One month later
We were at a dance.
Black, silver, and pink balloons hung from the walls and pooled all over the floor. There was a pink banner at the back of the gymnasium—we were at our old school.
A sad song was playing, and our friends were dancing, their arms wrapped around each other. It was Homecoming.
Willow stood on the stage, her Junior Queen crown on her head and her pink dress shimmering. She looked like part of the it, as if they’d specifically designed the theme around what she was wearing.
If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve believed that wholeheartedly.
Willow and I both had light brown hair and sometimes golden blonde hair. It ranged in shades—it all depended on the season or whether Willow had been to the hair stylist lately. She’d spent more time in the sun over the summer, and her hair was almost a normal blonde. It hung in curls down past her shoulders, extensions adding another six inches, and it looked good. She was like some sort of Greek goddess, owning the attention of everyone around her.
No, it was the way she wore it, the way she stood—as if she owned the entire gym. That was what drew everyone’s eyes.
Only a few might’ve realized it, but we were all living in Willow’s world.
She turned to look at me, her eyes haunted. “Don’t ask me.”
I stepped up next to her and looked down; I was wearing the same dress. I hated pink. I felt the crown on my head. I hated crowns. And I looked over my shoulder—my hair had grown and was a lighter shade than normal.
I was her.
I looked over the gym again. We were no longer at our old school. I didn’t recognize this one. It was new to me, like the question burning in my throat.
“Don’t. Please.” She began to whimper.
I looked at her. I mirrored her body posture—chin raised, shoulders back.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
Black tears rolled down her face, her makeup smudging. “I can’t answer that.”
I tried a different question, the one I almost hated her for. “Why did you leave me?”
I bolted upright in bed screaming.
A hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me back down. Arms wrapped around me, and Ryan pushed me into the bed. He braced himself over me, and I could barely make out his eyes in the dark.
“Ssshh!” he whispered.
Fuck.
Reality flooded back. I was in Ryan’s room, Ryan’s bed, and this was my fourth week of sneaking over.
A door flew open down the hallway.
“Shit!” Ryan jumped over me, running to his door.
Feet pounded down the hallway.
“What are you doing?”
“Hide!” he whispered. Then he was out the door and running to meet his parents.
“Ryan!” his dad bellowed. “That sounded like your room.”
“It was Peach!” Ryan yelled back.
“It was Peach?” Their mom’s voice hitched up in worry. “That didn’t sound like one of her screams.”
Three sets of feet ran down the hallway and then another door opened and a light went on.
He’d said to hide, but I had to be quiet. Stealth. They couldn’t find me or this was over. Panic began clogging my throat. I pushed past it and started to slide from the bed.
“Peach? Honey?”
“Uh . . .what?” Peach’s voice was groggy.
“You screamed,” Ryan said.
“I did?”
“Honey, did you have a nightmare?”
“Uh . . . maybe? I must’ve.”
“Oh, honey.”
Their mother turned nurturing, and someone’s footsteps crossed the floor as another two sounded closer in the hallway, as if they were leaving the room.
“You acted quick,” Ryan’s dad said.
I almost squeaked. It sounded like he was walking Ryan back to his room.
Moving like a ninja, I lowered myself to the ground and rolled under the bed. This had been my move to hide from Willow if she decided she wanted to talk late at night.
Two shadows stood at the door.
“How are you doing? I know you and that Malcolm girl have become close.”
“What?” Ryan’s voice matched the slight hysteria I felt.
Shit, shit, shit. If they found out about me, if they told my parents, if this, if that—so many ifs ran in my mind. But they couldn’t. None of that could happen because then my parents would start watching me again. I wouldn’t be able to sneak out, and Ryan wouldn’t be able to sneak in, which was our pattern. We traded off unless we knew one of us absolutely couldn’t get away.
“I talk to Phillip every now and then at work. He’s struggling. I’d assume they all are. How’s the girl?”
“Uh, she’s dealing. I think.”
“Peach said you were close. Rose said she’s been over a bunch.”
“Oh! Yeah. I mean, yeah. She’s dealing. I mean, that’s all I can say.”
His dad sighed. “I suppose. Phillip said the littlest is at the gifted academy. He seems to be liking it a lot. They go down there four times a week to see him.”
They do? That was news to me.
“What about her?” Ryan asked. “Are they checking in with her enough?”
I almost cursed. What was he doing?
“I suppose. It was her twin. I’d imagine they worry about her the most.” A second later, he added, “Why? Are they not?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“You’re friends, aren’t you? You’re acting weird, Ryan. What’s going on with you?”
“No. I know. I mean, I’m not. Yeah, we’re friends. She’s in our group with all of us.”
“She and Cora are friends then?”
“Uh.” Ryan sounded so stiff, like he had a stick up his ass. “They’re both the girls in our group. It’d be weird if they weren’t.”
“You’re still being weird.”
“It’s in the middle of the night. What do you expect? Peach woke us up with a blood-curdling scream.”
“Yeah.” His dad sighed. “You’re right. All right. Listen, go to bed. Maybe I’ll ask Phillip if they want to come over for dinner sometime. Would you like that? Have your friend over for a meal with the ’rents?”
“Sure. Yeah. Sounds good.”
Again, I wanted to smack him. He could’ve discouraged that in two seconds.
“Okay, son.” A thump on his back. “Try to get some sleep. I love you, Ry.”
“Love you, Dad.”
One shadow entered the room, the door clicked shut, and soft footfalls moved back down the hallway. I waited for Ryan to come back to the bed, but he didn’t move.
“Mackenzie?” he whispered, half-hissing. “You here?”
I could stay under the bed. He’d assume I slipped out, went home, and I could haunt him the way Willow continued to haunt me. But that wasn’t nice, and he wasn’t the person I wanted to get back at.
I crawled back out from under his bed. “You were having a nice chat with your pops there.” I stood, sliding back into the bed.
He came over and reached for the covers. “What could I do? If I acted weird, he might’ve thought something was off.”
“He did think you were acting weird.”
He shrugged. “Normal is easier said than done. I kept thinking, Whoa shit! I got a hot chick in my room somewhere, and they can’t find out, and whoa shit, whoa shit, whoa shit!”
I laughed, lying back down in his bed. “I got it. I’d be weird too.”
He gazed down at me. “You aren’t normally pissy with me. You mad about something else?” Waiting a beat, he added, “He brought up your family.”
My throat burned, his words echoing in my head. “I didn’t know they’d been going to see Robbie four times a week.”
“They didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head.
“Your brother didn’t say anything?”
Another head shake.
I was barely home, and if I was, it wasn’t for long or I wasn’t alone. I had no clue they were driving to see Robbie. A part of me was glad, thankful they checked in on him, but another part of me ached with jealousy.
I was there. I was in their house, and I struggled every day to say something.
My parents weren’t evil. They didn’t mean to forget about me because they didn’t love me, but I fully believed they didn’t want to see me.
They saw her when they saw me.
So, I stayed away. Hell, I didn’t even enjoy looking in the mirror myself.
My eyes were hers. My hair. My body. I’d lost weight, losing the healthy weight I held with those Cheetos. The more I dreamed about her, the more she talked to me, the more she haunted me—I was becoming Willow.
If I took her place, would they mourn Mackenzie? Maybe that would be easier for them.
“If they do the dinner, we can have everyone crash it.”
I laughed lightly, my body curving toward Ryan’s. “They’d love that, actually.”
“Your parents?”
“No, the guys.” The guys included me and Cora.
After the night of apologies a month or so ago, I’d gone to school the next day, and they’d all walked next to me like I was one of them. That was how it had become. I considered Tom, Nick, Kirk, and Cora friends as well.
A hand touched my cheek, and I started as Ryan brushed away one of my tears.
God. I brushed at it, and then the rest. My whole face was like a waterfall.
I groaned, turning and pressing my face into his pillow.
“Hey.” His voice was so soothing, so kind, it almost broke me again. He straightened some of my hair and then smoothed his hand down my back. He shifted, lying on his side. He continued rubbing my back, and his voice came from above my head. “You never actually talk about her, you know?”
I shook my head, rotating from side to side.
I couldn’t talk about her. I just couldn’t.
“What was your sister like?”
He cared and thought he was doing the right thing. At least, that was what I told myself.
It so wasn’t the right thing though.
I turned, not caring about anything except avoiding talking about her, and grabbed him. I pulled him down on top of me, finding his mouth with mine.
I was desperate for it.
I was desperate for hi—no. I had to be honest, at least with myself. I was using him. There. I admitted it. I did care for Ryan, and maybe there were real emotions underneath all the craziness inside me, but I wasn’t in touch with them right at the moment.
He could chase her away; he was the only thing that worked.
“Ryan,” I breathed, opening my mouth under his, coaxing.
“Mac?”
God.
I normally loved hearing her nickname from him, but not tonight.
I sat up, still kissing him, and feeling something rising in me—something reckless, something wild, something intoxicating—I took my shirt off. I didn’t sleep with a bra on, so as soon as my shirt was off, his hand was on my breast.
Yes.
That helped.
She was fading. I could feel her go.
“Are you—”
I shook my head, my mouth finding his again. I didn’t care if I was coming across frenzied and desperate. It was how I felt, but the throbbing for him had started too. I . . . I stopped thinking. That was the only way she’d completely leave, and tonight, I didn’t care how far we had to go for that to happen.
I wanted him, and that ache grew more and more fervent.
I gasped.
“Shit, Mackenzie,” he growled, pushing me back down and looming over me. He was panting, but he fitted himself between my legs.
I could feel him through his boxer briefs, through my pajama shorts. I reached down, grabbed his hips, and jerked him close.
Right there.
I felt him where I needed him, and I began grinding against him. He moved with me, his hands growing more sure, more demanding, more rough. My frenzied need stirred the same emotion in him, and he was crushing me, getting as close as he could.
I could feel him press into me.
Move his briefs aside, my shorts aside, and we’d be one.
My mind had stopped working.
I no longer knew why he wasn’t in me already.
My mouth opened beneath his, and reaching down, I touched him.
He cursed, shoving against my hand. He broke his mouth from mine. “You sure?” he rasped next to my ear and then lifted to peer at me through the darkness..
I nodded.
I had a small window of sanity, but I was ready. We were going there anyway. Willow was making me crazy, but yes. I was sure.
“I’m on the pill.”
He reached up, brushed some of my hair away from my forehead. “You are?”
Another searing pain in my chest. “Willow had sex last year with Duke. We both went on the pill once our mom found out.”
Good old Wills. My mouth turned down, and his thumb fell to my lip, rubbing it out.
“I have condoms,” he whispered. “We’ll be safe.”
I nodded.
Take a goddamn breath, Mac. Fuck’s sakes. Think about this. This is major. S-E-X, the big sex here. He’s the guy you want?
I almost cried out, hearing her concern, and why the fuck was my mind working again? My mind wasn’t supposed to be on her, but I listened to her question and focused on him.
I focused on Ryan.
I was a virgin. Was he the guy? And suddenly, I felt Willow leaving again. She was fading and taking all the pain, all the anger with her until it was only me lying in his arms.
The answer bloomed in my chest, and I nodded.
I was ready. I did want this, and with no one else except him.
“Yes,” I almost whispered the word.
I wanted nothing more, and it wasn’t tainted by the pain of my sister. It was pure, rooted in the feelings I did have for Ryan.
“Please.”
His eyes darkened, and that was all he needed. He bent down, his mouth finding mine again.
Yes.