Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
I placed dinner plates on the table in front of each of my parents, my heart constricting as they both thanked me monotonously and stared at their plates. Sinking into my chair across from them, I picked up my fork and took a bite before my stomach churned.
I lowered the fork. “I think we should see therapists,” I said.
My parents looked at me like I’d betrayed them. “Excuse me?” My father choked out.
“I don’t want to live like this anymore,” I said truthfully. “Anna wouldn’t want us to live like this.”
My mother flinched like she’d been burned, and my father shook his head. “You don’t know what she’d want.”
Shocked, I gaped at him. My voice shook when I managed to find the words to reply. “Anna was saving every dollar to go to France next summer. Her dream was to swim with whale sharks in the Maldives. She went to the Grand Canyon last fall and hiked Havasupai Falls. How can you look at me and say she’d want us living this life—decimated by her loss?”
My father stood from the table, tears in his eyes. “I am not having this conversation.”
My mother followed suit. “Thank you for dinner, Agnes, but I’m tired.”
Seconds later, I was alone in the kitchen.
I drew a deep breath, resting my hands on the table to maintain my composure. My bottom lip trembled, and the tears in the back of my eyes burned as they tried to escape. A thousand words and a hundred moments swam in my head, all gray, bleak, and painful.
And then there was Anna.
I thought of the last time I saw my twin sister, tying her shoes in the living room. Piper sat next to her, her tail wagging in excitement. Anna was laughing at something our mother said, though I didn’t remember what. Her laughter rang in my ears, the smile on her face shining through the storm clouds that had become my world.
I left the kitchen a mess: uneaten dinner on the table, unwashed dishes in the sink. If tomorrow was going to be another day of this, I could deal with it all then.
On my way down the hall to my room, I stopped in front of Anna’s. My mother had left the door slightly open, and the smell of cinnamon stopped me again. I pushed the door open, and this time, I took in every inch of her room—from the pile of dirty laundry in the corner, to the popstar posters on the wall, to her pink laptop on her desk. All the remnants of my sister’s life, forever immortalized in a feeble attempt to keep her alive.
I shut the door behind me, padding over to her desk and sinking into her chair. I opened her laptop, coming face to face with her lock screen: a picture of me and her at a Taylor Swift concert last summer. The sight of it took my breath away and almost made me close the laptop. Almost. Spurred on by a bravery I hadn’t had since she died, I typed in her passcode and watched the computer spring to life.
Harluck, North Carolina, was the last thing she typed into her search bar.
I racked my brain to figure out where Harluck was, to no avail. Leaning forward, I scrolled through the search.
HARLUCK, NORTH CAROLINA—WHERE WISHES COME TRUE
I wrinkled my nose with distaste before remembering that hunting for wishes was precisely the kind of thing Anna would do.
I read dozens of stories of people traveling to the small, mountain town of Harluck in search of their wildest dreams. In 1943, a woman wished upon a star that her husband would return home safely from World War II. She hadn’t heard a word from him in over a year, and had begun to accept that he was dead. One month later, he showed up on her doorstep—blind in one eye from chemical burns, but alive.
In 1957, a nine-year-old girl blew out her birthday candles and wished to become a ballerina. Ten years later, she was accepted into Julliard.
1961. A married couple struggling with infertility stopped to visit their family in Harluck for Thanksgiving. They broke the wishbone at dinner and wished for a baby. Weeks later, she found out she was pregnant, and after nine months, they had a daughter.
Over and over and over again, people traveled to Harluck to make a wish. And undeniably, time and time again, their wishes came true.
By the time I looked up from all the stories Anna had saved, it was after two in the morning. I moved to close her laptop so I could go to bed, pausing when I saw the pink note sticking out from under it. I pulled it out and unfolded it, a lump forming in my throat at the sight of my sister’s handwriting.
I wish for an everlasting love. A movie kind of love. A love worth living for.
I traced my fingers over Anna’s words before folding the note and tucking it back under the laptop. I closed the computer, careful to leave all the articles about Harluck exactly as she’d left them seven months ago.
When I tried to stand and leave her room, though, something stopped me. I stared at the half-exposed note and took a deep breath.
Out of the two of us, Anna was the romantic one. She was the one who believed she would someday have an epic love. The bookcase behind me was full of romance books—tales of love and chivalry and great sex, everything she hoped to have one day. Her favorite movie was The Princess Bride ; she believed Westley and Buttercup had one of the greatest loves of all time.
I picked up the note again, my bottom lip quivering.
Anna was dead now. She would never get a great love story.
I turned the note over in my hand, clutching it to my chest while I walked back to my room. Inside, I fiddled with the edges of the pink paper, stuck on something I couldn’t quite name.
It suddenly became clear that Anna intended to go to Harluck and make a wish.
Without realizing what I was doing, I shoved the note in my pocket and pulled a duffel bag out of the closet. I filled it with essentials: sweaters, pants, socks, toiletries, and the epic fantasy book I was in the middle of reading when Anna died. Anything I thought I might need was forced into the bag. Quickly and quietly, I changed into a comfortable pair of clothes and shrugged on what used to be my favorite sweater.
The house was silent as I slipped from it.
My car groaned when I turned the key in the ignition. I sat and shivered in the front seat while I waited for it to warm up, hoping the sound of the engine wouldn’t wake my parents. I had almost a full gas tank, and Harluck was a four-and-a-half-hour drive from here. If I stopped once in a couple hours, I could make it there just after seven. I’d spend a few hours looking for a way to make Anna’s last wish. Then, hopefully, I’d be home again before dark.
Or, maybe I’d keep driving and never, ever stop.