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What would it be like to be inside the coffin? Cold, I suppose, though I don’t think corpses feel cold. I’ll have to ask Father. I don’t think Mother would appreciate this line of questioning.
For a moment, as I stared at him, I imagined myself in his place.
It could have been me. It should have been me. All of these people would have been here because of me, if it hadn’t been for sheer luck. I would be the one unable to move or play or sing. But I wouldn’t sing again. There was blood on my fingers, blood I couldn’t wipe off if I wanted to, and I didn’t. Killers didn’t get to sing. Killers didn’t get to play. Killers didn’t get to feel. Besides, Alec wasn’t here to listen. What was the point?
What was the point in anything?
My mother was weeping again. She hadn’t stopped, not in three days. She stood behind me while my father kept a steady hand on both of our shoulders. He might have wanted to reassure me, or keep me where he could see me, now that I was his only heir. His hand made me feel as if I was trapped there, forever under his control.
I shivered. I wasn’t sure if the church was cold or if I was. There had been an emptiness inside of me since the police returned with Alex’s body. A numbness that I doubted would ever leave. Cold and numb, just like the corpse that looked like me.
I remembered asking Mother what happened after we died years before, and she told me we became memories in the hearts of those who loved us. Alex didn’t look like a memory. Nor did the man I killed in retaliation for my brother’s death.
That man had looked like meat after I pulled the trigger. Alex? He was like a wax doll, not quite real.
Eventually, my father shuffled us along to our seats, and shortly after that, the wake started. The procession moved from the church to the cemetery, and I moved along with it.
Cold and numb.
So many people talked—to me, to Father and Mother. Too many of them offered apologies. Why would they? They had nothing to do with Alex’s death. I hated empty words more than I hated just about anything. The more they talked, the number I felt. I could hardly make out the throng of bodies, the word vomit coming out of their mouths, lost in my own head, in the memories my mother had promised. All I could hear were my brother’s screams.
Go!
He’d wanted me to run and get help. To come back for him. Save him.
By the time I’d made it back, he was a corpse.
I’d been too slow. I’d gotten lost in the woods. If I’d been faster, stronger, smarter, Alex would be at football camp and I, practicing with Mrs. Vers.
My stomach twisted into knots, and I thought I might be sick. Father wouldn’t approve. Even standing to walk away to the bathroom wouldn’t be looked at kindly, so I remained there and swallowed down the bile, least I make a scene.
I knew how to hold myself in public. I was an Alden. The only Alden left.
Why me? Alex was the heir. The firstborn. The one who was good with numbers and dates, and at sports, too.
No longer.
My twin was dead.
That one thought was all I could focus on. His screams grew louder in my mind.
Go! Jace, Go! Run!
I had run, and he wasn’t here anymore.
Neither of us had ever truly been alone, even when he was playing football and I stayed home. I’d always felt him. When he broke his arm the year before, I could tell something was wrong before we got the call. I could always tell when he was about to come back. We were one.
We had been one.
I could be with him, though. I could join him. There was a way for us to be reunited. I knew where Father kept the gun. There was a lock, but he’d never been imaginative with passwords. Our birthday? Mother’s? Their wedding anniversary? If I got to the gun, I could use it again, just like I had the previous night. I could—
I was abruptly yanked out of my own head when a pair of arms enveloped me. Someone was hugging me. Hard.
We weren’t huggers in my family. Not there, in public. Mother did hug me sometimes, but I could tell this wasn’t her. It felt different. Smaller, but also stronger. My eyes flew open. I wasn’t even sure when I’d closed them.
A girl. I was being hugged by a girl.
I didn’t know many girls. I was homeschooled. Father’s friends had a few children around my age, but the girls stuck to themselves. Dark wavy hair covered my shoulder. That was all I could see of her because her head was buried against my chest.
