Page 10 of Mirror Image

“Don’t what, have a car?”

“I don’t drive.”

My head swiveled toward her. “You’re kidding, really?”

“Really. No one taught me. I can’t swim either.”

“What? How can you live in Florida and not swim?”

Sam shrugged. “Again, no one taught me. And it’s not like any of my foster placements had a swimming pool or anything. Well, that’s not entirely true. A couple of the trailer parks where I stayed had a community pool. But I wasn’t at any of them long enough.”

“How many different places did you live?”

She scoffed, letting out a little puff of air. “Ugh, God, let’s see . . .” She started counting on her fingers as she took a mental tally. “I’m gonna say five. No—no, six. Six different foster homes when I was young. But then it was group homes and institutions when I was in my teens. I did spend a year living in the woods as part of a wilderness program for at-risk youth—I really liked that. I mean, it was a pain in the ass with all the rules and no privacy, but at least I didn’t have anyone grabbing my ass or hitting me.”

I jerked the wheel so sharply that I almost drove off the side of the road into a guardrail. “Are you saying that you were . . . you know . . . like abused? Physically? And . . . sexually?”

When I glanced in her direction, I was momentarily startled to find my own incredulity staring back at me. The resemblance was absolutely uncanny. And it was freaking me out. I felt like maybe I should be able to read her mind or some creepy twin thing like that. But reading her expression was about as close as I could get.

“What do you think?” she shot back at me, making it sound as if I were the dimmest person she’d ever met.

My cheeks grew warm along with my irritation.

“I think,” I replied coolly, “that I’ve known you for, like, five minutes, and I don’t want to assume anything.”

I nearly jumped out of my seat when she snorted with laughter unexpectedly, pointing at my face. “You get salty too, huh? I can’t hide that shit either. Sometimes I get so pissed that I turn this deep red—like scarlet.”

My anger faded as quickly as it had come upon me. “Really? ’Cause I’ve never been able to control my temper. My mom even made me do this anger-management therapy group once.”

“Did it help?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“No,” I told her with a disgusted huff. “Everyone in the group rubbed me the wrong way, and I left feeling grumpier than when I started.”

Even as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. And I wasn’t the only one—Sam began to chuckle too. In under a minute, I was laughing so hard, I was crying.

“You know, you’re pretty funny,” she said once we’d both calmed down.

A broad grin filled her face. Our face.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.

“I was just thinking . . . it might be nice, this having-a-sister thing.”

The words—and the way she said them—sent a wave of pleasure through me.

A real, honest-to-God blood relative.

A sister.

“I’ll teach you,” I blurted out impulsively.

My newfound twin looked perplexed. “You’ll teach me what?”

“To drive. And to swim. I’ll teach you how to do both.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, as if I were pulling her leg.

I wondered how many times she’d been lied to in her life, how many people had made promises they didn’t keep. Just the thought of it made my heart squeeze with sympathy. I’d had so much. I’d probably had more stability, more options, more love in a single year than Sam Kinski had experienced in her entire life.