“Without you?” she asked, her eyebrows pinching together when she looked back up at me.

“Most years.”

“That’s sad.”

I laughed. It might have been sad when I was ten, but now it was normal. “Not really. Have your parents ever taken a trip without you?” She didn’t respond for a few seconds, but finally nodded. “That’s all it is. We just don’t do the whole traditional holiday thing, never have. When are you gonna head home?”

“I’m not.”

She looked uncomfortable, so I didn’t press for anything else. When she looked at the ground again, I took that as a cue to leave and turned to walk back to my car.

“What is it about you?”

I paused but didn’t turn around for a few moments, and then it was only to look over my shoulder.

“I don’t know you. Other than right now we’ve only talked to each other twice and it was for a handful of minutes, but I feel like I know you. I feel—I don’t know how to explain it,” she huffed, and a frustrated smile crossed her face. “I’m about to embarrass the hell out of myself, but I don’t care anymore. I feel like when I’m near you, I’m safe, and it makes no sense to me. It is the weirdest feeling to have with someone I only know three things about.”

My eyebrows rose at that and I turned to fully face her. “Three?”

“Yes. Three things. Your name is Kier, you’re extremely quiet, and you are the biggest puzzle I’ve ever tried to figure out.”

“I’m the puzzle?”

“Yes!” she said in exasperation.

That had to have been the most backward statement I’d ever heard. “And why am I a puzzle?”

“Because of what I just told you. I don’t know you, you don’t even talk to anyone, and I feel safe when you’re near me! Why is that? I feel like I’m going crazy because all I’ve been able to think about for these past two weeks is you, and how every time you open your mouth it’s like déjà vu, and I just—I don’t know what’s happening.” Her green eyes were massive and she looked like she was on the edge of losing her shit.

I took a few steps toward her and lowered my voice. “Calm down, Indy. You’re fine.”

“I just don’t understand,” she said loudly, the pitch of her voice rising. “Do you believe in past lives?” she asked suddenly.

I paused, a laugh slipping past my lips. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Past lives? Like that whole stupid YOLO saying is really just bullshit, because we’re about to get another shot down the road?”

I tried to contain my smile, but she was really fucking adorable when she was like this. “What does that have to do with what you’re freaking out over?”

“In stories with soul mates they find each other no matter what in every life. And it’s like they have a weird connection they can’t explain.”

I closed the distance between us and dropped my head so I was looking directly into her eyes. “Are you saying we’re soul mates?”

“No!” she said, horror lacing her voice, her cheeks filling with heat.

“I think you were,” I teased.

“I wasn’t, I was just saying that in stories . . . I don’t know what I’m saying, okay? But I don’t get what’s going on with us!”

“So now there’s an us?”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I need to stop talking.”

I laughed and took a step back. “I’m teasing you, Indy. And no, I don’t believe in past lives. I think we have this one, and that’s it.”

She sighed, and her body visibly relaxed. When she spoke again, she sounded exhausted—and in a way, defeated. “I don’t, either, but I can’t figure out how to explain this feeling like I know you.”

I ground my jaw for a few seconds as her green eyes held mine. “Because maybe you do know me. You’re just not ready to remember why.”

Her mouth popped open and an audible huff blew past her lips. “What does that even mean?”

“You’ll understand when you think you’re ready, Indy. That’s all you need to know for now.”

Before I could say anything else, and before she could ask more questions, I got into my SUV and drove away.

* * *

Indy

I climbed the stairs up to the attic the next afternoon, enjoying and hating this time alone. I wasn’t leaving for break, but I’d been skipping my classes anyway. I wanted to be alone, needed to be alone. But being alone was also a dangerous thing for me—especially when Thanksgiving was two days away.

It didn’t matter that it was the wrong day. It didn’t matter that I’d already broken down on Saturday—the actual two-year anniversary—and that for the first time in the last two years I’d chosen to forget him rather than grieve for him. It was just that it was that damn day.

It just had to be on a holiday. One that was widely celebrated and changed dates every year—almost as if to torture us that much more. Like, hey—you have two anniversaries for this fucked-up day. Not just one. Congratulations, you. But, at the same time, I feared the year that Thanksgiving fell on the twenty-second again. I would view that day like a bad omen. Only bad would come on that day; I was sure of it.

As I climbed onto the dozens of multisized and colored pillows and blankets that covered the entire floor of our attic, I fought with the knowledge that I needed to be around people. That I should go to a Starbucks at the very least.

Both Chloe and Courtney worked so much that they weren’t going home this break—and I doubted they would go home over winter break. But even though they were still at the house, they weren’t ever here. And with Misha gone, the last couple of days had been practically impossible to get through.

Urges that felt more like repulsive cravings coursed through my body, and my hands impulsively curled into fists as the muscles in my thighs tightened in anticipation for something that wouldn’t come. A soul-deep ache and longing filled my chest, echoed by a much smaller ache to have Dean here, helping me through this. This was the first time I was facing the anniversary alone, and a part of me was terrified I didn’t know how to get through it by myself.

No wonder Dean had cheated and left me. Mess was a nice way of describing my life and me.

I rolled onto my side and curled my knees up to my chest as I tried to hold myself together. I fought with myself to stay here—to not run to someone to make them fix everything. To fix me. Chanting to myself over and over that I just needed to keep breathing through the pain, through the urges, through the grief.

I loved this attic. I loved how quiet and comfortable it was. And now, when all I wanted to do was panic over being alone, I told myself this was what I needed. Quiet. Alone. Peace. No one could fix what had happened. No one could fix me. I needed to do this by myself.

I’d finally been able to stop my damaging form of grief, and hadn’t realized that I’d just replaced it with Dean until we were over. The pride of stopping hadn’t lasted long when I’d started drowning out memories of Dean with drinking.

One form of fucked-up coping to another.

One helping me feel like I could take some of his pain away.

The other making me forget that everyone had given up on me.

But not once in the last two years had I tried to forget him. Not once until this past Saturday . . . and I hated that I’d spit on his memory that way. Two years without him—and instead of drinking to forget about Dean and my parents like I had been doing, I drank to forget my own twin brother.

I was a mess. I was drowning. I felt so fucking lost and was tired of pretending that everything was okay. And for the first time in two years, I was trying to pull myself up without using someone else, and I knew I was failing.

But I wouldn’t go back to where I’d been. I couldn’t. No matter the amount of pain and craving to make it go away, Ian would hate me if he knew what I’d done after his death.

So until I was sure I was okay, I wasn’t leaving this attic. I couldn’t put myself near any temptation. No one was home; no one would hear my anguished cries. The pillows, blankets, and memories of Ian were all I needed right now.

* * *

My eyes cracked open sometime later. The room around me was dark except for the glow of the streetlights filtering in through the attic’s window. My bladder was full, my eyes hurt from crying for hours, and my body was sore from the tension of restraining myself from giving in to my cravings. I licked at my dry lips and reached around me for another blanket before pulling it on top of the other two already surrounding me. It was freezing up here.

Just as my eyes started shutting again, I heard a deep voice call my name. I held my breath and didn’t move as I heard muted voices talking back and forth, and then the sound of quick feet climbing. Before I knew what was happening, the door to the attic opened.

“Where’s the li—”

“Don’t turn it on,” I pled.

“Oh!” Courtney gasped. “God, you scared me! I was coming up to see if you were in here, but still.”

“I’m here.” Obviously. That was stupid, Indy.

“I have to go back to work, but that quiet guy from next door is here looking for you,” she said in a singsong voice.

My heart pounded as I thought about my embarrassing conversation with Kier yesterday. “Did he say why?”

“No,” she said, drawing out the word.

“Uh, can you tell him I’m not here?”

“I guess. If you really want me to.”

“I really want you to.”

She sighed and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Okay. Well, I’ll be back late. Text me if you need anything.”