Chapter 3 Collins
Collins
I felt the other end of the couch cave a little bit as my sister sat down. “Made you breakfast,” Clarke said cheerfully.
I groaned.
“It’s like the middle of the night,” I said as I pulled the blanket she gave me last night over my face.
“It’s seven-thirty,” she said.
“Yeah, exactly,” I huffed. “I entered my REM cycle like twenty minutes ago.”
After last night’s debacle, Clarke and I thought it would be a good idea to give Brady a little more space before I invaded it.
I did pepper-spray him, after all. So Clarke drove his truck back to his place, and we dropped it and him off there.
His apartment was above his upholstery shop on Main Street—just a few minutes’ walk from Toades.
My dad usually kept his truck in the back lot behind the shop since he was gone a lot of the time, which in this case was lucky for Clarke and me.
She drove us back to her house—a small two-bedroom Craftsman that was right outside the main part of town. Close enough that she walked when the weather was nice, but far enough that she didn’t feel too in the middle of things.
As if there were things to feel in the middle of in Sweetwater Peak.
“Seriously, Olly,” Clarke said as she pulled the blanket off me. “It’s Monday morning, and Brady is expecting you at nine.”
No time wasted, I guess.
“I don’t have any clothes,” I said. “Everything is still in my car.”
“I have clothes. And Dad went down to tow your car up.”
“Do I have to?” I whined.
“Yes,” Clarke said immediately. “Brady is nice. And you’re the one who wanted something to do while you’re here and didn’t want to stay with me.”
“You don’t want me to stay with you either,” I said, and gave my twin a pointed look.
She laughed lightly. “You’re right. I’ve picked up enough of your dirty clothes to last a lifetime.”
“You love me,” I said.
“Which is why I made you breakfast and picked out an outfit for you—sans color.”
“Fine,” I said. “But you have to tell me everything you know about Brady while I’m eating and getting ready.”
“I already told you most of it,” she said.
“I wouldn’t let you live with just anyone.
” I knew he hadn’t been in Sweetwater that long—maybe a year.
He was an upholsterer here, but Clarke said he had a city job before that.
Most people here didn’t take to outsiders very well, but Clarke said Brady fit in pretty seamlessly.
He wasn’t overly social, but he didn’t cause any trouble.
It sounded like the town sometimes forgot he existed, which stirred up some light green jealousy in my chest. I used to dream that I’d be able to stay away for long enough that by the time I came back no one would turn their head at the other Cartwright girl—that they would think there was just one of us, and it was Clarke. The good one.
I also knew that Clarke was being serious. She wouldn’t let me live with just anyone. If Brady was vetted by her, he was already leaps and bounds above every roommate I’d ever had. I shuddered a little when I thought about the one with the sugar gliders.
“And no flying rodents,” Clarke said, reading my mind. We did that.
“Okay, so why did he move to Sweetwater Peak?” People didn’t really move here—they either existed here forever or they left. The latter was rare.
Clarke shrugged. “Said he wanted a fresh start.”
“And are you two…?”
Clarke pulled a face. “God, no, Collins. You know it is possible to be friends with someone without sleeping with them, right?”
“What about without thinking about sleeping with them?”
“Yes,” Clarke said, annoyed. “And you better not do either of those things either. He’s nice. ”
“No hookups in Sweetwater,” I said. “You know my rule.”
“Right.” Clarke shook her head. “God forbid anything keeps you here.”
I smooched the top of her head as I stood. If I followed Clarke down the conversational path she was leading me, it would undoubtedly end in a fight. It always did. “You’re the only thing that could do that, Lars. What’s for breakfast?” I didn’t feel like arguing with her right now.
“Fruit—I’ve got peaches coming out of my ass, I swear—yogurt, scrambled eggs, and toast.”
“Ew, I don’t want your ass peaches,” I said, and Clarke rolled her eyes.
We weren’t technically identical twins, but we looked like we could be.
We had the same upturned nose and hazel eyes hooded by thick, dark eyebrows.
Clarke kept her dark brown hair natural, but I preferred to dye mine darker—not all the way black, but as close as I could get.
Hers was also long—down to her elbows, while I kept mine cropped at my collarbones.
I looked around her house as I walked from the living room couch to the kitchen.
We had similar taste when it came to home décor, as we were both heavily influenced by growing up in an antique shop.
We liked things that were old—things that came with a story, and we liked a lot of it all at once.
Clarke had a place to keep all her stuff, though. I didn’t.
“Where’s Pearl?” I asked. Pearl was Clarke’s pride and joy. She was a ten-year-old mastiff that Clarke rescued a few years ago. Pearl was massive and lazy and perfect. I didn’t see her when we came in last night because she was probably already asleep in Clarke’s bed—not a great guard dog.
“Outside,” Clarke said as she followed behind me. “I installed a dog door a few months ago, so she comes and goes from the backyard as she pleases during the day while I’m gone.”
I grabbed two plates off the shelf next to the sink and handed one back to Clarke. She took it and dished up some food before trading me for the empty plate I was holding.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small orb near Clarke’s front door.
And so it begins. At least we were starting small.
Ghosts had always appeared to us in a few different ways—small orbs and big ones.
Sometimes they were more human-esque but still blurry; sometimes they were shaky and glitched like a hologram, and sometimes they were totally invisible, which meant I felt them instead of saw them.
That didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it could be unnerving—like feeling for a light switch in the darkness.
And even though you think you know where it is, you can’t quite get your finger on it.
Clarke and I were the only people that I knew who could do what we did, but movies and TV shows made me believe that there were more people out there who could do or see at least a version of the same thing.
Even though a lot of things in film and media weren’t true to my experience with ghosts, the way they looked and appeared had a decent number of common denominators.
Clarke must’ve seen my eyes flash because she said: “She’s quiet. Doesn’t really talk and doesn’t like to be noticed, which works for me.”
I almost told my sister then about how the thing—our parents would call it a gift—that we shared wasn’t working for me anymore, how I was worried that I’d lost it forever and that I’d never recover.
How I felt like, for the past year, I’d been floating away from myself.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I swallowed and asked: “Do you know her name?”
Clarke shook her head. The spirit realm had way less rules than you’d think, but Clarke liked rules, so she made her own. And one of those was that she never talked to ghosts first. She waited for them to approach her.
Over the past year, I wondered more than once if Clarke would notice if her abilities went away.
To me, it felt like she spent so much time ignoring them and turning down the volume so low that she probably wouldn’t notice if the mute button got pushed.
I could tune things out if I really wanted to, but I generally didn’t.
If I did, I preferred to keep things at a low buzz—like white noise.
It kept me comfortable—no matter where I was.
Now that it was silent, everything was just…
a void, and I had nothing to fill it with.
“She’s probably a Hofstadt—the family that I bought the house from. She lingers around here every once in a while, but not too often.”
I nodded, letting the conversation end there. We sat at the kitchen counter and ate our breakfast together. Pearl came through the dog door at one point and lay at the feet of our stools.
“Do you want to swing by the shop on the way to Brady’s?” Clarke asked. “Mom and Dad are probably already there.”
I gave her a look, and she rolled her eyes. I don’t think she would ever pass up an opportunity to spend time with our parents, but we went through life differently. Clarke marched—feet on the ground with a clear direction—and I…floated, I guess.
“Dinner, then,” she said—more to herself than me. Dex and Joanie Cartwright are the two best people on the planet—living or dead. Followed closely by Boone Ryder and then Clarke Cartwright. And I love them. Sometimes, though, my parents are just…a lot.
They’re bright and bold and vivacious, and they think Clarke and I hung the moon. And maybe for them, we did. But the rope I used to hang it was weak and frayed and nearly ready to snap—which meant that very soon, I’d be dropping the moon directly on their heads.
And then they’d push it off and go, “That’s okay, peanut, you didn’t mean to.” That’s what they call both Clarke and me—peanut—because there’s usually two of them in a shell. Just like us.
Even when I do shit like this—when I avoid them for long periods of time or when I don’t return their calls or texts until Clarke steps in, they don’t get mad or upset. They just say, “Collins has always done things her own way,” and they never hold it against me.
Anyway, the point is that my parents are great and, most of the time, I don’t measure up. Or I lie to make all of us think that I do.