What's Left of Me

But understanding a thing and accepting it are so very different things.

Addie was warm and radiant next to me, making up half of us. But I - I was Eva, Eva, Eva, all the way through.

I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less.

If you're there, Eva...if you're really there..." His fingers tightened around our shoulder, digging into our skin. "I love you, too. Always" Then he pushed us away.

One second. A snapshot of fear and sweat and blood.

I was caged in our body and caged in his arms and, somehow, the former was the real prison.

(Addie) I said. (If it had been you - if it were you trapped inside. If you were the one who couldn't move, I'd go back. I'd go back in a second.)

The silence was like an unwelcome child, pulling at our hair, running its fingers over our lips.

There's only so long you can be at the zoo before it gets old.

For years, we'd been the thorn of the neighborhood, the dirty little secret that wasn't so secret. The girls who just wouldn't settle.

We'd been born with our souls' fingers interlocked. What if we'd never let go?

I focused as hard as I could on our fingers. On curling them. On bending our elbows to prop up our body.