Iris Stanton thought there was a good chance that she was dying. That’s how bad the pain was. She clutched her broken arm in front of her chest as the sun set over the hills. It was a shame. She’d never even been in love before and she was gonna die out in the woods behind her house.

She sat up from where she’d tumbled onto the forest floor. She knew she must look a mess right now, leaves and sticks in her hair and…shoot, she’d ripped her new sweater right down the middle. Her mother was going to burn her alive. If the pain in her arm didn’t do the job first.

Iris was scared to look down at her injury. She knew it was bad. And if there was blood, there was a chance that she’d pass out right here in the middle of the woods as the sun was setting and then she’d really be in trouble.

Stupid Owen. Stupid, hilarious, charismatic, always-gets-his-way Owen. Talking her into climbing that dang tree in the first place. She should have known that branch couldn’t hold both of them. How many times was Owen going to get both of them in trouble before she learned her lesson and started telling him no?

A groan sounded from behind her and Iris whirled, wincing as she clutched her hurt arm to her chest even tighter. And what she saw had her gasping and skittering across the forest floor toward her brother.

“Owen!” she whispered, through a mouth that felt like it was filled with cotton balls.

Her brother laid awkwardly across the spongy forest floor, one leg bent underneath him and his ribs splayed across the thick roots of the oak tree they’d been foolish enough to climb just minutes before. He had the beginnings of two black eyes and something dark was staining the side of his t-shirt. Iris didn’t look too closely because she knew she’d pass out if she did.

“Owen!” she whispered again, this time kneeling right next to him, her arm clutched in front of her like it was a baby doll.

His eyes blinked blearily open and they were blurry with pain and confusion. But he saw her. Somehow, Owen always saw her. “Iris,” he groaned. “It hurts.”

“I know, O. I know.”

Iris looked around, trying to figure out exactly where they were in the woods. They hadn’t walked for more than ten minutes before they’d come to the great Oak tree he’d convinced her to climb. But she really wasn’t sure she could find her way back to this exact spot if she had to. Which meant that she wasn’t leaving Owen behind. Not when the sun was setting and he was losing consciousness. So that meant that she stayed right there with him, or she carried him out.

Iris sighed. Even though they were twins, Owen had always been bigger than she was. Carrying him was hard enough when she had two good arms. But, spilt milk. No use. She allowed herself one more sigh and a great, wincing gasp of pain as she anchored an arm under Owen’s shoulder and started to yank him up.

“No,” he groaned, his face crumbling into tears.

“We have to, O. We have to get out of here.”

“No,” he cried again, but this time he gathered his feet underneath him and helped her haul him to standing. Immediately, he lifted one of his legs like a puppy with a thorn in his paw and Iris gritted her teeth. It was going to be a long walk out of the woods if he had a broken foot.

But there was no use whining about it. It was reality. It was what they had to do. They had to drag themselves out of the woods. And then came the hard part. Telling her mother what had happened. Shelly Stanton was a hard woman. She was sharp and often frustrated and always tired. And no matter that her two children were only eleven years old. It always seemed that they should know better, no matter what lesson they’d learned the hard way.

Iris’s eyes blurred with tears of pain and frustration as she took the brunt of her brother’s weight and started slowly hauling them through the woods. She knew what she was in for. It didn’t matter that it was Owen’s idea to get in the tree. It would be Iris’s fault for allowing it to happen. According to their mother, Owen didn’t know any better and besides, he was a boy—he was supposed to be wild. Iris was the girl, she was supposed to be reserved and take care of everybody else, especially her brother. No matter how many times Owen got the two of them in trouble, it never felt less unfair that Iris was the one in trouble every time. And as she looked over at the bruises darkening her brother’s eyes, his perfect face, so handsome even at age eleven, Iris knew she was really in for it this time. Her mother’s perfect baby, her favorite child, had gotten seriously hurt.

Iris tried not to jostle her hurt arm, knowing full well that her own injuries would only serve to irritate her mother. They would serve as a distraction to her mother while she tended to Owen.

“I’m so sorry, Iris,” Owen moaned as they slowly hobbled across the soft forest floor. “I’m so sorry. I’ll take care of you.”

Owen knew as well as Iris did that she wouldn’t receive any sympathy from their mother. That he, with his fumbled attempts and short attention span, would be the most love and affection and care that Iris would receive while she recovered from her broken arm. Owen, on the other hand, the good looking twin, the charming twin, the breathtakingly talented twin, he would get all the love and care that either of them could ever hope for.

“It’s okay, O,” Iris grunted as he put more weight on her shoulders to step over a particularly large root in the ground. “Don’t think about it now. Let’s just get home. Here, let’s sing. That’ll distract us.”

Iris lifted her voice, wincing with the pain of filling her lungs with air. She might have broken ribs, she realized. But no matter now. Her voice, sick with pain and fear, trembled before she found her note. But find it she did. Owen wasn’t the only talented one in the family. It just so happened that he was more talented than she was.

She’d gotten a few notes into a song they’d written together a few months ago. It was a silly song, about running away and a new life where they could live in a tree house. She’d written the lyrics and most of the tune, and Owen had helped make it special. The way he always did with everything. He’d taken her finished project and somehow made it just a little better. Elevating the song from good to perfect.

And the same thing happened when his voice finally twisted with hers as they hobbled across the forest floor. Even in excruciating pain, his voice was crystal clear and unerring. The two eleven year olds, wincing and sniffling at tears, made their way toward home, leaning on one another.

Never again, Iris swore to herself internally. Never again would she let her brother get them into trouble like this.