Cass had been awake for far too long. She longed to go back to bed, to the place where dreams could be escaped and reality felt like a relief. This life was a nightmare, one that wouldn't let go of her no matter how much she tried to snap herself out of it. No matter how much she blocked it out, the grief was always louder.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were dim and the skin underneath them was dark. Her usually glowing skin was dull and she had the look of someone who needed to go back to sleep.

Cass wanted to sleep. Shewishedshe could sleep. Every time she tried, she convinced herself thatthiswould finally be the time she could escape the nightmares. But that's the thing:

You can't escape your dreams when they're your reality.

She threw her hair up into a bun and didn't bother to change out of her sweatpants and the stainedOxford Rowingsweatshirt that wasn't hers. She didn't put on makeup, didn't even brush her teeth. What was the point when she would just be getting back into bed soon?

What was the point of continuing on at all?

"Cass, darling, you're awake early!" Her mother exclaimed with surprise from the kitchen table. She shoved her laptop to the side and stood up quickly, clearly not expecting the addition to the room.

Cass's eyes flashed to the clock in the corner of the room that read 12:45. She supposed that, lately, that might have been early for her. She didn't pay attention to when she woke and when she slept. It all went by in a blur.

"Your father's about finished lunch. Would you like to join us?"

"I just came to get some water," Cass rasped. Her voice was hoarse as if she hadn't used it in days. Perhaps that was the case—Cass couldn't remember the last time she spoke. She couldn't remember the last time she didanything.

But then she stared at her mother's hopeful face and pictured the heartbreak that would be written in the lines in the corner of her eyes. The ones that said,Please don't make me lose you too.She sighed. "Sure, Mum."

Her mother beamed and quickly began setting the table. Cass raised her eyebrows in surprise when her mother's laptop was set to the side. She supposed that grief changed everyone. Look at how it changed her—she went from being a ray of sunshine, the girl who could hardly sit still in a room to this shell of her former self. Her workaholic mother now struggled to write a single legal brief and her father had taken leave from his job at the ministry and had begun to cook when he could hardly make toast without burning it.

Grief changed things. A lot of things. And Cass hated it.

It was loud. It was quiet. It was the presence in the corner of the room. It remained with her as she showered, as she slept, as she lay there and pretended it had gone away. Grief was in everything and everyone and yet Cass didn't want it to end because she was afraid that if it did, her heart wouldn't remember the happy times before. Moving on might have meant forgetting and Cass couldn't bear to forget.

"Romulus, Cassiopeia will be joining us!" Her mother called to the figure at the stove with a bright smile on her face. Cass tried to return it but it just felt funny on her face. Like she hadn't used those muscles in so long that she'd forgotten how to.

You used to be the girl that people couldn't get to stop smiling. Now look at you.

"So glad to hear that, my sweets," her father said before walking over and kissing them on the cheeks. "Lunch is almost done. How does cheesy truffle pasta sound?"

This time, Cass's forced smile felt a little less painful. "Sounds good, Dad. Thanks."

A few minutes later, all three Cranes sat at the familiar dinner table. It seemed that her parents were desperately trying to ignore the empty chair while that seemed to be all she could focus on. They spoke about work—apparently Cass's father would be returning to work when she went back to Hogwarts and her mother had begun to take on more hours, though she was nowhere near her former workload—while Cass sat in sullen silence, in awe at it all. It felt like she was watching sleepwalkers live through a dream. Perhaps that was how they felt. After all, it had been over six months and everyone else had begun to move on, living their dreams as if the world was normal.

But Cass couldn't live like that. She was wide awake.

"Are you excited to return to Hogwarts, sweetheart?" Her mother asked her. Cass frowned. Her mother had always been loving but the pet names and other affections lately had been over the time. It was one of the many reasons Cass had barely left her room in six months. Her mother and father hovered like little gnats, like—

Like they were trying to remind themselves they still had one daughter left.

Nineteen years ago, a young wizard from the Department of Accidental Magic Reversal and an American muggle lawyer who'd been accidentally confunded while on holiday to the Cotswolds met and fell in love. And eighteen years ago, exactly nine months after a simple courthouse wedding, two daughters were born. Andromeda and Cassiopeia Crane. Andie and Cass. Twins. Best friends. Soul mates.

And six months ago, one of the twins passed away in a tragic car accident. The other survived. The other sat at that dining table while staring at the chair that Andieshouldhave been in.

Only one person entirely knew what happened that night when they dragged the car from the tree that split it in two and she refused to even think about that night, much less speak of it. The muggles in the area wrote for weeks about the heartbreaking incident where the young girl screamed for her sister to wake up, to breathe, to be with her again. They knew little of what happened, only that a soul was ripped apart on that icy January day. And the wizards knew even less. Dumbledore had given Cass time to grieve her sister without penalty to her studies and her father's bosses at the Ministry had granted his leave immediately while her mother stopped taking on cases. Both of her parents focused on being there for their family. Because in a way, they had to grieve two daughters that day: the one that left and the one that was left behind.

Her parents had slowly begun to heal from the incident. No one could ever truly recover from the loss of a child but they'd also realized that they couldn't abandon the one they still had because of their loss. Slowly, they had gone back to normal.

But Cass hadn't. She watched as her parents slowly began to smile more, to laugh more, tolivemore. Cass didn't know how to live, not without Andie. Not even as she watched life continue on without her.

They didn't understand. They didn't understand what it was like to feel like your whole world shattered. To feel the shards of who you once were shred into you day after day. To take one step forward knowing that it was leading you further away from them. To wish so desperately you could go back to the place you were at before only to learn that wishes were for dreamers and not the ones who were awake. Cass had been awake for far too long.

The missing half of her ached. It ached far too much for far too long. But that was the thing... if she wasn't sad, then what was she? Who was she without this grief? Without this pain? Without the loss?

Come back,she wanted to shout to her sister.Please. I still need you.

She looked at the bowl of pasta in front of her. She supposed that if it weren't for the pain, her father wouldn't have found his love for cooking. Her mother wouldn't have learned to put away the laptop and live in the now.

What lesson did Cass learn? She wasn't sure. She felt like she was still stumbling blind, hoping that one day she would catch her footing.

"Cass, your mother asked you something," her father gently nudged.

"Oh, Romulus, it's fine," her mother whispered under hushed tones. "She's in her head again."

I'm still here,she wanted to scream.I haven't gone anywhere. I'm still here.

But that was the problem: she was here and Andie wasn't.

Pick up your head, sunshine. You're acting like a cloud today and that's my job,she could hear Andie's voice say in her head with a snarky wink.

Despite being twins, Andie and Cass did have some solid differences. Andie was about two inches taller with a much more athletic build from her years on the Quidditch pitch as one of the Hufflepuff Chasers. Her blonde hair was straight and her brown eyes were always mischievous. Meanwhile, Cass was a little shorter, a little curvier, and definitely unathletic. She'd inherited her mother's corkscrew curls, which always seemed to fall in a dozen directions. Cass's hair color and many freckles along her nose might have matched Andie's but her brown eyes were softer to match her demeanor.

Andie was the spunky, sporty twin with a kind word hidden behind a sarcastic smile. Cass was the nice one, the sweet one, the easy one. She might have been boring compared to her star-studded sister but she didn't mind that and Andie had never made her feel bad about their differences.

You're cool, Crane,Andie would say before they fell asleep in their dormitory each night.

You're a Crane too, Andie.

What a coincidence! Guess that makes me cool too.

Cass looked up at her ceiling, not entirely remembering going back to her room but secretly glad she could escape her parents' helicopter hovering.What would Andie say if she could see me now?She wondered for the millionth time.Would she be angry? Would she hate me?

No,a voice answered.She could never hate you. Just like you could never hate her. Not even for leaving you.

Tears flooded her eyes as she thought about her sister. Her missing piece. The girl that should be with her now on their summer break, instead of floating somewhere in the beyond.

Cass was quickly cut off from her thoughts by a knock on her door. "Cass? Are you awake?" Her mother's voice said.

"Yeah, Mum. I'm awake." That answer was yes far more than she wanted it to be.

"Can we talk?" Before Cass could answer, her mother was already walking into the room and sitting on the bed. "In a little over a month, you're back to Hogwarts. Crazy, huh? How time flies."

It hasn't flown. It's crawled by agonizingly slowly,she thought, though she remained silent.

"I just... I guess... What I'm trying to say is your father and I are worried about you. I know this has been a rough time for you... but do you think perhaps the best way to heal is to try?"

"What?"

"I'm terrible at this." Ironic, considering she was an attorney. If this were a courtroom, her mother would have brilliant words but now they seemed to fail her. Cass couldn't fault her. She knew the feeling all too well. "I just... I don't think that she would want you living like this, sweetheart. Do you?"

"No," Cass answered quickly because she knew that if Andie were here, she'd scold Cass and drag her out of bed. Andie wouldn't give her up until Cass smiled again, no matter how long that took. She'd buy a dozen pints of ice cream and put on a marathon of her favorite movies and act out all the best parts until Cass couldn't help but laugh. Not that Cass was one who needed cheering up often but even the sun had its cloudy days.

"No," her mother said with a soft smile before brushing back a few of Cass's pale blonde curls that had escaped from the bun. "It's hard. I know. You two entered this world together and now you have to learn to navigate it without her. But you can't live like this forever, baby. You can't keep walking around like a zombie with your sister's sweatshirt and your hair in shambles. And you certainly can't keep sleeping most of the day. You have tolive."

Cass could feel her heartache. She could feel the shattered glass stab into her again while the bitter sting of salty tears filled her eyes. She felt like a dam waiting to burst. She felt like the ghost of the girl she once was. And she didn't know how to find herself again.

Her mother sensed the sobs only moments before they came. "Oh, my sweet girl," she said before wrapping Cass tightly in a hug. "I know. Let it out."

"I don't know how to do it, Mummy," Cass whispered through the tears. They wracked her body with vicious sobs that wouldn't let go of her. Six months of pain exploded in that moment and she felt every bit. "I don't know who I am without her."

"Oh, sweetheart," her mother whispered. Cass could hear the grief wrapped in her mother's voice. "Then use these moments to find it out. Be who you want to be. Remember your sister but remember who you are, too. My little sunshine. I know the sun is still in you. You just need to find your shine again."

Her mother cupped her cheek, kissing her forehead before wrapping her in another hug. Before Cass knew it, the two had laid down and the sound of her mother's heartbeat lulled her to sleep.

When she awoke, her lips still tasted salty. Her mother was snoring with her arms tightly wrapped around her daughter. Cass smiled to herself and settled deeper into the embrace.

For the first time, Cass wondered if she had been wrong. If she had been living these past few months convinced that she was awake, that she was the only one who truly grieved Andie. But maybe she was the one who was asleep, reliving the same nightmare over and over instead of trying to wake up.

Cass opened her eyes. And she woke up.

Okay guys I know this was a DEEP and sad first chapter but I needed to set the scene, yk? This is a Sunshine x Sunshine book but, as Cass's mom said, Cass is a sun who lost her shine. This book for the most part isn't very dark or upsetting so I had to add a little something something yk? I promise there won't be this much trauma the whole time, I know I'm kind of known for that lol.