Warm water rushes over the crown of my head as I stand facing the faucet. My eyes instinctively close, and I let my mind rest. I feel as though I’m watching my brain wander the pathways of my memory. It starts the journey with recent memories, like the feel of the old hardwood floors in Alexa’s new apartment under my bare feet, then pings quickly to other, more distant memories. I feel my muscles tense slightly in anticipation as my brain searches itself, and suddenly, I see her. Then my brain pans out like a scene in a movie to reveal the whole picture.
Mom and I are in the kitchen of our old house, although I suppose it’s only old to me since I’m the one exiled. Mom is packing a picnic basket with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us, tuna salad for her and Dad. I’m at the counter, folding paper towels to use as napkins. I watch as my mom pauses to pull her thick waves of auburn hair into an elastic rubber band.
She looks happy. I miss when we were all happy.
I open my eyes and let the image of our kitchen, lined with white cabinets, rinse away as I search the shower for shampoo. I know how that memory ends; there’s no need to rewatch it. It’s like that old movie Titanic. Even though I watched it over and over— hoping for the ship to miss the iceberg, for Jack to survive—the ending never changes.
I roll my head around, feeling a pop in my neck before I reach for the Dove body wash tucked in the corner of the tub—it’s cucumber-scented. I’ve never understood the allure of cucumber. I wash my body, taking care when I get to my abdomen. The scar is thirteen years old, but I treat it with the same cautious gentleness as the day my flesh was cut.
As I lather up with body wash, my mind wanders again to that day. To the picnic. It was like any other day, until it wasn’t. How can such a happy day turn dark so fast? If only we’d been able to stay in the before period, forever.
Annoyed at the emotions bubbling in my brain and body, I crank the faucet to a halt and shove the curtain out of the way—or try to. I have to stop twice to force the rings over the middle part of the curtain rod. As I step out of the tub and reach for the pale gray towel draped over the sink, I look around at the tiny bathroom, and the unavoidable fact flashes in my brain like neon lights on the Vegas Strip. She really did it. She’s on her own, just as she always wanted. I try to conjure happiness for my sister, but it doesn’t come.
After I finish drying off, I stand in front of the small circular mirror and look at my reflection. People say “I could be looking in a mirror” when they meet someone who shares their features, but as I gaze into the mirror, I think the same concept in reverse. I could be looking at Alexa. It’s a bizarre thing for the brain to decode where the line between your own reflection and an entirely different being is blurred. Being a twin is our norm, sure—something we’ve experienced all our lives—but every once in a while it still comes as a shock when it occurs to me that I am identical to another person. Puts a whole new spin on the old cliché “my other half.”
I remind myself why I am here. She needs me—she’s always needed me. I try to quiet the second, more truthful part of the sentence away. Or rather, what I like to leave unsaid. I will not admit that I need her too.