This chapter will follow Sophie and Wales.

~Sophie's POV~

Think of you

You're the other half of me

You're the better part of me

The passion there will always be.

When you separate twins, it's like splitting a soul in half.

You and I are identical. I miss you. I look out the window of Papa's house in France and I see your face in my reflection for a second.

This is a wide open space and it makes me feel smaller. When we were together for that short sweet while during the World Championships we were two and the world didn't seem quite so big to me anymore.

But the road took us different ways.

Split apart like puzzle pieces

North and South and East and West and North-north-north-west

Until there was no direction

Only chaos

There are no pictures of me on my camera. There are no pictures of you. There are only pictures of the two of us together because before you went away to school we were never apart.

I am not Sophie. You are not Wales. We were always Sophie And Wales. Wales And Sophie. Until now.

We shared bedrooms for the longest time. We shared a phone. We shared a life. A soul. Everything. When conceived, we were one cell that split and split and split until it became us, but we were always connected in a deeper sense than physically.

This explains why I feel that half my brain is ripped out. I'll get used to it; I did before and I will now.

~Wales~

I could take half the world

I could take the whole galaxy

The rolling hills and the constellations and the mysteries beyond

but if you weren't there I'd give it all away to get you back.

This school is dark and dreary. I was happy here before, but after the championships...after that it all changed.

I miss you, I always missed you while I was here, but more now than before. We made so many new friends and went new places and it knit us together closer than before. Before I thought it was unbearable. Now I think I'm going to die.

I'm not used to sharing a room with a room mate; when I look across at the twin bed where he sleeps, I keep expecting to see you. You and your always-tangled hair because you continually refused to braid it before bed.

There's an empty space in the right side of my heart

the right side

You were a part of me

You still are.

I am homesick, sick, sick. The stone ledge by the window is cold and perspiring, soaking through my pyjamas. I almost didn't go to school, but you told me not to stay on account of you. I feel so selfish. I could get a plane ticket back. You could tell me to come home.

Just say the word, Sophie, and I'll come home.

You call me every morning when you wake up and every noon to see how I'm doing and every evening before bed. I dream about you. I dream that you're here and then I wake up and my heart just breaks.

Miles can't go the distance

Seas can't go as deep nor skies as high

And lightning nowhere near as fast

As I'd go to come back to you.

I talked to you only six hours ago before I went to bed. I'll talk to you in another six when you wake up. And still I feel like I need to see you, now.

Just say the word. I'll come home.

~Sophie~

You told me before you left that if I needed you, if I needed somebody, to tell you. And you would come home no matter how you had to get here. But I can't do that, because I know you would, and I know you can't.

How far is love willing to go?

Do I love you enough to bring you home

Or enough to let you go?

Which goes further?

There's a quilt here but I feel cold. I feel like I'm about to cry. I survived many battles but I can't stand being alone. Even when your dog is here she doesn't calm my soul. I hold her at night when I'm lonely and I listen to her heartbeat.

I could take money from my savings and get a ticket and go, go, fly to London and find you. It wouldn't take much. I've flown on my own before.

I sit up in the dark and turn to the bureau, the one against the wall between the bed where I am and the one with cold, empty, neat sheets. I open it. There is just enough money to fly to you.

But why can't I be strong and wait until holidays come? It seems like when I need you more than ever I lose you faster than I can think.

You left parts of you behind. You left that box of toys in the closet and your dog, and you left about half of your clothes (which isn't very much) and two posters on the walls. You left a framed photograph behind of the two of us standing in the airport grinning, excited to be finally off and together at the world championships.

I pick up the photograph. Your face in the picture is small and blurry and fake; it's nothing like you at all.

A corner of the backing is loose. I turn over the frame to tighten it, but the little latch is broken off. I shake my head. Just like you, Wales, to use an old broken picture frame.

~Wales~

Look behind the picture, Sophie, I urge you in my mind. If twins have telepathy I'm counting on you now. Look behind the picture and I swear this problem will be solved.

~Sophie~

Missing someone

It's like the top of your head is torn off

Some call it poetry

I call it pain.

A corner of white is sticking out from the edge of the backing. You idiot. You bought a picture frame and didn't bother to remove the sample picture or fix it when it got broken.

My obsessive side absentmindedly unlocks the backing to straighten the photograph inside and I see that it's not a sample page behind it, but a folded piece of paper. A note or something. My hopeful mind jumps and I unfold it.

~Wales~

This room is full of objects and empty of soul,

this rain is full of sadness and empty of refreshment

This heart is full of loneliness

and my mind is empty of everything.

Just look behind the picture.

~Sophie~

At first I don't comprehend what I'm seeing. It's superman, it's a bird, it's a...plane ticket. To anywhere.

I can go to London! I don't know why this is here. If you put it here or if it got here some other way. My heart soars and I open the bureau. I open a suitcase and within minutes, it is full. Nothing will stop me from coming to you, not if such an opportunity rests at the ready in my hands.

Papa doesn't need to know. He's gone. Nobody will tell him. I go off on my own all the time.

You taught me how to climb out the window. I still remember.

I'll make ladders of stars

I'll fly

I'll run and I'll swim oceans

And I'll be there soon.

~Wales~

I open up my laptop to the desktop I set, of the two of us in the airport at Italy, taken shortly after we arrived. We were so happy.

When I can't sleep I get on the laptop and I read our blog until I'm in tears of laughter from our cheesy posts. I often wake my room mate, who throws pillows at me until I shut up.

A notice pops up in the corner of my computer screen and suddenly I am dizzy. The screen swims. I set this laptop to tell me if you used the ticket, if it checked in with the airport, is this the notice?

It is.

I'll jump

I'll cry

I'll cry for joy

I'll see you soon.

I whoop loudly. I can't help myself. The sound reverberates off the walls and Charles wakes up. His dictionary narrowly misses my head.

I don't care. I don't care if he slaps me with a red-hot iron, I don't care if I get detention. I climb out the window, I still remember how.

I will be there when you get here. I will never let you go again, I promise myself. Waiting hurts too much.