Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, retweeted, reblogged, or just loved this story.
Special thanks to auroraborealison on Tumblr, who is my go-to person for all things Canadian.
I.
Their mom has told this story so much, Frankie swears she can remember it, even though it's impossible that she would:
A few weeks before the twins were born, she went in for an ultrasound and saw them holding hands in the womb.
Sometimes she dreams about it, the quiet underwater world. Sightless eyes sensing each other in the soft darkness, still-forming limbs reaching towards the other, their whole world made up of the sound of each other's heartbeats.
She's never asked Hunter if she has the same dream. He probably would have rolled his eyes. Said something like, "sure, Frankenstein. Whatever you say."
"I still knew something was up. How did I know something was wrong? Because I could feel it."
When they were kids and went to their first funeral for some great-uncle they'd never met, Frankie asked her mom if all old people died. Her mother said yes, and Frankie wondered if Miles would die before her because he was older, and if Mom and Dad would die before him, because they were the oldest. She cried over the idea of losing them, but she remembers not feeling the same fear about Hunter.
She's thought of her life without Miles. It's not like she wants to, but in terms of risky life decisions that may or may not end in someone getting killed, Miles tends to run towards those with open arms. She's always worried about him and won't let herself think about what could happen, but has never felt that way about Hunter.
A silly, childish thought, but one Frankie can't admit to herself that still she believes:
They came into the world together; it made sense that's how they would leave it. That they'd never be apart.
II.
The phone rings.
It startles Frankie, who has been staring out the window watching snowflakes hit the glass like spilled sugar. Underneath her feet, the car hums like a pulse, carrying them along the veins of black streets.
Miles' phone sits in the cupholder between the driver and passenger seat, buzzes furiously against the plastic.
"Pick it up, Chewy," Miles urges. "It might be Hunter."
"Dude, he doesn't have his phone on him, remember?"
"Well, then, maybe he's calling from someone else's phone!" He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to frown at Winston. "Just answer it, okay?"
Winston turns back to Frankie and catches her eye. For a moment, they just stare at each other, like he's confirming something. He must find what he's looking for somewhere in her face, because he turns away from her and picks up her brother's phone.
"Is it Hunter?" Miles' voice hits a note Frankie's pretty sure it hasn't been able to reach since before puberty. "Chewy, is it him?"
"It's just your mom," he says, and Frankie slumps in disappointment even though she didn't expect it to be her twin on the other end of the line.
"Answer it anyway," Miles replies. "Maybe the cops found him."
Winston catches her eye one more time in the rearview mirror, then looks away.
"Hello?"
Frankie sees Miles lean over the gearshift as far as he dares to while keeping his eyes on the road, trying to hear what their mom is saying.
"Is he okay?"
Frankie grips the back of Winston's seat, her head swimming.
"What's wrong?" Miles' voice hits a note Frankie is pretty sure her brother hasn't been able to reach since before puberty.
Instead of answering, Winston holds a hand up to silence him, keeping the cell phone clamped to his shoulder.
"Yeah, we can be there in twenty minutes."
He hangs up, and Miles explodes.
"Chewy, what the fuck? What did she say?"
"Did something happen?" Frankie isn't shouting like her brother; she barely has any voice left to whisper.
"They found Hunter," Winston says.
"Yeah, thanks, we got that much. What happened? Is he okay?"
"He's at the hospital," Winston replies, and maybe it's the car that slips underneath Frankie or maybe it's the entire world just spun helter skelter, knocking the ground from under her. "They picked him up at a convenience store a few miles from school. Your mom said he's fine, just cold. The cops brought him to White Pines ER to make sure he was okay. Your parents are there with him now. They're still waiting to see the doctor."
Frankie tries to take a deep breath. It burns her chest and makes her bones ache, but when she sucks in air she holds it and lets it out slowly, trying not to cry.
"You know where this place is?" Winston asks.
Miles nods. "It's close to where I go for counseling."
She almost sniffles, but tells herself to get it together. Instead, she turns to Winston.
"Did Mom say if Hunter talked to her?"
It comes out croaky, nothing like her voice.
"She didn't say." Winston frowns. "Why, what do you think he might have said?"
Frankie leans back into the seat and tilts her head up towards the ceiling.
"I don't know," she murmurs, closing her eyes. "I was just hoping."
Hoping for what, exactly? Answers? Reasons? Something that could make her understand?
She doesn't know why she's so disappointed all of a sudden. She's never going to understand what would make someone take a gun to school and hurt people.
Winston used to call Hunter "the Omen", like that old horror movie about the boy demon she'd once watched with her brothers. He'd say stuff like, "the Omen is in his room" or "the Omen said he wants pepperoni on his pizza" or "the Omen called me a troll and slammed the door in my face." He toned it down a little bit once he and Frankie started dating, mostly because she wanted things to be less awkward whenever Winston came over to her house, but he was only doing it because Frankie asked him to. They'd known Winston's family his whole life and he'd been Miles' best friend for years, but he and Hunter had never gotten along. Winston thought Hunter was weird and creepy, Hunter thought Winston was annoying and obsessed with being popular, and the terms "psycho" and "pathetic" were the most commonly-used words shared between them; at least, the most PG-rated ones.
They didn't seem to hate each other now as much as they did when they were kids, but that was mostly because ever since they started going to the same high school, Winston and her brother seemed to have made an unspoken agreement that they would just pretend like the other didn't exist. Which made things a little weird when she and Winston started dating, but they got over it quickly. Frankie had never known her brother and boyfriend to ever get along, and since Hunter spent pretty much all of his time locked in his room or in the Degrassi media center playing video games, it was easy for her to go with Winston's plan of acting like he didn't exist.
Except for moments when she couldn't. Like with the cheerleader comics.
Sometimes, she couldn't ignore the feeling she sometimes got when she looked at Hunter –like she had no idea who was staring back at her, like it wasn't even him in there. Then, she saw The Other Person who sometimes lived in her twin brother's skin; the sneering expression, the hard voice stripped of anything but anger, the wild darkness in his eyes, the way the air around him feels tinged with vicious electricity.
It was one more thing she never talked about with her brother. She didn't think she could. It was something she didn't understand herself, and whenever she tried, something pushed back at her, a door in her head slamming before she could get close enough to look inside. The slam that always told her she was being stupid, and Hunter was just being his usual weird self. He said and did a lot of creepy things that she didn't understand, but that didn't mean anything. It made him different; it didn't make him a psychopath.
"And she's sure he's completely okay?" Miles' voice is still shaky.
Winston shrugs. "I mean, as okay as I think Hunter can ever be."
Her brother either ignores that comment or doesn't hear it. Then he makes the first left they come across, turning so sharply that Frankie feels the car tilt on impact. The yellow light winks out to red right before he hits the gas and pushes the car forward, and Winston swears loudly as a white van nearly broadsides them. The driver lays on his horn as they go past. Winston swears again, muttering under his breath.
"Think you can manage not to kill before we get there?" he asks Miles.
Frankie steadies herself against the back of Winston's chair, her forehead pressed to the leather. She feels like she's shaking all over, but not from the near-accident or Miles' terrible driving.
He's alive, he's alive, he's alive.
III.
They drive through a side of the city where the streets splay out like jagged teeth and the buildings look hunched over, dirtied by the coal-black sky and wet, heavy clouds. Frankie has been to this hospital before, when she was twelve and sprained her ankle during cheerleading practice, but doesn't remember the surrounding area looking this run-down when she was last here. Then again, part of being a kid is never noticing the things that are sometimes right in front of you.
The hospital parking lot is full and the only thing available is street parking, but after circling the block twice they have to admit defeat. Miles swears loudly and slams his fists on the wheel, which does nothing to help them find a place to park the damn car and only makes Frankie want to yell at her stupid brother for being stupid and yelling stupidly about stupid things.
Then she wants to yell at Winston for running his big mouth, because if Tristan hadn't heard about Hunter being Maya's troll or that list he made the night of the Snow Ball, then Tristan wouldn't have gone to Principle Simpson with Miles' text messages from that night, and Hunter would never be facing expulsion.
Then she wants to yell at her parents for ganging up on Hunter like they did, accusing him of something they couldn't prove and believing things about him that couldn't be true and treating him like some criminal instead of their son.
And she really, really, really wants to yell at Hunter. Wants to take him by the shoulders, shaking him so hard his teeth rattle, and demand an answer. Like if she shook him hard enough, it would force the truth out of him.
Why are you acting crazy?
How could you do something this horrible and wrong?
Did you really want to kill people?
Are you a psycho?
She wants to yell at herself, too.
Miles swears again, startling her, and instead of getting angry this time she shrinks back into her seat, staring out the window. There's an abandoned gas station on the corner with a single street lamp shining over it, and from here she can see snowflakes blustering in the sickly yellow glow, the wind scattering them in every direction. The snow is coming down hard again, thick and grey and heavy, chunks of the night smacking onto Miles' windshield as they look for a place to park. A million little pieces come down around them, like the sky is crumbling apart.
They finally find an empty space in a Target parking lot, which is packed with shoppers. Frankie stares at all of the cars, bewildered as to why it's so crowded, before she suddenly remembers: Christmas is three days away.
Of course the store is busy; no wonder they couldn't find any street parking. Everybody is out finishing their holiday shopping.
How did she forget that? She'd just been to the mall the day before yesterday with Shay and Lola so they could finish their own shopping. Or rather, Frankie and Lola were doing the shopping, and Shay was there to help – she had her parents' presents wrapped up in the back of her closet since before school let out.
She'd walked through a department store looking for something to get her mom, and wondered whether or not she should get her dad a present this year. She'd broken up a minor squabble between her friends over going to Victoria's Secret, and in the end Frankie waited outside the store with Shay, who sulked by the giant fountain in the center of the mall while Lola went in alone. She'd spent too much money at the MAC store, and agonized privately to herself about whether she ought to get something for Jonah. Something small and inexpensive, but it would be important to him, somehow.
Frankie remembers it, but somehow, none of it feels real. It's like she's remembering the plot of a movie, or looking at pictures from someone else's vacation.
They climb out of the car, Winston cursing as his feet slide into a wet pile of dirty slush, and head for the direction of the hospital's glowing EMERGENCY sign. Not even two days ago, her biggest problems were mall traffic, bestie drama, and gift-giving. And now here she is.
Snow pelts Frankie in the face, and she has to duck her head into the collar of her jacket to keep it from blinding her. She can hardly see, so instead of looking ahead she focuses on watching Miles' feet move in front of her, and tries to keep them in time with her own. His legs are longer, and by the time the light changes and they can cross the street he's practically running, so she has to hurry to keep up with him.
It takes her eyes a minute to adjust to the hospital's harsh fluorescents, and the heat is cranked so high she has to peel her coat off to keep from sweating. The smell of antiseptic rivals with the smell of wilting flowers, making the air heavy and sick-sweet as she buries her nose in her coat and breathes in the smell of the fleece, sweat and snow and snot. Not much better, but at least it's not as cloying.
Her parents are sitting in two of the hard-backed grey chairs that are circled around the edges of the crowded, windowless waiting area. Or rather, Dad is sitting, and Mom is leaned against the wall, her eyes darting around the room. When she spots Frankie and the boys, her whole body slumps in relief.
Miles reaches out to give their mother a hug, and she holds him tightly, running her hands up and down his back. He's so much taller than she is that she has to stand on her toes to even reach his shoulders.
"It's okay," she murmurs, and Frankie wants to shove her brother aside and take his place in Mom's arms. She can't remember the last time she hugged her mother, or her mother hugged her. "He's fine. Absolutely fine."
She lets go of Miles, and Frankie wants to be the one her mom can hold and soothe and comfort, but Mom's eyes pass over her and the fraction of a second Frankie had to move is gone, so she folds her arms together and rocks on her heels instead.
"What happened?" Miles asks.
"The doctors found him at a gas station close to the school," Mom replies. "They were worried about exposure, but it's nothing serious. We can take him home as soon as they discharge him."
"Wait," Miles says. "Take him home? Are they serious?"
"Of course they're serious, Miles," her father says, standing up from his seat. "You heard your mother. Hunter's fine."
Miles stares at him in disbelief. "You actually believe that?"
Before their dad can reply, Miles turns back to their mother.
"He can't just go back home, Mom. He needs help."
"We can help him at home," Mom replies.
Miles shakes his head. "No, I mean real help. Like counseling, or…." He frowns, chewing on his lower lip. "I don't know something."
"Miles," their mom says, using the same voice she uses when she tells Frankie and the boys that their dad is coming over tonight, so we're all going to be here and have a nice family dinner, and everything is going to be fine, just fine, "I know this was scary, but your brother is going to be okay. The nurse said –"
Miles cuts her off. "Can't they put him on the psyche ward, or something?"
Mom's face goes white. Frankie feels her heart drop straight into her stomach, and Dad looks like someone just struck him. Even Winston is silent, staring at Miles with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Your brother is not going to the nuthouse," Dad snaps.
Miles glares at him. "Was I talking to you?"
"Okay," Winston says, his voice low. He plants himself firmly in front of Miles, holding one hand out to keep him back. "At least Hunter's okay; that's good news."
Miles shakes his head. "He's not okay. He's not even close."
He turns to their mom, eyes pleading.
"Hunter is sick, Mom," he says, his words heavy, and Frankie's throat closes when Miles starts to cry. "He's sick, and he needs us to help him. We have to. Or something really, really bad will happen, and then it'll be too late."
Her mother is crying now, too. Frankie watches silently as tears pour down her own face. She wipes them absently with the back of her hand.
Their dad takes a deep breath, which makes them all turn to look at him. And Frankie thinks for the first time in her life that her dad actually looks old. His face is lined like creased paper, his hair threaded with grey. But it's the way he's holding himself, hands limp at his sides and his eyes tired, that make him look suddenly older, too normal; like a real person instead of just her dad, larger-than-life and always with all the answers. Someone who is getting older every day, and someday he'll be an old man capable of dying like everybody else in the world.
"We'll figure out what to do," he says, looking at Miles. "We all know this is serious, Miles, believe me; we have no intention of sweeping it under the rug."
Frankie glances at Miles, expecting war, but for once in his life it looks like he has nothing to say. He avoids making eye contact with their father by focusing on the speckled tile floor, but he doesn't try to argue or put up a fight.
Mom rubs her hands up and down her arms. As Frankie watches, Dad goes over to her and puts his arm around, drawing her close, and she puts his head on her shoulder, closing her eyes. Frankie has seen her parents kiss and hug and hold hands in public before, but the automatic closeness of the gesture makes her feel like she's watching something too private for her to see. This isn't something they made up for the cameras; it's something they don't have to think about, because they've been together so long it's become second nature.
Like the way she and Hunter are so familiar with each other's gestures, they can feel them rippling through their own selves. She can hear her brother rolling his eyes without seeing his face; Hunter can feel her shrugging even with his back turned. It's like an extension of herself, except it's not a part of her body.
It's the same way they can tell where the other one was without needing to actually look. She doesn't have to open her eyes to see. It's just…there. Automatic.
The image of Hunter's face, laughing with her on the car ride to school, flashes behind her eyes. Then, the look in his eyes when took her by the shoulders and said it was okay to be mad at the people who screwed her over. Then the expression he had when he spotted her coming out of Degrassi the day of the fire, a mixture of joy and terror and relief so strong she could feel it rush through her like a shot of adrenaline when he and Miles flung their arms around her, almost bringing all three of them to their knees.
She's still thinking about this, her eyes glazed at the image of her mom resting on Dad's shoulder, when everyone's attention turns down the hall. Frankie looks up, and sees a nurse in dark green scrubs walking towards them.
"You're here for Hunter Hollingsworth?" she asks.
Frankie expects her dad to start working over the nurse like he would anyone else – either turning on the charm or barking out orders, whichever he thought was the best approach to getting what he wanted – but he just nods.
She nods her head. "He's all set. You can go in and see him if you want. We just need the doctor on call to sign off on the discharge papers, and you can go ahead and take him home."
Her parents nod, and the nurse turns back down the hallway, leaving them alone together again.
"You should go see him, Frankie," Miles says, and everyone turns to look at her. "Talk to him."
Frankie shifts under their stares. When she was in the car, she all she wanted was to find her brother. Now she has and she doesn't want to look at him.
"I'm sure he'd be happy to see you," Mom says, and Winston gives her a brief look that says much of the same.
Happy isn't the word Frankie would use.
Miles doesn't look away from her. He stares her down, studying her face like there's some sort of problem to be solved, and she wants to tell him that he has the wrong twin. Frankie already tried what he's doing – looking into her face and trying to find the parts of Hunter mirrored in her own expressions. As if finding parts of Hunter in herself can make her understand what's wrong inside her brother's head.
Except she's been in his head before and still doesn't understand. So how does Miles expect to do any better?
IV.
The last time Hunter was in the hospital when the twins were seven, the day he fell off his bike. The day Frankie felt the jolt through her own body the instant her brother's hit the ground, and felt the same swoop of fear and hurt in her stomach the moment before impact.
Hunter's head was bleeding, which made Mom freak out, loading all three kids into her car and speeding to the hospital. Frankie took Hunter's hand and held it the entire way there, but he didn't seem afraid. He just sat quietly next to her, sweaty palm resting in her icy-cold one, as she tried to push away the clawing panic she felt in her throat whenever she saw the jagged scrape on the side of her brother's head.
He didn't break anything, and a concussion was ruled out, so the nurse put some antibacterial on the cut and bandaged it up, giving Hunter a stern reminder to always wear his helmet from now on. Then the doctor showed them an x-ray of Hunter's head, and Frankie saw the image of her brother's skull, a shadowy white orb floating against the dark background. It looked like the image of a ghost, but it was real, and when the doctor pointed at the image and said there were no cracks or damage to the bones, Frankie's own head started to ache.
There were a million pieces of them that could break.
Now, she peers into a dark, freezing room, and then sees him. Small and huddled in a paper hospital gown, his skin too pale and his eyes too big. There's an IV attached in his arm and a few machines beeping and whirring next to his bed, and he stares up at the ceiling like something up there can give him answers.
Before she can say anything or make any movement, he turns to her, not surprised she's standing in the doorway. Frankie didn't have to call his name; he just looked up the moment she spotted him, like he could feel her eyes land on him.
They hold each other's gazes for a moment, and the nervous cramp in her stomach Frankie had before she walked through the door suddenly fades away. Her head clears of the dying flower smell as she walks over to Hunter's bed, sitting in the chair beside him.
He's still watching her as she slides into the space. He doesn't look angry, but he doesn't look happy, either. His face is just blank.
"Frankenstein," is all he says.
He says her name colorlessly. Without any current of anger or hurt or even sadness.
Frankie folds her hands in her lap, lacing her cold fingers together. A part of her wants to jump up and fling her arms around him, grateful he's okay. Another part of her wants to punch him in the face for scaring her. She can't tell which one is stronger at the moment.
Except she doesn't have the energy to do either, so instead she says, "We've been looking for you. Everybody's freaking out beyond belief."
Hunter doesn't react to this.
She leans towards him. "Are you okay?"
Nothing flickers in his face.
Frankie studies the IV in his arm, the webbing of blue veins underneath his fair skin. Her twin hated needles; when they were little, Hunter would hide underneath the table every time their mom took them to the pediatrician. Even when Frankie had to get one and he didn't, he'd still cry when the needle pierced her skin, rubbing his own arm in the same place Frankie was stuck.
Once, when they were maybe six or seven, the doctor came in and Hunter did his usual "dive-under-the-table" routine, until the doctor promised him there wouldn't be any shots. But Frankie could see the nurse creep silently into the room with a syringe, so she kicked the doctor in the knees for being a liar. Their mom was so mortified she never took them back to that doctor again, and started taking each twin separately for their yearly check-ups.
"I'm tired, Frankie."
It comes out a whisper.
Frankie's throat tightens. She doesn't see Hunter anywhere in that vacant expression, but she doesn't see the Other Person, either, none of that black rage twisting his face into something ugly and dark. She doesn't know who she's looking at anymore.
How could they have shared space in the same body, once upon a time? How could they have once shared their cradles, their secrets, their thoughts? How could she know everything about someone down to their DNA and still have them be a complete stranger?
Shay told her once that just by looking at them, it wasn't obvious they were twins at first. Even Winston agreed there was something hidden in their expressions, even if he couldn't explain it clearly to her. Nobody could put their finger on it, but the more they looked, the more they saw it.
There was a certain look that always gave them away; identical shades of something that passed through their features. A gesture with their hands, or a certain eyebrow raise. A tilt of the mouth; a narrowing of the eyes. The way their whole bodies reacted to certain news; the slump of shoulders or twitch of fingers, the way their faces lit up.
Once they found it, everybody realized, of course they were twins. It was so obvious, they wondered how they ever missed it.
She twists her cold hands in her lap and watches him. He watches back. The machines beep and the world shuffles and hurries along. They sit there in silence, and Frankie thinks that maybe she hasn't completely lost the old thread that used to connect the two of them, because she feels cold all over, drained and numb and blank.
Or maybe it's not him. Maybe it's just her, and the ache of being completely helpless. Wanting to do something so badly, but be paralyzed by the fact that you can't. Knowing there's nothing you can do.
V.
The doctor signs the nurse's chart, and just like that, her brother is free to go. He isn't crazy enough to shoot up a school, and he isn't sick enough to need to be put in a psyche ward. He isn't evil enough to kill people, and not bad enough to be locked up in some place where they throw away the key.
It should help her to know that. It doesn't.
She doesn't move to touch her brother, now looking hunched and robotic in a black sweater and the same dark jeans he always wears. His fingers go into his pockets and his eyes stare at the ground, not looking up at any of them.
Her father and Winston can't seem to meet Hunter's eyes, either, but Mom reaches out to stroke her cheek with one hand, and it looks like it's taking every ounce of restraint Frankie didn't know Miles possessed not to throw his arms around Hunter and never let him go.
Her parents take him home, but Miles has to drive separately in his own car and drop Winston back at home. When Frankie turns to follow him to the parking lot, he stops and gives her a strange look.
"You're not going with Mom and Dad?"
She hops from foot to foot, impatient and cold. "It's sleeting. Move your butt before we all get frostbite."
Winston shoots her the same confused look. "You should probably go with your parents, Franks."
"Well, I'm not," she snaps, hurrying past them without another word.
Frankie jogs as fast as she dares through the slush to the Target parking lot, scanning the crowd of holiday shoppers until she spots where Miles parked the Mercedes. Whispering to every god she doesn't believe in that he left it open, she yanks the door and slides into the backseat. The leather is freezing underneath her, the temperature in the car low enough to where she can see her own breath as she huddles into herself, waiting for the boys to catch up. Outside the window, shining lights from the other cars in the lot bobble against the glass, bursts of white and gold that glimmer like spotlights before turning away as quickly and brilliantly as they appeared.
Miles and Winston climb into the car without a word to her or each other. They all sit there for a moment, the car still turned off and everyone silent, while more golden lights dance across the icy glass and the holiday shopping crowd attends to their own little dramas, loading their trunks full of bags and boxes.
They don't speak the whole way home.
VI.
Miles pulls into Winston's neighborhood to drop him off, parking in front of the house Frankie knows as well as her own.
Every winter, they populated this front yard with dozens of snowmen and snow angels, and had more snowball fights and sledding races than she could count. In the summer, they'd run under the sprinklers in their bathing suits, shrieking and darting and trying to catch the cool water on their tongues. They fought over who got to lie in the hammock that swung between the two trees that shaded most of the yard, and dared each other to climb the branches. They played endless games of chase and freeze tag and capture-the-flag, and Mom always made Miles and Winston include her, which they hated, but did because they didn't want to get in trouble.
Her twin is a part of those memories, but always off to the side, on the edge of the action. Frankie wonders now if she actually remembers Hunter being there, or if she has so few memories that don't include him, it's automatic to just assume that he's a part of them.
Either way, Hunter was never part of their games, and they didn't want him on their teams any more than Hunter wanted to be on them. He was slow and clumsy, and ran out of breath too quickly. He hated joining their snowball fights, which inevitably ended in Frankie and the boys ganging up on her twin and ambushing him with fresh snow. He was afraid to play Marco Polo because Miles usually joked about drowning Hunter. He was afraid to climb the trees in Winston's yard, and was teased for being a baby while Frankie was already halfway up the trunk. He sunburned so easily that he didn't like wearing bathing suits, so whenever she ran around in the sprinklers with Miles and Winston, he stayed in the shade with his clothes on, elbows on his bony knees, studying them from the shadow of the hulking evergreens.
But there's one moment where he comes into frame, his small face sharp and clear in her mind. Whenever Frankie wanted to make a snow angel, Hunter would stand off to the side, waiting to take her hand and pull her to her feet. That way, she wouldn't have to ruin her creation with a handprint as she tried to stand up. She'd stamp a whole yard full of dancing creatures made of ice, and not one of them had breaks in their white wings. They were always perfect.
Frankie wonders if Hunter remembers any of this.
How long had it been since any of that had happened? She tries to remember, and comes up blank. She hasn't been to Winston's house last summer, before they broke up the first time. And whenever she was here, they were usually in the TV room cuddling on the couch, or in the den where Mr. Chu kept the Blu-ray player.
Winston turns around to give Frankie a look, one she can't interpret and doesn't want to try. He sighs like he's just made up his mind about something, then hops out of the car.
"See you in school, I guess," he says to Miles.
Miles nods. "Thanks, Chewy."
He nods, turning away from them, and doesn't look back as he is swallowed up by the warm light pouring from his front door.
Both of them are silent as they drive the last few blocks to their house and pull into the driveway. Miles has to park at the very end, right behind Dad's car. She looks over at Miles, but her brother is staring straight ahead. If he cares that Dad's here, he's not showing it.
Frankie braces herself for some kind of scene when she and Miles walk in through the kitchen door and see their parents sitting at the table in silence. She holds her breath when Dad looks up and sees the two of them, but he doesn't say anything, and Mom just runs a hand through her hair, her skin a patchy grey color. No one shouts or yells. No one throws accusations or fists into the air.
"All right," Dad says, breaking the long silence. "It's been a long night for everyone. Let's all just get some sleep. We'll figure something out in the morning."
Figure something out. Like it's a travel itinerary. Not her brother's possible sanity.
She expects Miles to say something to that effect, but he's staring into space with a far-off look in his eyes. Then he turns and heads upstairs without a word to their parents, and with a lack of anything else to do or say, Frankie goes with him.
VII.
There was one winter they visited their grandparents, who lived in a house built on a cliff that plunged right into the water. She would fell asleep at night listening to waves crashing against the cliffside, wondering how the water was strong enough to make that noise against something as hard and unbreakable as rock. She tried to get her mom to explain why, because it made no sense, how it stayed curling in angry silver waves even though it was the middle of winter. Every science class she'd ever taken told her that water froze in the cold.
Except the ocean.
She had no concept for understanding it back then – something so enormous, so powerful, so strong, that it defied the laws of the universe.
Even in the dead of summer, the water was too cold to go very deep. She and Miles would dare each other to go in up to their knees, their torsos, their necks. Hunter would sit on the coast with his bucket of army men, setting up elaborate battle fields far from the waves, never leaving the rocky shore. Dad would bribe and charm and downright threaten, but he could never convince Hunter to reach the ocean.
Frankie doesn't know why she's thinking about this now. It's been years since they went to Grandma and Grandpa Hollingsworth's house. She vaguely remembers her parents saying they sold it a few years ago, so it probably isn't even theirs anymore. And they never spent much time with that set of grandparents, anyway. She was in middle school the last time she saw them, at their lake house in Deerhurst.
Come to think of it, Dad hadn't even come with them on that trip. Mom said he was too busy with work. Which made sense at the time, because her dad was always missing family trips for his job and bringing work on the vacations he did take. But now Frankie wonders if he'd just wanted to avoid being around Grandma and Grandpa Hollingsworth. She hadn't picked up on this as a kid, but figured out over the years that Dad didn't have much of a relationship with his own parents.
She leans her head against the window, and peers down at the pool cover, thinking of icecaps on the water, waves pounding relentlessly into solid rock so hard that it could wear the cliff down year after year, looking out the window and seeing the ocean spread out before her like an endless sheet of steel until it blended into the clouds.
A memory comes to her: Two little kids with salt-stiff hair and sun-peeled skin, squatting bonelessly in the low tide. They are watching a crab burrow itself into the squelching sand under their bare feet, and want it to come back out. They poke at the hole with their fingers and dig the sand away, but someone else comes over and asks them what they're doing.
When they tell him, the man frowns.
Leave it alone, you two. It's more afraid of you than anything else, and if it's afraid it might hurt you.
The boy is still poking at the hole. If he wasn't scared, would he come out?
I don't know, Hunter. But leave the crab alone, okay? He's going back to his family.
Her phone is sitting on her nightstand, plugged in and charging. When she grabs it, she sees a new message from a number she doesn't recognize:
Hi Frankie, it's Yael. I was wondering if you'd heard any news on Hunter. Is he okay? Is there anything I can do to help?
She stares at the message for a moment, wondering exactly how she's supposed to answer that.
It's the middle of the night, she reminds herself. Nobody would be awake right now. They'll run into each other at school anyway. Yael waited all night for a response; she can wait a few more hours.
Would Mom make her and Miles go to school? Probably, Frankie thinks, wishing she could just stay home. Everything from that part of her world feels like it isn't real. Spending her study period giggling with Lola, doing Chinese vocab flashcards with Shay, getting lunch with Jonah at the pizzeria down the street from school…it all feels too far away to care about. And Hunter wasn't allowed to go – not until the school board decides what to do about the text messages on Tristan's phone from the night of the Snow Ball.
But her parents can't just wait around until then to make a decision about Hunter. Not after what happened tonight. Hunter needed help NOW.
So what should they do next?
Frankie sets her phone down and lies on her bed, burying her face in the pillow. She's too awake now to fall back asleep, her mind replaying the evening. She tries pulling the covers over her, but they felt like sandpaper against her skin, so she kicks them off and stares at the ceiling.
There's a light knocking on her door, and then Miles pokes his head in.
"You alright, Frankenstein?" he whispers.
She shrugs one shoulder, not meeting his eyes. "Are Mom and Dad still talking?"
Miles takes that as a sign he can come in, and leans against her closed door. "Talking really isn't the right word. More like, Mom is talking, and Dad doesn't want to hear it."
"Did you check in on Hunter?" she asks.
Miles nods. "He was in the shower. I'll wait til Dad leaves, then go check on him again. Make sure he's okay."
She frowns. Her father has been living in a condo across town since her parents separated, but for some reason, she's disappointed he wasn't staying the night. Frankie doesn't know why, since Dad hasn't spent the night here in almost seven months, but can't help feeling frustrated he's still acting like it's business as usual.
Frankie smooths the rumpled covers with one hand. Miles had slept here too, she remembered, the day of the fire. The three of them came home from that diner and piled onto her bed still in their smoky clothes, watching Game of Thrones until they couldn't keep their eyes open. While Hunter fell asleep at the foot of her bed, Miles curled himself in the lounge chair she'd inherited from her mother during one of her redecorating sprees. Frankie pulled one of her extra blankets out of the closet to cover him with, remembering how she saw him in that crowd and knew she was safe, and when she reached him he held on tight.
"What are we supposed to do next?" she asks.
Miles sighs, sounding very tired, and leans against her door. There's something about the expression on his face that bothers her, and it takes a moment to realize what it is: Hunter makes that exact same face.
"We'll figure something out."
She frowns. "You're sure about that?"
Miles shrugs. "A few weeks ago, I was stealing pills out of Grade 10 backpacks and passing out in bushes. Now I'm not. Last year you almost died in a fire, and you survived. Hunter needs help, and we'll get it for him. You'll be there. Me, too. He'll get better."
Frankie looks up at him. His eyes meet hers.
"You know," he says, a small smile on his face, "I was so jealous of you and Hunter when I was little. The whole 'twin' thing. The way you guys were with each other, it made me want to be one of you. Or have my own twin."
Frankie blinks. "You never told me that."
Miles shrugs. His eyes find a picture sitting on her dresser, one of her with Shay and Lola at the twins' Gatsby-themed birthday. They're standing at the candy table, blowing kisses at the camera.
Hunter had darted into his room as soon as the guests started showing up, but before that their mom was cooing too over their outfits and kept gushing about how handsome her brother looked, ruffling his hair and making Hunter's face burn. She wouldn't let him go unless he stood in for a few pictures with Frankie.
He agreed, begrudgingly, standing with Frankie in front of the pool fountain while their mom snapped dozens of pictures on her phone, ordering them to turn this way, then that way, then in this pose, then another pose, until finally Hunter frowned and walked back towards the house.
"You said a few pictures," he said. "You got them. Now can I please go play video games?"
Mom put her hands on her hips. "In a minute, Hunter. Now, go stand next to your sister."
When Hunter still didn't budge, Mom relented. "Okay, fine. One more picture, and then you can go. But you have to take one more."
Hunter rolled his eyes, but slumped back to Frankie's side, holding her waist and pulling his lips into a tense smile. He barely gave their mom a chance to say, "Okay, one, two, three, cheese!" before pulling away from Frankie, darting for the safety of his bedroom.
Frankie had looked at the pictures later that night on her mother's phone, texting the best ones to herself to post on Facerange. But when she saw that last one, she couldn't stop staring at it.
He's got his arm around her waist and his face tugged into a half-smile, and Frankie has one arm looped around her brother's neck, pulling them to where their foreheads are almost touching. In her heels, they're almost the same height, and with their heads bent so close together, it's almost like you can't tell where one head of dark hair ends and the other begins. Frankie is smiling with her mouth open while a stray breeze blows loose hair in her face, and Hunter's lips are closed over his teeth, his eyes half-closed.
They'd never looked more alike than they did right then, in that picture. It's nothing in their smiles or their poses or the way they're looking at the camera that makes them look so similar, but one look at this picture and anyone could tell she and Hunter are twins.
"Why were you jealous?" she asks, because Miles is still looking at that picture and her chest hurts like she needs to cry but she won't, she can't, and if they sit here in the silence any longer the whole night is going to hit her like a ton of bricks and she can't handle it, so she squeezes her eyes shut and wills it to go away.
He looks at her briefly, then back at the picture.
"You guys always had each other," he says. "No matter what. You had that…weird connection thing, that twin thing. You know what I mean. Like, even when you guys weren't together, you weren't apart."
He crosses his arms over his chest, frowning.
"I wanted that," he says, more to himself than to Frankie. "I used to feel so left out. Like I didn't belong in my family."
Frankie makes herself breathe, slowly, and it feels like fire licking through her but she doesn't feel like the walls are going to collapse in on her anymore.
"You know, everyone always ends up leaving, or disappointing you, or walking away because they can't handle your shit."
He looks up at her, and all of a sudden Frankie sees the man he will become; one who looks so much like their father.
"But you and Hunter were never like that," he says. "You just got each other."
He stares at the picture for a long moment, then shakes his head and sighs.
Miles is the best parts of their dad, she thinks. The part of him that took Frankie out to the tennis courts early on the weekends, just the two of them, so they could spend time together. The part who used to make pancakes on Sunday mornings; who taught all three of his kids how to whistle. The part of Dad who stood with her in the tides of some nameless ocean, on a coast she barely remembers, and told her she was a mermaid.
She wants to ask if he still gets jealous of not being a twin, if he still feels left out. But Miles just turns to her with a tired smile.
"I just wanted to make sure you were hanging in there," he says.
She doesn't know how to answer that, so she just says, "goodnight."
Miles grins. "Goodnight, Frankenstein."
He leans forward, and before she knows what's happening he kisses her hair, the same way he did the day of the fire. They were surrounded by firemen and news crews and cheerleaders running around shrieking and crying, but the three of them walked away from the wreckage shoulder to shoulder.
They had nobody but each other that day, and maybe they'd all been through hard things and it was going to keep being rough for who knew how long. But on the day of the fire, she was there and her brothers were there and they were all together, and that was always the best place she could be.
VIII.
Whether it's real or not, Frankie has no way of knowing for sure, but either way, there's a memory that goes like this:
They are underwater where it's too deep to touch the bottom, hiding just under the surface of the waves. Light hovers above them and the world thuds in her ears as she kicks to stay afloat, feeling her heartbeat all the way to her fingertips. Mommy and Miles and even Daddy can't make Hunter get into a pool, but he followed her out into the ocean.
Her eyes are squeezed shut but she can still sense the motion of her twin nearby, his arms and legs mirroring her own motions in the pulsing darkness. She can feel him there without needing to look, and can tell he's looking at her and feeling the same.
Without light or sight or sound, she can still find him. He is there in front of her, and she is looking right at him.
She can feel it before it happens; her brother's fingers, reaching out to hers.
