Page 143 of Trailer Trash

“You what?”

“I stole his air just like this. I cut him so he couldn’t come near you again.”

“What did you do, Killian?” she exclaims, terrified.

“I’d do anything for you,” I say. “You’re the only reason I was here. In this house. Where the lack of pictures don’t hide the fact I feel Asher in every fucking room.” I point at the ceiling. “Even though my parents moved me to a new floor, like that would make me forget we grew up here.”

Mom’s nails dig into my wrist as her face tints blue. I don’t want to kill her. I want her to feel what I carry for her. For everyone. I want this family to give me Asher back. Even just his ghost. Just to be able to say his name.

Swiftly, I push her backward into Dad’s arms. He catches her, keeping her standing as she coughs and sucks in air, gasping for precious oxygen.

I glance at Harlow, wishing we never met. It was easier when it was just Asher that mattered.

“I gotta go,” I mumble. I drop my phone on the tile floor, discarding it. “Don’t follow me, and tell Frida I’m never coming back.”

“Killian, no!” Mom lets out a blood-curdling scream. It’s the same scream I heard the night Asher died. The same scream when she saw his body on a gurney being wheeled into an ambulance. But nobody worked on him. He was on a trip to the morgue, not the emergency room.

From that point on, I was both Killian and Asher. A carbon copy of him they could see all the time and not feel the gravity of his loss.

But I feel it.

My best friend isn’t beside me anymore, and when I look in the mirror, I don’t see my twin. I see the years that separate us.

So when Mom belts out another broken cry, it’s too damn much. Especially when she says, “Don’t do this to us.”

I hate that I can’t go be miserable without her guilt. I have to keep everyone else happy. Make my jokes and smile.

Only Harlow made me smile for real.

“You don’t want me to leave because then you can’t pretend he’s still here. I’ve been a man for a long time, but you want the boy I was. I’m not supposed to be here anymore.”

“I don’t want to lose two sons,” she says and sobs into her hands.

“I think I already died when Asher did,” I murmur.

I walk out the door, leaving everything behind.

Numb.

Accepting that this second, third, or fourth chance at a happy life was me pretending as much as them.

That’s why I couldn’t tell Harlow what she means to me.

That I wanted a future with her.

That I wanted a home. A life.

That I—

Just like my family, I guess it is better to pretend.

39

Killian

I stand in Brax’s new apartment, about to get as high as possible. Music rattles the walls, and the humid air drifting in through the security door smells like chlorine, weed, and hot pavement. Empty bottles crowd the counters, and white powder sparkles on a plate beneath the kitchen light.

He has already made it home.