I hesitate at the door. Maybe he came here to be alone. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t have stayed at our house at all. And he wouldn’t have gone to my treehouse, would he? I shake off the doubt and open the door. If he wants to be alone, he can send me away again.
Jase is sitting on the floor in exactly the same place he sat last year, on the night when he came to me for the first time. He’s still wearing Caleb’s clothes. His hair falls messily over his forehead, covering his face as he looks down. There are blankets next to him, but he hasn’t even bothered to pull one over his legs, and no matter how well insulated the treehouse is, it’s not warm in here.
“Jase,” I say softly. When he looks up, my heart constricts. His eyes are dull and empty, and tears are running down his cheeks.
Chapter 42
Jase
I lied to you about two questions you asked me. One of them was my very first answer. I didn’t follow you after the dance because I was bored. I followed you because I was worried about you. I lied when you asked me what I saw when I looked at you too. When I look at you, I see everything we could be, and that scares the shit out of me.
—Jase
At the sound of Zoe’s voice, I look up and immediately wish I hadn’t. There’s empathy in her eyes, reflecting the pain in mine. I don’t bother to wipe away the tears. They’ll just be followed by more anyway.
I had a dream about Sam. That doesn’t happen very often. Only on the night of our birthday, and apparently now. The anniversary of his death.
It hurt so much when I woke up because in my dream, he was still alive. He was happy; he was smiling. His heart was still beating. He wasalive, damn it.
Then I woke up, and reality bowled me over, as though he hadn’t been gone for the last five years.
We left him behind, lying in a graveyard in LA.Ileft him behind. The other me. And I blame myself for that even more than I do Mom and Dad.
“Jase.” Zoe whispers my name again, her voice stricken.
I don’t reply.
Part of me wants to send her away so she doesn’t see me like this. I don’t want her to see how frail I am, how desperate. I can’t bear this horrible weakness, the pain that’s tearing me apart. It’s always there. That’s why I’m trying to block it out. The pain, and all the other things I don’t want to feel. But sometimes, like now, I can’t do it. It’s just too much. And that’s why the other part of me, the one that’s lonely, sad, angry, and hopelessly lost, wants her to stay.
Zoe comes closer and puts a blanket around my shoulders. Then she stuffs pillows behind our backs and sits down next to me before spreading two other blankets over our legs and snuggling up to me. She leans her head against my chest, her ear directly over my heart.
“You can talk to me if you want,” she whispers. I tense immediately. “If not, that’s okay too. I’m here. Talk to me or not. But I’m not leaving unless you want me to.” She takes my hand and locks her fingers with mine. I’m not able to pull away.
It’s a tiny gesture. I’ve held her hand hundreds of times in the last few weeks, but this feels different somehow. More intimate. More real.
Something inside me breaks with a painful shattering sound. I close my eyes, and my head tilts back until it touches the wall behind me. Silence falls between us, heavy and oppressive. I can’t breathe anymore. Zoe squeezes my hand, and again I feel the saltytears running down my cheeks. I hate crying. I hate this weakness and pain. I don’t want to feel any of it. I want it to stop. I just want it to stop.
After a while, I break the silence between us. I don’t want to talk, not about Sam. But sometimes wanting to and needing to are different things. “Sam was my twin brother.”
I feel Zoe tense.
“He was fourteen when he died, a few months before we moved to Boston. His heart just stopped beating. We were at one of his football games; I don’t even remember who they were playing. He fell in the middle of the field and didn’t get up again. He just died.”
Every word cuts my throat like a razor blade. I’ve never said them aloud. I never told anyone here that Sam died, or how. Not once in five years.
Zoe remains silent but hitches a little closer to me. Her ear is still over my heart, which is beating far too fast. It hurts so much that I want to tear it out of my chest just to make it stop.
“Sam was... he was the golden child. Dad’s favorite. He played football and always got good grades. He was open and cheerful, and he wanted to be a doctor. He was everything that I’m not, and he was my best friend. Sam was—” I stop, unable to get the words out.
He was the other me.
“We moved because he was everywhere in Los Angeles. We couldn’t escape him anywhere. The whole neighborhood knew. Mom couldn’t even go shopping at the supermarket without someone mentioning him. She... she couldn’t take it. Neither could Dad. That’s why we moved to Boston. To start again.” I laughbitterly and sniff. “As if it could have been that easy. But they tried. They stopped talking about Sam completely. It felt like they were just canceling him from our lives, just because he was dead.” A raw sob escapes me, and I can’t hide it. Everything hurts. My body, my heart. Everything.
Zoe raises her head and sits up. There are tears in her eyes to match the ones she wipes from my face. But she still doesn’t say a word.
“It never bothered Dad that I was a dancer when Sam was alive. Because he always had Sam. He was the son that Dad always wanted. But after his death... I wasn’t enough. Not the way I was... the way Iam. And I’m still not enough. I never will be.”
“That’s not true,” Zoe whispers, leaning her forehead against mine. I let her. Her closeness is the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.
