But I’m at Peak because of Adam.
That’s not true. Your teachers recommended it years ago because they thought you needed more one-on-one attention. And yes, we’re worried about how you’ve been coping. We thought Peak might help you more now.
But now I feel even more alone than I did before. Get it?
Another chin rub. I’ve given him something to think about.
George glued his desk closed with snot today, I tell him to strengthen my case.
The side of Dad’s mouth twitches. That could happen in public school too, but I’ll talk to your mother. All we want is for you to be happy.
A door slams downstairs. Clare’s home.
I take the stairs two at a time and run into the kitchen, where my sister is already sitting at the table. Her hair hangs over her face like a curtain, the side with the thick blue streak facing toward us. She dyed it after Adam died and touches it up at school where Mom and Dad can’t stop her.
Mom tries to pass me a plate of spaghetti but I race past her. Embrace my stunned sister.
Clare, I’m coming back to your school in the fall! Isn’t that grand?
She turns a bewildered face to my mom, who looks just as shocked.
Dad arrives at the door just then, his breath a bit wheezy. That’s not quite true, he tells them. I told her we’d think about it.
I watch Clare’s face. Look for traces of similarities between us. We aren’t identical: her hair is light and mine is dark. She was born under the earth sign Taurus and I was born under the air sign Gemini. People say fraternal twins are just regular siblings, but I know differently. We shared a womb. You can’t get closer to someone than that.
I watch Clare’s face, and it crumples.
She might be coming back to my school? Her voice rises to hysterical. Mom?
Both of my parents just stand there.
She takes off. As she runs up the stairs to her bedroom, I hear her wail: As if things weren’t hard enough at school. Thanks a lot! Her bedroom door slams shut. Walls rattle.
Tears gather in my eyes. They sit there in my eye sockets until everything goes blurry. I can’t move. I just stare at the carpet where she used to be standing. There’s a chunk of mud that could be mistaken for chocolate. I feel the familiar weight of my dad’s hand on my shoulder and shrug it off.
I’m going outside.
The sun is already beginning to set pink orange purple over the hill beside the park. I climb onto the swing. Tilt back and look up at the sorbet sky.
Clare and I used to do this. We used to swing side by side until the sun set.
Beside me the swing is empty.
I’m going to get her back, I say out loud. I’m going to prove I can be like her.
I start to pump.
At the top of my swing, there’s a face watching me from the basement window. When I come back to the ground, it’s gone.
Clare
My name is Clare. According to Baby Names R Us or whatever stupid website my friends were dicking around on, it means “illustrious.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant so I looked it up.
Highly distinguished, renowned, famous;
Glorious, as deeds or works;
Luminous, bright.
My brother’s name was Adam. It means “of the earth.” I can’t even explain the feeling.
We were in the library. We were supposed to be doing research for our project on Canadian identity, but of course my friends had no interest in doing what we were supposed to be doing, so they started looking up names instead. Adam. When the screen loaded, all I could see was in the earth.
Next they looked up Audrey, even though I told them I didn’t care. Noble strength.
“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s spell it ‘Oddrey.’” We’re sorry, there were no results for baby names starting with ODDREY.
My friends laughed, like I knew they would. I looked back at my screen. Luminous, bright. Perhaps my light died with you, Adam.
Oh well, I can still remain highly distinguished, renowned, famous, and glorious.
* * *
That probably makes me sound mean. Sometimes it feels like girls in grade nine have two choices: be mean or be a loser. So I pretend to be mean, only sometimes I don’t know if I’m pretending anymore.
After The Accident, my parents suggested I see a therapist. I told them No F-ing way. Audrey sees a therapist. So they talked to my teachers and it was “mutually agreed upon” that I would visit the guidance counselor once a week starting in September. You know, so I don’t get behind on my studies. It was a valid concern considering I had no motivation to do anything, let alone schoolwork, but I’m not going to give them that.
It’s now May, so for the last eight months I’ve spent an hour a week with a bearded man who insists I call him by his first name, Kyle, and who tries to act like he’s one of us even though he was a teenager in the eighties. His “office” is located right beside the front door and used to be the front-hall closet. That’s just my theory, but I bet I’m right—there’s no window and I think he has to crawl over the desk to get behind it. Sometimes I wish the fire alarm would go off just so I could solve that mystery. The extra-shitty thing about this already-shitty situation is that in order to not disrupt my core courses, they schedule my appointment during my option, which also happens to be my favorite class and the one in which I have the highest grade: graphic design and media.
And I never end up talking about Adam. I always talk about Audrey.
It’s been three days since I found out Audrey might be returning to my school. Every afternoon, I’ve hung out as long as possible with my friends before going home and heading straight up to my room. When Mom calls me for dinner, I lie and say I already ate or that I’m not feeling well. It worked for the first two days, but now they’ve caught on.
“Come down anyway and spend some time with us,” Dad says.
So I do, but I don’t say anything. I hold a hot mug of tea in my hand and stare at the liquid’s surface. I act mean.
“It’s not Audrey’s fault,” they tell me in private. I never would have gotten away with this behavior before. They have to be careful what they say around her now. She’s struggling the most with Adam’s death. She’s trying, and I need to be more supportive and try too. She’s my sister.
After three days, however, they’ve had enough.
“For God’s sake, Clare! What’s wrong with you?” Mom’s face is red and she’s gripping her utensils like that’s all that’s stopping her from throwing them at me. “I hope this isn’t the person you’re going to grow up to be.”
I sneak a glance at Audrey. Mom’s mini-me—that’s what everyone calls her, because it’s freaky how much they look alike. She’s eating her lasagna slowly. She doesn’t show any sign of understanding, but I know her better than anyone.
It’s hard to believe, but when we were little, Audrey and I used to be inseparable. We used to want to be inseparable. We were each other’s first friends, and the other kids were jealous we always had someone to play with. Audrey was always the imaginative one, the free-spirited air sign as opposed to the grounded earth sign, the twin who was coming up with new games and was willing to do things that were exciting, even dangerous, like attach three Slip ’N Slides together down the large hill in the park. The other kids in the neighborhood loved Audrey and were always knocking on the door asking if she could come out—they didn’t give a care if I was around or not. But then those kids and I grew up, and Audrey just . . . didn’t.