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She closes her eyes for a moment, collecting herself. “Would you mind…coming to my room with me? I’m afraid if I wait till you’re gone, I won’t be able to do it by myself.”

  This girl makes me so sad.

  “Of course I wouldn’t mind. I told you, whatever you need. We’re kind of in this together.”

  Before I fully grasp what I’m doing, I sweep a lock of blonde hair away from her face, and tuck it gently behind her ear. But Casey doesn’t flinch. If anything, she almost leans into my hand like she craves the physical contact. Without a word, she pivots and leaves the kitchen.

  I trail behind her down the hallway until we’re both standing outside her bedroom. I let my arm brush hers, reminding her that she isn’t alone. Her eyes are closed and her jaw is tight. Her chest rises and falls with deep breaths.

  I move between her and the door. “Hey. Remember…you have to let yourself feel how you feel. If it’s hard, just let it be hard.”

  Casey looks up at me, deadpanning, “That’s what she said.”

  My jaw drops. I’m too shocked to laugh, but I’m certainly grateful for the rift in the emotional tension. Casey has a proud little smirk on her face, and I’m glad I could supply her with the fuel she needed to make this hurdle the slightest bit easier to cross.

  I place my hand on the doorknob behind me. “Are you ready?”

  She nods slowly, her short reprieve dissipating.

  I turn the glass knob and ease the door open. Moving backward into the room, I keep my focus on Casey. She steps in, locking her eyes on mine like she’s afraid to see anything around us. Her lip quivers and her eyes pool, but she doesn’t look away from me. She doesn’t even blink. I keep moving farther into the room, and she keeps following me, staying within close proximity as if I’m her shield from danger.

  Casey’s gaze flickers to the upper corner of the room, to the crack in the plaster ceiling above the bed, and it does something to her. Her entire frame wilts and her breathing quickens and shakes. She falls to her knees before I can catch her. I drop beside her, my hand on her shoulder as she cries.

  Casey reaches for the wingback chair beside us and pulls down the shirt draped over its arm. I know it’s Lucas’s. She buries her face in the dark fabric and sobs. I’m doing everything I can to keep myself together for her, but I wish I could do more to help. So I do the only thing that comes naturally. I scoot closer and secure my arms around her trembling body. Clutching Lucas’s shirt over her heart, Casey presses her cheek into my chest.

  I can no longer contain it. I’m falling apart with her as I hold her. Aside from my mother, and maybe Lucas, this girl is the only person who’s seen me cry this much. In the four days we’ve known each other, crying is the one thing we’ve done the most by far. I wish we hadn’t met this way.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  It’s so faint, I almost miss it. “Why are you sorry?” I ask tenderly. I hate that she thinks she has to apologize right now.

  “I can’t even hold it together for a whole hour,” Casey says, her face still against me. “You’re probably so tired of me.”

  Her words spark a physical ache inside me. “No. I’m not. Not even the slightest bit. Why would you think that?”

  “You have enough going on without being forced to deal with some girl you just met.”

  Releasing a heavy sigh, I move my hand to her head. I cradle it gently against my chest as my other arm holds her tighter. “I’m not forced to do anything, Casey. And you’re not just some girl. I feel like—” My breath catches.

  Casey tilts her head to look up at me, our frowning faces only inches apart. “You feel like what?”

  I look into her sad, beautiful eyes—the same eyes my brother used to gaze into—and I silently plead with her to let me keep it to myself. But she’s still watching me, waiting.

  “Talk to me, Lennon. It’s your turn to let someone hold you.”

  She leaves Lucas’s shirt in her lap and straightens to sit taller, breaking my hold on her. She places her hand on the back of my neck and eases me toward her until my cheek is resting against the soft skin beneath her collar bone. I resist at first, but she slides her arms around me, giving me no choice but to go with it. Our height difference makes it a little awkward, but after some adjusting, we find the right position and I let her hold me.

  I can hear Casey’s heart. I close my eyes and just listen. This is the heart that loves Lucas, that skipped beats for him, that raced in his presence. Now it’s the heart that breaks for him and aches for him. Suddenly, I have an instinct to guard her heart, to be its protection against further harm, to piece it back together.

  Casey’s arms are so tight around me and it feels so good. I focus on her breaths as her lungs fill and empty against me. For the first time since my mother’s phone call, there’s a sense of peace. There’s relief. And it makes me cry. Because in this moment, I think it might actually be possible to live through losing Lucas.

  As Casey strokes my hair, I struggle to remember the last time anyone’s touched me this way. But I can’t recall the last time I felt so cared for, so comforted, so safe.

  “What were you going to say?” Casey asks. “You can tell me.”

  I close my eyes again, spilling more tears onto her skin. “I feel like you’re the one piece of Lucas I get to keep.”

  Her cheek drops to my head and I feel her body tremble. “That’s how I feel about you.”

  seven

  Casey

  I’m lying on Lucas’s side of the bed, closing my eyes to shut out my surrounding reality. I want to pretend for a moment that Lucas is here, maybe in the kitchen getting water, or in the bathroom taking a shower. I try to ignore the silence that didn’t exist when he was here with me, but it’s sabotaging my fantasy.

  I need a break from this pain. I need to hear him, to feel like he’s not gone. I grab my phone off the nightstand and tap his name in my contacts like I have countless times before. I hold the phone to my ear and listen to it ring. I pretend that, any second now, Lucas will answer. But of course, it goes to voicemail. I’m unprepared for how his voice tears me apart.

  “Hey, it’s Lucas. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  My chest is about to implode as the beep comes.

  “Lucas…” I whisper. I wasn’t planning to leave a message, but it feels good to talk to him. “I can’t believe you’re not here anymore, that you’re never coming home. This can’t be real, Luc. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to you. I hate thinking about it. I hate that I can’t hold you and kiss your hurts away. I wish that’s all it would take to fix you…I wish you hadn’t insisted on leaving me the car every day. I wish you hadn’t walked to work. I wish you’d called in sick or I’d dropped you off. Or if I’d just held you a few seconds longer when you kissed me goodbye, that truck would’ve been long gone by the time you reached that crosswalk—”

  There’s another beep and I’m out of time. I hang up and call right back, bawling through his outgoing message.

  “Your funeral is tomorrow. How the hell am I gonna make it through that? I thought if I ever attended your funeral, it would be after a long and beautiful life together. And our children would surround me and comfort me. Or maybe I’d be too senile to understand what was going on. Either way, I’d be right behind you. But it happened the wrong way, Luc. You left me way too soon and now I have to spend my entire life without you. It could be endless decades before we’re together again. I don’t know how to do this, babe. How do I say goodbye to you tomorrow? We didn’t have enough time. I love you so much. I wasn’t done loving you. I’ll never be done. I wish you could tell me it’s gonna be okay—”

  I’m a complete mess, but I’m still not finished.

  “Why didn’t you tell me more about Lennon? He’s amazing, Luc. He’s been my saving grace since you left. I wish you’d been here to introduce us. I wish I could see you both together. I’ll never know what that looks like. I’ll never know who Lennon was befor
e he lost you. He’s hurting so much, but he still finds ways to distract me and make me smile. I don’t know how he does it. He’s the one good thing that’s come from this. You’d be so proud of him…I try not to look for you in Lennon. Sometimes I just wanna touch him or hold him and try to pretend he’s you—”

  When I’m cut off again, I hang up and I don’t call back. Instead, I bury my face in Lucas’s pillow, sucking in every lingering fragment of his smell as I sob well into the night.

  ∞∞∞

  I wake to the sound of my ringtone. When I open my swollen eyelids, the room is still dark. My hands search the mattress until I locate my phone. I squint in the bright light of the screen to see the caller’s name.

  Lucas

  My heart leaps into my throat. I must be dreaming again.

  “Hello?” I answer in a choked voice.

  “Casey, it’s Lennon. I’m so sorry.”

  My breath slowly escapes. I feel numb.

  “I’m so sorry to call you from Luc’s phone. We never exchanged numbers and I just…I needed to talk to you. You left his phone here, so I charged it to see if I could get your number. But the screen is so messed up, I accidentally called you and I didn’t want to just hang up…I’m sorry.”

  He sounds so unhinged and I feel bad that he feels so bad. “Lennon. It’s okay.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’m so sorry, Casey.”

  “Lennon, stop apologizing. It’s…actually nice to hear from you. I haven’t had the best night.”

  “Yeah. Me neither.” He releases a long sigh. “We haven’t been apart since I got here. I guess you’ve kinda become my security blanket. Is that weird? I’m sorry if that’s weird.”

  A corner of my mouth lifts. “It’s not weird.”

  “And to be honest, I was a little worried about you. I keep thinking of you all alone in that house…Are you okay?”

  A tear slips down my cheek. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out how I’m gonna get through tomorrow.”

  Lennon sighs again. “Me too. I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve been trying to write out what I’m going to say at the service. But I’ve been doing more crying than writing. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Casey, I have to. He’s my twin brother. He was with me from the very beginning of my life; I’m going to be with him through the end of his.” Lennon sniffles and I want to hug him.

  “You’ll come up with something perfect,” I say. “Just speak from your heart. That’s all you have to do.”

  “You’re right. I don’t need some big speech. I’m just gonna get up there and do it. Thanks, Casey.”

  We’re both silent for a moment.

  “Do you think Lucas will be able to hear it?” I ask. “Like do you think he can watch from Heaven?”

  Lennon hesitates so long, I wonder if I’ve upset him. Or if he’s fallen asleep. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I’d like to think so, but I don’t really know how it works. I don’t believe in ghosts, though. I think once you’re gone, you’re gone.”

  I let my eyes wander the dark room and I think about ghosts. The idea of Lucas haunting me isn’t at all romantic; it’s terrifying. And the thought of him trapped on this earth isn’t something I want to believe in. The image of him whole and happy in Heaven is one of the only things that brings me comfort lately. That and Lennon.

  For a second, I’m a little spooked, alone in this dark old house. But then I realize something. I don’t feel Lucas’s light here. I don’t feel him anymore. I’m completely alone in this house.

  “You’re thinking about ghosts, aren’t you?” Lennon says.

  “No.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “No. You are.”

  He breathes a slight chuckle into the phone and suddenly I miss him.

  “Can I sit next to you at the service?” I ask.

  “Of course you can.”

  “Can you wait outside for me so I don’t have to walk in alone?”

  “Absolutely.” Lennon sounds sleepy now.

  “Hey, we better get some sleep,” I tell him. “Tomorrow is gonna be a long, awful day.”

  He groans. “The longest and the awfulest. But we’ll have each other.”

  “Yes, we will. Good night, Lennon.”

  “Night, Casey.”

  We hang up and I feel even more alone than I did before. There’s this aching empty void hollowing out my chest. I want to shut off my brain. Flip a switch and just exist. Mindless nothingness. Maybe this was a mistake, staying here by myself. I could be with Lennon right now. We could be drowning our sorrows in ice cream and stupid movies. Would it have been wrong if I’d asked him to stay?

  I open the YouTube app on my phone and type Lennon Reid into the search bar. I’m surprised by the extensive list of results. Some are videos of him made by…fans? Does Lennon have fans? I find his channel and tap the latest video, titled, ‘Filming in NYC with Jonah Tyler.’

  I’m instantly impressed with the video’s intro, professional and aesthetically pleasing like it’s an episode of a television show. Then it’s Lennon, talking to the camera in perfect HD. He’s by the window in a hotel room, with sleepy eyes and messy morning hair, marveling over the sunrise. He shares his plans for the day, which begin with shooting Jonah’s music video.

  This was that morning. Just hours before our entire lives were upended.

  Lennon’s eyes are different. I notice it immediately. His voice sounds the same, but it’s somehow still different. His face, his smile, the way he carries himself. All different. He’s so alive, so joyful. This is who Lennon was before he lost Lucas.

  The video cuts to Lennon walking down a sidewalk, sipping a coffee. He pans to his side and Jonah waves with a grin.

  “We’re walking to the set because…let’s just say we had a little too much fun last night,” Lennon says, chuckling.

  “Wait, you’re making it sound like we did something scandalous,” Jonah chimes in.

  “Oh, yeah. No, it was just IHOP. All-you-can-eat pancakes.”

  They both laugh and I find myself smiling.

  The rest of the video is Lennon giving a sneak peek of the set, and then talking to Jonah while he’s in makeup. Jonah receives a text from his wife and he gets all giddy and adorable over it. It makes me sad because I had that. I already miss it so much.

  Looking at Jonah and knowing he’s that beautiful voice in our song, the song Lucas and I listened to together so many times—it all feels so heavy.

  But then the video goes black and words come up on the screen: Due to a family emergency, I’ll be taking an indefinite break. I ask that you be patient with me as I face this difficult season. I could really use your prayers right now! As always, thank you for your endless support. I love you all! Love, Lennon

  I check the timestamp on the video. Lennon posted it only a few hours ago. Maybe he thought working on something would help distract him. But from his phone call, I wonder if it only made him feel worse.

  I scroll to the video’s comments. There are already hundreds of them.

  Oh my gosh! You two are so fun together! Can Jonah be in all your videos, please?

  Lennon and Jonah are PERFECT.

  I just want a guy who reacts to my texts the way Jonah reacts to his wife’s. #goals

  Countless comments profess their love to Lennon, telling him how hot he is. But there are also the endless concerned comments in response to his closing message.

  Oh no. What happened? Are you okay?

  Family emergency? Lennon, I’m worried about you!

  Praying for you, Lennon!

  I think something happened to his brother.

  My stomach drops and I stop skimming the comments. I don’t want to see strangers talking about my Lucas. I can’t handle any speculations, or God forbid, negativity. I want to get lost in something that makes me smile, something that makes me
forget.

  I scroll far back into Lennon’s uploads and choose a random video from a trip to Hawaii with his friends. I’m amazed at the sights Lennon captured, the scenes edited together so flawlessly. Sunrises, sunsets, breeze-blown palm trees, crackling bonfires, laughter, mountainous beaches, crashing waves. I can almost imagine being there.

  I feel like I’m with Lennon as he dives off a cliff, plunging deep into the turquoise waters and resurfacing in the bright sunlight, his face covered in salty droplets and an exhilarated grin.

  It hurts to see Lennon so happy. My heart breaks for this version of him on the screen. He has no idea what life is about to throw at him.

  eight

  Lennon

  Everyone stares at me as they pass by like they’re seeing a ghost. It’s like they’d forgotten I exist or that I’d be here. That I’m my own person, not some empty, generic figure wearing the face of the dead.

  Although, today, I am empty.

  I button and unbutton my suit jacket, searching for Casey in the surprising drove of people drifting into the funeral home. My mother has already gone in ahead of me to save our seats at the front.

  I loosen my tie as the morning sun intensifies and the humidity rises, my body heating up beneath the stifling fabrics that layer my skin. I run the back of my hand over my damp forehead, nodding at more passersby who offer commiserating, tight-lipped smiles. People I’ve never seen in my life are hugging me, crying on me.

  “At least you still get to see him when you look in the mirror.”

  A horribly failed attempt at a lighthearted condolence.

  “Wow, you really were twins, huh?”

  Were. Yes, thank you for that.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Lucas was crashing his own funeral.”

  This one thinks I can’t hear him, but he’s sorely lacking in the self-awareness department and I’m about to punch him in the face.

  This isn’t the time to make light of anything. This isn’t the place for humor to break the tension. This is my brother’s funeral. There is nothing funny about it.