“What the hell are you on about?”

This makes no sense. He must be confused. He’s got this wrong. We’re not related.

“We’re not related, Gal. You’re making excuses. We aren’t even step-siblings.”

“You’ve never once asked me about my birth mother. Not once have you asked why she isn’t in my life.”

Everything stops. He’s right. I’ve never asked, never even wondered. I was so caught up in him calling my mother Mum, I never thought about his.

His hands are trembling, and when I look back at his face, I see the swell of tears threatening to escape. He swipes angrily at them and turns to sit on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

He talks to the floor, yet I hear every word.

“When Dad went away, Mum and your father got together. I don’t know the specifics, only that your dad and mine were close friends once. When he came back and found out about them, he was angry, defeated, heartbroken I guess. He’d missed his chance, and felt betrayed.”

“I don’t understand how that makes us cousins,” I whisper confused.

His head lifts, and he smiles, but it isn’t one of happiness or joy. It’s one coated in a thick sadness.

“He tried to make it work with someone else instead. Someone he maybe hoped to love, but she didn’t make it easy.”

He drags his palms down his face and puffs out a long breath. Telling this story is obviously hard for him, yet he carries on.

“Our mum is a twin. She’s one of a pair. Identical, but so different.”

Twins? She has a sister and never told me?

“That can’t be true, I would know.”

His anguished gaze meets mine, his words heavy and thick, filled with long hidden grief. “I never knew my birth mother. She died before I turned one. The little I know about her is that she was nothing like Mum, despite being her mirror image. She was flighty and uncontrollable, and she went through phases of deep depression. She OD’d during one particularly tough episode. Dad found her when he came home from work. He said he missed the signs. He beat himself up about it for a long time. He probably still does.”

My hand shakes as I bring it up to cover my mouth. “Why didn’t Mum ever say anything?”

“Lena, that’s my birth mother and Mum’s twin, hadn’t spoken to her for a few years. They’d fallen out before my dad left, and I guess Lena knew how Mum felt about him, yet she still hooked up with him regardless. I’m not sure of the details. I think Mum’s never spoken about her because it hurts too much, but again, that’s a guess. I just know how hard my dad finds talking about her and their time together. I think Lena was even more troubled than he’s admitted to me, and I think he blames himself for being unable to love and help her the way he thinks he should’ve.”

“Were they married?”

“No, they lived together, but only because of me. I don’t think they were serious before Lena got pregnant. I think Dad was trying to do the right thing. I also think he was worried about my safety had Lena been left to bring me up alone.”

Silence stretches between us. Galen is lost in his grief, and his confession of our blood relationship. While I stand before him, half naked, counting each of his breaths, and unable to process the bomb that he’s just dropped on me.

Cousins. First cousins. His mother was Mum’s twin.

Legally, I don’t think what we’ve done is wrong, but morally… I’m not so sure.

We’re related. Not siblings, but almost. We share DNA.

“It still isn’t wrong, what we did. Don’t make it wrong, don’t make it dirty,” I whisper, my body shutting down and turning cold.

“Mum and Dad are planning to get married. I heard them talking about it,” he offers randomly.

“So?”

“So we won’t just be blood-related, you’ll become my sister. That is wrong, Fflur. Maybe not in the eyes of any law, but our family would see it as wrong, and I can’t let them take you away from me. I won’t let that happen.”

He stands and takes a step towards me, and I wrap my arms around my stomach, holding myself together, not wanting to fall apart and take a step back. He stills, his eyes begging me to understand. “If the only way I get to have you is as my sister and my friend, I’ll live with that.”

I won’t.

I can’t live with that.

We’re meant to be more.

Visions of us in each other’s arms, limbs tangled between his sheets, lips learning, mouths loving, hearts opened wide and filled with hope, dissipate in the air between us.

He’s leaving.

No, that’s wrong. Even though he’s in the same room as me, breathing the same air, he’s already left.

“Can you forgive me?” Galen asks after minutes of dead and empty silence. “For all of it. For not telling you sooner, for what we just shared. I knew better, and I shouldn’t have let it happen. Please, just tell me you can forgive me?”

I bow my head, and like always, I give him my truth.

“I can forgive you all of that, but I’ll never forgive you for leaving.”

Lathyrus odoratus.

Days later, Galen is gone.

Left in my room is a bunch of sweet peas in a plethora of colours—a tender and gentle goodbye.

No note accompanies the flowers, but I know he chose them for their meaning.

I take a single bloom and press it into my scrapbook. I don’t confess anything to it before doing so. It already knows.

The rest of the bunch I remove from my room and deposit them on the desk in Galen’s bedroom.

They can wither and die in here. It seems fitting.