Chapter Forty-Five
Forty-Five
We stand in the mirror like reflections of each other. Carbon copies, different hearts.
Bryce tousles my hair. “Now you can pass as me.”
“Do I have to walk like you too?”
She struts across the bathroom tiles. “With confidence and purpose, please.”
“I’ll try.” Last night, on a Parent Trap marathon and sugar high, this seemed genius. Now, it feels reckless. “What if we—”
“Get busted?” She snorts. “No backing out, B. This is twin magic stuff. Who else gets to say they can live another life?”
Right.
Third period is how long we make it. It’s a joint-slip up. A scribbled name and a too-loud whisper kills the illusion.
“No, you’re me!” Bryce.
The whole class catches on, but the laughter is loud, warm, and I feel it—magic.
In the hallway, Bryce bumps my shoulder. “Amateur.” Then, with a wink: “Told you, B. You gotta live a little.”
Daylight swallows the dream.
That’s four in a row now.
My heart is beating, but not fast. It’s syrup-slow, sticky in my chest. I turn on instinct, already knowing what’s there.
The photo.
It’s one we took on my old camera. Tripod, timer, a dozen bloopers later, that’s the one we chose.
Not because we look the best in it—Bryce’s braid is half-undone, my collar is twisted—but because we look the happiest. No poses, or angles, just us, mid-laugh, sun-drunk and unbothered.
I can almost hear the sound frozen in frame.
I trace her face with my thumb, her voice ringing distorted in my head. “You gotta live a little.”
So many memories, suppressed, now surface. They hurt—God, they hurt—but they uplift too. Not because they’ve replaced the nightmares, but because, for one fragile gap in time, I see her again. I get her back.
My gaze drifts left, landing on a frame almost identical to the one I once shattered. A young boy between his parents. Next to it sits another—a brother lifting his little sister clear off the ground.
The floor is warm under my feet as I pad into the bathroom.
First on the agenda is clearing the sink that’s turned into an exhibition of my things, broken only by a razor and cologne at the edges.
Second is getting ready. I don’t take long, but I don’t rush either.
It’s something I’m working on—letting myself feel each moment.
The hum of the day folds in around me as I trade four walls for open space.
The clatter of a spatula. The faint whistle of a tune.
Reese at the stove, sleep-creased and shirtless.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he greets, arms already open.
I step into the side hug, letting myself linger a moment longer than usual.
“Pancakes?” I nod toward the skillet. “They look good.”
He flips one with unnecessary flair. “Sure does. Made ’em exactly how you showed me.”
“You said that two days ago,” I remind him, “and they tasted…”
“Like shit,” Dylan supplies, appearing out of nowhere.
The dish towel in Reese’s hand is airborne in seconds.
“No one asked for your two cents. You should be grateful I even let you sample those bad boys.” He turns a crooked grin on me, pride at the corners.
“Don’t worry. You’ll like these. Lemme just…
” He stacks a few on a plate, sliding it toward me.
“This is the recipe Bryce liked, right?”
Our fingers brush and it speaks volumes that mine don’t even falter. “Yeah. The Bryce pancakes.” Half-melted chocolate chips, streaks of bursting purple, perfectly puffy in the middle. “She used to bribe me so much to make them, it was actually an addiction.”
It’s then that I notice the edges, slightly uneven, pinching into curves. He tried shaping them into hearts. Like I used to for her.
“More and more she sounds like the female Reese,” Dylan says. “Been thinking that ever since you told me about the time she bluffed her way into a backstage pass at that concert.”
Yeah. Our eyes meet.
If someone told me weeks ago Dylan would play a starring role in my conversations about Bryce, I wouldn’t have believed them. But that’s the truth now.
I remember exactly how I told them. Dylan. Reese. Aspen.
The what-ifs were so loud in my head I could barely breathe.
What if they looked at me differently? What if they pitied me? What if they felt betrayed? What if everything changed?
I never once stopped to consider the what abouts.
What about Aspen hugging me so tight I could barely breathe, whispering that she understood. What about Reese pulling me into his side, still finding a way to make me laugh. What about Dylan showing up later, when the house had gone still, sitting beside me on the back deck—no pity, just presence.
And what about the thing he left me with right before he went inside.
“My sister went missing when I was little.”
Since then, there’ve been so many more moments. Low-lit conversations. Cool night air—always the night. Sometimes I talk more, sometimes Dylan, but even when neither of us has the space for speech, the silence between us feels… healing. Kindred.
And, sometimes, it seems like he doesn’t just need it as much as I do. He needs it more.
“Whatcha up to today? You wanna go exploring?”
Then there’s Reese.
If Dylan meets me in the dark, Reese meets me in the sun.
He’s all energy, all forward motion. Every day he’s got a plan—hikes, games, paddling—and he always throws it my way first. I don’t think he knows how to hold grief, not really; he’s the only one I haven’t had a heart-to-heart with. But that’s okay.
He shows up in other ways instead. Pancakes today. Beach paddling yesterday.
It’s been more than I ever could’ve asked for, and I’ll never have the words to repay them for it. My smile tilts soft. “I’m going to go plate painting with Aspen. Meeting her in a few, actually.”
“Yeah?” Reese flips a pancake, catches it perfectly. “I’ll walk you over.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I kind of want to be with my thoughts on the walk.”
“Ouch. Just say you don’t like me, Bri.”
I’m quick with the lean-in and kiss to his cheek. “You know I love you.” Then I scoop up my plate and crook a finger at Dylan. “C’mon. I’ll split with you since we both know he’s not making you any.”
Clay and glaze. Faint jazz curls through the air, weaving with the clink of brushes in rinse jars.
Aspen’s already settled in when the bell dings above me. Her hair’s twisted into a lopsided knot, a fleck of dried crimson on her cheek, and she’s deep in what most would call the zone.
“I may or may not have started without you,” she murmurs, brush never slowing.
“That’s okay.”
One side of her plate is a blaze of red, jagged strokes and smeared edges, while the other remains pristine.
I slide into the seat across from her, afternoon light sliding over the plate that’s mine to fill. I already know what I’m painting; the design came to me on the walk over.
My hand moves slow at first. Two overlapping circles to break the white. Then, brush to ceramic, I pour myself into it, bold strokes and chaotic patterns filling one side, delicate lines and scattered stars the other.
Aspen’s still painting when her voice breaks into the hush I’d been letting my thoughts fill. “Did you dream again?”
I nod.
The best part is, I don’t have to elaborate; she doesn’t expect me to.
But the memory sits warm inside, you gotta live echoing somewhere between heartbeats, so with each flick of paint, I let it spill.
Then, more. I tell her about the times we actually pulled off swaps, the times Bryce’s fuck it why not attitude dragged me into moments I can still taste the high of.
One story after another, until Bryce is everywhere again, finally taking up space in this life I’ve built for myself in Grove.
There’s laughter. There’s smiles. And then there’s tears, blurring until my reflection shimmers in the wet glaze. Aspen presses her paint-streaked palm over my knuckles.
“You’re so blessed, Bri.” Her own tears fall.
“Most people never know a bond like that. You had twenty years of it. I know it hurts now, but pain like this only lingers where something extraordinary once was.” She gives my hand a squeeze.
“You’ll feel it again. This isn’t the end of that kind of love. ”
My breath is feather-light, shaking. I dig my thumb into the brush handle, not to anchor myself, but to feel something solid
“Yeah.” God, I hope so. “Therapy’s been… helping with all this. Making me believe. There’s still a long way to go, but I don’t feel like I’m chasing the impossible right now, you know?”
She hums like she does know. “It’s only been a week and I can already see the progress, Bri. It’s inspiring. Truly.” Her brush cuts a streak of blue across the plate. She focuses on it. “I saw a social worker before this.”
I pause mid-stroke and stare at her.
“You know about my little brother, right?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. Finn. Cute as anything. She’s told me all about him, about his learning difficulties and how much she loves him.
“I’m trying to get custody of him and get him out. He’s with our parents but… they’re not fit. They weren’t for me, and they definitely aren’t for him.”
When she finally looks up, I realise why it took so long. Something dark and ugly reflects back at me. “I don’t know if I’m enough, though.”
Shame.
My stomach dips, and my eyes sting for a different reason now.
“Aspen…” I shake my head. “No. I could sit here and list out how beautiful, kind, and deserving you are—how much you’ve helped me, how much you’ve done for me—but I think you already know, and I think it still wouldn’t feel real.
” It’s like when people told me Bryce was in a better place. Words that just… slid off.
“Instead I’ll tell you what my therapist told me yesterday. Not feeling ready doesn’t mean you’re not worthy. It just means you’re honest.” I lean in, making sure she hears every part of it. “You’re honest, Aspen. And brave. That’s all you need.”
I watch how it settles in her, like stones sinking to the bottom of a lake.
We don’t speak for a while after that. Just the swish of our brushes, two different rhythms, one shared moment.
I finish mine in stages. First, the midnight side, stars scattered across the dark like they’ve been there forever. Then the brighter half, lavender streaks tearing through the chaos, forget-me-nots breaking it open.
The middle takes the longest to get right. Not gold, but a pale, sunlit blonde; the colour we once shared. I place a single star in the overlap, my quiet promise. Always connected. Always shining.
“Wow. That’s wow, Brielle. It makes mine look like a toddler threw up.”
My brows lift. “No way.” Her plate isn’t just red anymore. Half has bloomed into the deep blue of the ocean, gradually fading to a teal interspersed with flecks of silver curling like tide foam. “It’s beautiful. What does it mean?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “I guess I’ve been feeling kinda split lately. I don’t know what to do with all of it, so I figure… maybe I don’t have to pick a side.” Her finger taps the seam. “Maybe it’s okay to hold both for now.”
There’s weight to the statement that gives me pause.
“What about yours?”
I tap the calmer side. “Me.” The other. “Bryce.” It was always our dynamic. Me, the cool to her storm. “Thanks, Aspen. Not just for this. For everything. All these weeks, you’ve been incredible.”
The words barely capture it—never pushing, always showing up, welcoming me fully. Like the other day when she sent that quote about loving, losing, and still being kind. This reminded me of you, her text read.
“Oh, it’s nothing. You’ve been the exact same for me.” Her smile tilts. “For all of us. Reese was making pancakes when I left, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. They were good. He’s good.” I roll the brush between my fingers, glancing down. “Dylan too. I’m… really grateful for all of you. And Carson…”