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I smile, and it shakes a little. She’s bossy, and it’s annoying sometimes, but she’s nice. Some people aren’t nice, like this one boy in our class last year, who used to call me names sometimes when no one was around.
“You’re really smart,” she tells me. “You’re just shy. That’s not a crime.” She says this very seriously. Daddy always jokes that if being a musician doesn’t work out for her, she should be a lawyer.
I wonder what he thinks I should be.
“Nothin’s gonna change no matter what,” she says. “Come on.” She jumps up and reaches down for my hand, dragging me up with her.
The sky is more black than gray now. The orange is gone.
“We’re gonna swear on it,” she tells me, holding out her pinky.
I stare at it, and lift mine, curling it around hers. She curls her finger around mine, squeezing till I feel my bones creak, and our knuckles turn white.
We raise our hands between us, staring each other in the eye. She’s only a couple inches taller than me, so I don’t have to tilt my head back too far. A big gust of wind blows through, sweeping her brown hair and my blond hair across our faces.
“Nothing will ever come between us,” she says in that super serious lawyer voice of hers that makes her sound so much older than six. “It’s me and you against the world, JJ.”
“What about Waylon?” I say doubtfully.
She scrunches her nose, shaking her head. “That’s different. He’s my best friend, but you’re my twin. We’re like the same person.”
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I nod, dropping my gaze.
“He’s my best friend.”
Not ours. Hers.
“I promise, JJ,” she vows fiercely. “Everything else could change, but we won’t.”
I frown. Mommy said basically the same thing the other night when she tucked me into bed. I forgot about that till now, and I wonder if she told Izzy the same thing.
“Things are going to change as you two get older,” she’d said, “and that’s okay. You’re growing up, my sweet boy. She’ll always be your other half, but it’s okay to be your own person too, and make your own friends and have your own things.”
Maybe she already knew what was coming, and was getting us ready for it.
Maybe that’s why Izzy decided to claim Waylon as hers.
Maybe that means there’s someone out there for me, and me alone.
“You have to promise too,” Izzy says when I say nothing back. Her eyes dart between mine, glowing gold from the lights shining down on us. “You’re gonna make friends and have your own life, just like me, and that’s okay.”
Yep, Mommy definitely talked to her too.
I nod, though I don’t know about the friends thing. Izzy’s so much better at that. Even though she had me and Waylon with her in kindergarten, she still talked to other kids and hung out with them during recess, especially on days Waylon wasn’t there.
I never wanted to play all the games the other kids were playing, like she did. Kickball, tag, Capture the Flag, Red Light Green Light, Mother May I…
And don’t even get me started on Red Rover. I don’t know why anyone ever wanted to play that. I tried once, ’cause Izzy made me, and kids started getting mad because I either didn’t try enough to get through when Izzy called me over—she was the only one who would pick me—or the second someone came running my way, I would just let go of whoever’s hand I was holding, letting the person run through.
Hating that I was letting people down, I tried to suck it up. Other kids were doing it. Laughing about it even as they shook their arms or held their stomachs. It couldn’t be that bad. But of course, the second I decided to play the right way, it had to be one of the biggest kids in our class who decided to run through my arm—Mikey.
He never seemed to like me. And he definitely ran as hard as he could, using all his strength. It hurt so bad, I thought I broke my arm. I started crying, and the other kids laughed. Izzy told them to shut up, but it made no difference.
Ears ringing, cheeks hot, I turned away and never looked back, their laughter echoing for what felt like days, just like the bruises along my arm.
Since then, she never tried getting me to join in again. And I was glad. I liked being alone. I liked coloring, and drawing, and reading my comics. Izzy sat with me sometimes, but I could always tell she was just doing it to be nice.
She hates coloring.
