Page 31 of My Twin Sister

“It’s okay, Geny. I’m not mad. I’m just going to shower.” I smile closed-lipped and walk downstairs.

Twenty-One: Geny

Grace makes herself scarce the rest of the day. I feel like an idiot. We were getting along so well, and I had to ruin it with my stupid comment. I’m usually better about not letting things like that slip. I don’t know what got into me.

I put Carter to bed at eight thirty. Grace peeks her head into the room to tell me she’s going out.

“What time will you be home?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Late. I can crash at Mom and Dad’s if it’s too late so I don’t wake anyone up. I know it’s a work and school night.”

I hate the way she talks about their house as though they’re still there. I don’t know how else to refer to it, but it rubs me wrong.

“No, that’s okay. You won’t wake anyone up. I’d feel better if you just came back home.”

She looks at me without responding for a second and I don’t know what I said wrong. But then she nods. “Okay. Night, Carter. Sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight.” He yawns through his words.

And then she’s gone.

I help Jack with a college application he’s working on in the kitchen on his laptop.

“Where’d Aunt Grace go?” he asks, his eyes still on the screen.

“Out for the night. Probably seeing friends she hasn’t seen in a while.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

I shrug. I wasn’t invited, for one. But I don’t say that. “I have work in the morning. And I have to get you kids settled and into bed. And we have separate lives, you know? We don’t have to be tied at the hip.”

That’s what I tell Jack, but it’s myself I’m trying to convince. I know that.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Mom,” he says.

“I know that.” I sigh.

He doesn’t say anything and neither do I. I know I still treat him like a kid sometimes. It’s hard not to. It’s hard to let go.

“Go jump in the shower before bed,” I say. “I love you.”

“Love you,” he says before disappearing down the hall.

I stay sitting at the kitchen table, unsure what to do with myself. As though I haven’t lived the same life for the last dozen years. Grace has been here for three days, and I already don’t know what to do with myself when she’s not around. It irritates me. Maybe more than it should.

I can hear the TV playing in the living room and decide to spend some time with Wyatt instead of going straight to bed like I usually do. He’s scrolling through his phone when I come into the room. He hears the creak of the floorboard under my feet and quickly locks the screen and drops the device onto his lap.

“Hey. I didn’t know you were still up.”

I try to ignore the niggling feeling in my gut that tells me he was looking at something he doesn’t want me to see. I haven’t felt this insecure since my teens and it’s driving me insane.

I move to sit beside him. “What are you watching?”

He adjusts to make room for me. “Ah, nothing really. Golf videos. You can change it if you want.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

He doesn’t respond, just turns his attention to the TV. I feel antsy and can’t stop fidgeting. When did we become this boring couple? Weren’t we passionate and on fire once? We were. But only when we were hiding from Grace. It was exciting because it was wrong. And then it ended, didn’t it? He ended things and then Grace washed away, and I was pregnant, and Wyatt stuck by me because he felt it was the right thing to do.