25

It was wrinkled, like it had been crumpled into a ball, then smoothed out and neatly folded. The paper was thin, blue-lined, the jagged pieces from where it had been torn from a notebook still hanging on.

I carefully unfolded it and smoothed it across the granite marker. The dampness started to seep through the paper, curling the edges and blotching the middle. But I didn’t need it to be perfect to recognize it. I knew what it was—a crude drawing I’d made thousands of times before. I didn’t remember sketching this particular version, but I recognized the length of the lines, the gentle curve of the strokes, the darkened pressure marks where each line started. It was one of my drawings, no question about that.

I wondered where Josh had gotten it and why he was carrying it around. I had fifty of these at home, each one better than this. Why would he bother to keep this one?

“Maddy?” I swung around at the sound of my father’s voice. “You okay?”

No was the truthful answer, but I shrugged. “I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. I tried Alex’s first, thinking maybe you would’ve gone there when you left the house.”

“I didn’t,” I said. Alex’s was the last place I would go. He was half the reason I had left school early—I couldn’t figure him out and was terrified I’d screw up.

“I passed Josh on the way in,” Dad continued. “You know he comes here every day like me.”

I nodded, not sure what to say. I knew Dad stopped here on his way home from work. As for Josh … well, I wasn’t exactly surprised.

Before the accident, I’d hardly ever lied to my dad. Now it seemed all I did was lie to him. To everybody. “Josh wanted to talk to Ella,” I said, vaguely sticking to the truth.

“Is that why you’re here? To talk to your sister?”

“Yes.”

“I was hoping maybe you could talk to me,” he said, “but you left before we had a chance.”

“Because there is nothing to talk about.”

Typical of Dad, he nodded and changed his line of questioning, coming at me from a different angle. “Everything okay at school?”

“Yup. I didn’t feel well, so I went home.” He knew that was a lie. I’d insisted I felt good enough to return to school last night when we argued about it. They wanted me to take a few more days, meet with the counselor before I went back.

“Your mother is worried about you. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Dad. Honestly. But I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”

“Are you talking to Alex at least?”

Alex had stopped asking me about the accident after my first day home. I’d clam up or sometimes cry whenever he mentioned it at the hospital. By the time I’d gotten home, he probably figured it was safer not to ask. “Yeah. I guess.”

We stood there, neither one of us knowing what to say to break the heavy silence that surrounded us. The rain had nearly stopped, a few scattered drops staining the paper. My eyes drifted to the drawing I clutched in my hand.

“What do you have there?” Dad asked as he reached for the drawing.

I gave it to him and watched as he studied it. He folded it neatly and gave it back to me, his gaze turning to the gravestone behind us.

“She loved to draw. I swear she learned how to use a crayon before mastering a fork,” Dad said, chuckling. I hadn’t heard that sound in weeks. It made me smile and remember how when I was a kid, I’d made him enough drawings to completely cover his office walls. Every single one of them courtesy of Crayola.

“I miss her.” It was the first honest thing I’d said to him since I woke up in the hospital. I missed her hogging the shower in the morning and the smell of nail polish remover overtaking the bathroom. I wanted to hear her yelling for me to come down for dinner and teasing me when I tried to explain to Mom why I had no desire to go to prom.

And I missed me—Ella. I missed sitting at the lunch table with Josh, laughing to myself as Kim vied for his attention. I missed our Saturday-afternoon movie marathons and his moronic texts asking me how to handle Kim.

“I miss her too. More than you can ever know.”

Those last words were whispered. I don’t think he intended to speak them aloud, but they stunned me all the same. I couldn’t help myself—I asked, “What do you miss most about her?”

He stepped back, his face going pale. “I don’t blame you, Maddy. Nobody blames you. Please don’t think—”

“I don’t,” I interrupted. “I’m trying to figure her out. Ella, you know. What people thought of her. Who she really was.”

“Quiet,” was Dad’s first response. “Beautiful, and quiet, and so incredibly talented, but you already know that, don’t you?”

I thought about asking him what, exactly, he meant. Luckily, I didn’t have to. He answered before I could speak. “She was your twin sister, Maddy. I remember when you two were little. You were inseparable, even insisting on sleeping in the same room, in the same bed. You probably knew her better than anybody.”

“Umm, yeah, not so much anymore.”

Dad shook his head. He knew we’d grown apart these last few years. Everybody who spent any time with us knew that. “She’s the same Ella she was back then.”

“Maybe,” I said, hoping that was true, that somewhere beneath this lie was the real me. I picked at the tattered edges of the picture I was holding, mindlessly dropping the shreds of paper to the ground. “Dad, have you ever made a mistake, done something that you didn’t intend to but couldn’t take back?”

“Of course. Everybody has, but you can’t change the past, Maddy. You can’t change what happened.” He pulled me into his arms, and I knew he thought I was referring to the accident, that I was finally starting to talk. “You can’t go back. You have to try to make peace with what happened and move forward. We all do.”

His arms tightened around me as if he was willing me to believe him, to forgive myself and move on. I pulled away. It felt wrong to be forgiven.

“If you are looking to learn more about your sister, perhaps you should start with Josh. He was her best friend. He spent more time with her than any of us.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Go,” Dad said, nudging me toward the road. “Go talk to him. He’s hurting as much as you.”

26

I traced a circular pattern on the driveway with my foot. I could see the pavement through the spot I’d cleared, the puddle of rain trying to ease its way back as I continued to swipe it away. I’d been standing in Josh’s driveway for over twenty minutes trying to talk myself into knocking on his door, and I still couldn’t find the courage to move.

“Stop being a chicken, Ella. It’s just Josh.” I took one long, fog-filled breath and made my feet move, willed them to walk those last few steps up the slate walkway to his front door.

The bright motion-sensor porch lights came on as soon as I hit the bottom step, announcing my arrival to anyone sitting in the living room. I couldn’t even apologize to Josh in privacy.

Mrs. Williams opened the door as my hand was about to ring the doorbell. “El—” She stopped mid-name and took a step back, the color draining from her face as she grabbed the doorknob for support. I couldn’t blame her. The rain had washed any trace of makeup, and my hair hung in matted locks around my face. Like this, I guess I did look like me.

I should’ve said something, corrected her initial reaction or walked past her, but I couldn’t. I just stood there, my feet glued to the porch, my mouth forgetting how to form words.

“Maddy?”

I didn’t know whether she was asking me what I wanted or questioning who I was, so I opted for number one. “Hi, Mrs. Williams. Is Josh here?”

She stepped aside and motioned me in. “He’s upstairs. I’ll go get him.”

“No.” The last thing I needed was an audience. “I’ll find him.”