed. When I get to the living room, I’m alone and I exhale, my shoulders relaxing.

I’m grateful for the unspoken agreement Wyatt and I seem to have made to hide our relationship issues from my sister. I don’t want her to know we’ve been struggling. I’m terrified her being back will be the final tear in the rope I’ve been clinging to.

This isn’t at all what I had planned, but I refuse to see it as anything but a blessing. My sister is alive. She didn’t die that night. We have another chance.

Wyatt sits on the edge of the bed when I get back. I hand him his things and go around to my side of the bed. Having him here feels strange. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone to bed together. I slip beneath the blankets and goosebumps spread across my skin.

I watch Wyatt strip down to his underwear before shutting off the light and lying down beside me. I can’t help but think of him and all those nights in his truck, tugging his shirt over his head and undoing his belt with a devilish grin that nearly put me into cardiac arrest. The nights that never should have happened but did.

I am not a good sister. I almost never was. But I have a second chance, and I somehow have to make things right with Grace without giving up everything I feel I’ve taken from her. It’s a balance that I don’t know exists, but I’m going to try. First and foremost is figuring out what she’s lying about and why. What really happened that night and the eighteen years that followed?

Sixteen: Grace

I miss the days when I could sleep for twelve hours without issue. It’s been a long time since then. Even before the night I drowned. There are too many things that keep me awake now. Too many monsters to hide from. Too many things to do. The Ambien my doctor prescribed helped for a little while. But I never liked the way I felt the mornings after taking it. I still keep them with me just in case though.

I decide to text Brooke on the number she left in my notes app. It’s interesting that she asked me not to tell anyone what we talked about. Not too much was said, but from what was said, I’m thinking I may have someone with information that could help me.

I examine the wall of boxes at the far end of the basement. Things from my sister and Wyatt’s life that have been packed away. I take the first box to my bed and start sorting through it while I wait for a response from Brooke.

A lot of it seems to be Geny’s stuff. I recognize a box filled with her old bedroom decor. Geny has always been sentimental. Never able to throw things away. I told her once I was going to call the Hoarders TV show on her.

A few boxes in, I get to a stack of old planners. I put away the rest of the stuff before climbing back into bed and starting in on them. It’s incredible to read through, to see what Geny was up to day-to-day over the years. These are from a few years ago. Carter was a baby. She has several of his early check-ups listed throughout the year.

And then, couple’s counseling is listed weekly at the end of 2021. Then twice weekly. I search through the box for 2022’s planner and finally find it near the bottom. January and February continue with the counseling, but it stops a week into March. I flip through the rest of the book, but it doesn’t reappear. Did they fix their problems? Or did they give up on them?

My phone vibrates beside me. It’s Brooke asking to meet tomorrow for coffee. We pick a time.

My eyes start to feel heavy. I repack the boxes and return them to their wall of hoarded past. I could keep looking, but I’m almost afraid of what I’ll find. It’s clear there was something going on between Wyatt and Geny back then, though I never expected it for a second. I don’t know how much was between them or for how long.

The betrayal stings more than it has a right to. Geny was always a good sister to me, even when I didn’t deserve it. She loved me unconditionally after seeing the worst sides of me. And Wyatt . . . Well, it’s not like I could be too upset with him after what I did.

It all confuses me. The timeline of it all.

I lie down, ready to toss and turn all night. My eyes go to the basement steps that lead upstairs and the door that anyone could come down. I’m not going to be able to sleep feeling so exposed. I climb back out of bed and begin carrying box after box up the steps to stack against the door. The door opens toward the steps, so if anyone tries to get down here, the boxes will get knocked over and will wake me up.

I go back to bed and tuck my hand under my pillow, feeling for the handle of my knife. My hand wraps around it and I breathe a little easier.

I wake up to my alarm at seven o’clock. My eyes don’t want to open, and every part of me wants to roll back over and get a few more hours of sleep. But I can already hear the noise of a bustling family through the basement ceiling, and I know I need to get up.

I drag my feet to the basement bathroom, which gives no illusion of being anything but that. The floor is the same cement as the rest of the space, and there are exposed pipes on the walls. But it works and it’s private, so it’s great.

When I finally feel halfway human, I climb the stairs and begin unstacking the boxes I piled in front of the door. It’s not the best security system, but it eased my mind enough to fall asleep.