Chapter 1

• Trent
• It was the perfect place to grow up as a kid. Just a townhouse development out on the far edge of the farthest sprawling suburbs to most people, but to an eight-year-old this place was magical.
• My mom and I always lived in apartments before that. Not nice ones, either. Dingy ones. Run-down ones with ant problems, mice problems, drunk neighbor problems. But this year I turned eight we moved out of the city because she started working for this lawyer guy.
• (Yes, he did end up being my step-dad. It was one of those sappy, romantic, ‘down-on-her-luck single mother finds a fucking prince who whisks her off to the magical kingdom of small-town townhouses while giving her a well-above-minimum-wage job so she can make her own choices for once’ stories.)
• His name is Joe. My dad, that is. And he looks like a Joe. He sounds like a Joe, he acts like a Joe and you know what? What a fucking relief, right? Because in the city the guys who were interested in my mom were all called Chad, or Todd, or Snakes. She literally dated a guy named Snakes.
• So Joe Turner was a huge step up for her.
• Anyway… I’m rambling.
• I’m trying to think back to the day I met them. The twins who lived across the green space from us. Like I said, this townhouse place was magical. There was grass. Like… lots of it. And all the front doors of the townhouses faced each other across this expanse of greenery. About thirty of them all lined up in a row on one side and the same number on the other side.
• Off to my left were the woods and off to my right was a rock feature. Like a big pile of boulders surrounded by water—not a lot of water, enough so you could jump from the shore to the nearest boulder and clamber your way up to the peak. And there was a pump or something that made water trickle down the rocks. In the pond there were tadpoles, and frogs, and one summer there was even a turtle.
• Maybe this isn’t magical to some people but it was for me. I’m telling you, to a kid who had so far grown up with nothing but trashcans outside his front stoop, this was heaven. In my eight-year-old mind it felt like I’d been picked up and set down inside a whole new world. I don’t know what my life would look like right now if I had stayed in the city. Maybe I’d still be this guy, but probably not.
• So the nature was cool and all, but the best thing about living in those townhouses was the twins, Julia and Eric. Same age as me. They’d lived there all their lives so I was some exotic city boy who knew nothing about how to survive in the woods for an afternoon, or build a fort, or how to catch and raise tadpoles on your back patio, or where the wild berries grew in the summer—and they took it upon themselves to teach me their sleepy, small-town ways.
• The three of us were inseparable. Ten minutes after the movers arrived I was enrolled in Julia and Eric's school of middle-class survival.
• So that’s where it started.
• I sigh and suddenly realize I’ve said all this out loud.
• I’m standing at a podium on the church altar giving Eric's eulogy. Everyone is crying. Everyone but me. I can’t even look at Julia because if I do I’ll lose it and I don’t want to lose it. Not yet. I have to keep my shit in check until I’m done because this is my only chance to pay Eric the respect he deserves. My last chance to honor him and let him know how much I loved him, how much I’ll miss him, and how life will never be the same now that he’s gone.
• I was gonna say, “And now this is where it ends.” That sentence is written down on the piece of paper in front of me, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Because that cheats Julia out of what must come next.
• A life without her twin.
• It’s a life unimaginable. One that should not even have to be imagined, but must. Because this is real and I want her to know that I get it, even if I can never fully get it.
• So I wing it. I talk about how we grew up, and Eric went to business school, and I went to mechanic school, and Julia moved away to chef school. And how Eric and I opened up Hill Top Custom Jeeps and lived a life of testosterone-filled bliss for more than a decade.
• I don’t know why I think everyone is interested in this shit, but I don’t care if they’re not. I am. I need to retell it. Need to remind myself that life was good once.
• Plus I’m trying to avoid saying that final goodbye, you know? Trying to prolong this speech so we don’t all have to get into those limos, ride out to the cemetery, and throw dirt on his coffin.
• Eventually I do mumble out a goodbye to my best friend and walk back to my seat.
• My mom is there to wrap her hands around my upper arm and lean into me. And Joe is there to whisper, “Very nicely done, Trent. He would’ve loved that eulogy.” Which means a lot to me. Probably more than he realizes when he says it.
• Then everything is a blur. A priest, and then me and the other dudes from the garage are carrying the casket out to the hearse, and then, before I know it, time has cheated me out of minutes and I’m standing at his grave site, throwing that handful of dirt over the top of his casket that has been defaced with decals and stickers of cars, and Jeeps, and competitions we went to—because Eric would’ve loved that.
• And then the next thing I know everyone but Julia and me is gone. We’re just sitting there in those foldable chairs, looking at the gravesite. There’s a backhoe waiting patiently not far away, ready to scoop up the rest of the dirt and cover Eric up for good.
• Julia isn’t one of those sobbers, ya know. She’s not hyperventilating and there’s no snot running out of her nose. She just sits next to me with her hands in her lap and stares straight ahead.
• I think I know what her heart feels like though, because mine feels the same way.
• She’s asking herself, How will I get through the rest of this life without my twin?
• Because I’m asking myself the same thing.
• She sighs, heavily. Like she’s tired.
• “Where are you staying?” I ask. “At home?”
• I barely catch her shaking her head out of the corner of my eye. “Not staying.”
• “Not even one night?”
• She shakes her head again. “I need to get back home.”
• “Why?”
• “Because…” She hesitates, then whispers, “I don’t know.”
• “You’ll just have to come back next week for the will,” I say.
• “I don’t think I’m going to that,” she says. Then, for the first time today, we look directly at each other.
• Julia is a pretty thing. Soft, round face, small nose, plump lips, and long, dark, wavy hair that falls over her shoulders like a cape. She’s wearing a little make-up today. Eyeliner maybe, because her eyes are darker than normal. And she probably started the day with some lipstick, but it’s gone now. Her black dress is basic. Nothing fancy. But she’s wearing a black hat with a veil over her face. So I see her sadness through this honeycomb screen of lace and my heart sinks. Or maybe it’s my stomach. I’m not sure. I just have an urge to put my arm around her, so I do.
• She leans against me, slumping a little, like this is a relief.
• “Remember when you and Eric traded places for a day?”
• She huffs out a small laugh and even though I can’t see her face, I can picture her smile. She always had a wide, warm smile.
• “Oh, God,” she mutters. “Why did we do that?”
• “I think it’s because he wanted to wear your clothes,” I say.
• She laughs again. “I think it’s because he wanted to trade chores that day. He was supposed to wash the car and I was supposed to sweep the patio.” She tilts her head up at me, still smiling. “Guess who was out playing in the woods with you first?”
• I smile back at her. “God, Julia. I’ve missed you. Why’d you move two hours away?”
• “I dunno.” She shrugs. And then she does sob. Like a little hiccup with a squeak of sadness. “I’m lying,” she says. “I do know. I stayed in the city because I wanted to see what life would be like without Eric. I wanted to live as a single for once, instead of a twin.”
• I pull her close to me and lean against her now too. So we can prop each other up.
• “There’s nothing wrong with that, ya know. Besides, I took your place anyway. Everyone calls me Julia now. Even Eric.” I laugh. Because it’s true. It was a running joke in the garage that Eric and I were so tight, I was his new twin sister.
• Julia laughs with me.
• Until we realize I just used Eric's name in the present tense.
• And then that ache in my heart becomes overwhelming and I sink a little further down in my chair.
• Giving in to the sadness.