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“Mom!” He ignores her and walks over to me, looking me up and down. “You got a clone! You said you always wanted one. I didn’t know they were real. How much was she? Does she have a turn off button? Can she clean my room?” His questions rattle off his tongue as fast as a freight train. My lips curve into a smile as he continues to observe me. He pokes my arm. “She feels real too.”
“Reed,” she says, trying not to laugh.
“Mom, this is so cool. How will I know who's who? I don’t want to tell her a secret when it’s not you.” The excitement in his voice is too much. Everly and I both burst out. His eyes brighten and he jumps up and down. “You can even make her laugh when you do!”
“Reed, she’s not a clone.” Reed gives her an incredulous stare. “She’s…” she pauses, wondering how to explain. It might be easier to go along with the clone aspect. “She’s my sister.”
His smile drops and he jerks his head in my direction and back to her. “You told me you didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“Um… this is a surprise to me too.” She struggles with the words to explain. “Can you go outside and play while we talk?”
She manages to get him outside by offering candy. He couldn’t care less what’s going on when he pops a sucker in his mouth. He runs outside, yelling he’ll be at Bennett’s. The screen door slams leaving us alone once again.
She walks to her kitchen while I walk around her living room. The soft yellow on the walls match the outside paint and brighten the room. Pictures of Reed are all over one of the walls, black frames surround them in a patterned display. My eyes jump from picture to picture, many with Reed and the guy from outside. My heart hurts for Kase and I wonder how he's dealing with everything. I move along when my subconscious tells me it should be Kase in those pictures with Everly and Reed. My chest hurts thinking that is where he might want to be.
Everly offers me a glass of tea when I’m looking at a picture of her and what I’m assuming is her mom. She’s a beautiful brunette. She could pass as our mom. A slight streak of jealousy rears its head. It’s not her fault you were stuck with a rotten mother. I take a large drink to swallow the feeling and my hand flies to my chest.
“Oh my gosh.” I cough and clear my throat of the sugar cube I just drank. “I forget how sweet the tea is here in Texas.”
“So… I guess you’ve been here before? Texas,” she clarifies.
“I grew up in El Paso.” Twirling my ice around, I glance down to my glass. I can sense she has more questions. “You have a nice home,” I say, looking around, avoiding her gaze. I pick up a picture sitting on her TV stand. It’s Everly, Reed and the guy from earlier. They seem happy.
“That was taken right before I got my memory back.”
“Oh.” My eyebrows rise in surprise. Reed isn’t much younger in the picture.
“It was taken last year.” She's only had her memories back for less than a year? She walks over to the couch and sits.
“Who’s the guy?”
“Wayne. Kase’s best friend from school.” Wow. That explains a lot. No wonder he attacked him. “It’s a long story, but until last year, I thought Wayne was Reed’s father.”
I do a double take. “Did he know Reed wasn’t his?” I ask, trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I take a seat on the cushioned chair, opposite the couch.
She takes a deep inhale and blows it out. “Oh yeah. Look at him, he’s a tiny version of Kase. Wayne isn’t a bad guy, he truly loves me and Reed. We had a great life. He was the perfect husband, the perfect dad. It was all just based on the perfect lie. Until I hit my head from trying to use a skate board. I blacked out and when I woke up, it was the oddest thing. My memories were all there. Old and new. My body was waging a war inside itself. The love I had for Kase was there like it never went away, yet the love I had for Wayne was there too. It was a confusing couple of months,” she says, sarcastically.
“Wow,” I say, trying my hardest to ignore that she still loves Kase. Her eyes travel down my arm. They stay on my scar for a few moments and then move down to my ring finger. My fingers tingle, and I nervously cross my legs and shove my hand in between them.
“What happened?” She runs her fingers over her arm where my scar is.
How do you tell someone that the bond you share with them is so deep, it’s life altering? “I was… someone attacked me.” I’m an advocate for the abused. Using my voice and my skills to help women who have been through the same thing I went through is important to me. But in this moment, I’ve never been more afraid to admit it. Her breath hitches and her fingers touch her parted lips.
“I’m so sorry,” she mutters through her fingers.
“It’s okay. It’s been years since it happened.” I wince when I realize my mistake.
“When… did it happen?”
“Um…” I pause, sweat drips down my back and I'm about to excuse myself for the bathroom, but decide it's best to get it out. “When I was eighteen.” Her eyes dart around the room. With a slight shake of her head, she’s telling herself it can’t be possible. But it is. “It was August twenty-fifth.”
She pushes off the couch, her breath quivers as she passes me, walking out of the room. I drop my head into my hands. Please don’t hate me. I already carry the guilt that this is all my fault. I hear her come back into the room, so I look up. Her eyes are glossed over and she’s holding her arms across her chest.
“I just want to make sure I understand this. You were attacked on the same day I was in a car accident where they thought I might have passed out because there was no other explanation.” I bite my lip and nod. She clears her throat. “And then you come here… to what? Show me you’re getting what I should’ve had?” Her voice turns to ice and the coldness shoots straight to my heart. I stand up, shaking my head.
“No, that’s not it at all. I wanted Kase–”
“Kase was mine. He’s not yours. He’s only with you because you have my face,” she snaps. She throws all my fears at me, each word like heavy bricks, hard and damaging. Coming out of her mouth, they dig deeper inside my heart, leaving a hole that might never heal. I try to hold back my tears, hiding the hold she already has on me. I can’t form the words I want to say. They’ll all be lost in her hurtful words. She won’t hear that I never meant to hurt her. I came here to meet my sister. I came here to see if Kase was over her. I didn’t think I was coming to lose him to her.
