Chapter 5 - The Other One
"What are you saying?" I asked.
Vivian turned to face me.
"Growing up, it was always 'Nora and Vivian.' You got the better grade. You made the team. You won the thing. And people would look at me like I was the copy that didn't come out as sharp."
"I never asked anyone to do that."
"I know."
"Then why are you looking at me like it's my fault?"
"Because you never had to think about it." Her voice cracked. "You got to walk into a room and just be Nora. I walked into the same room and turned into the other one."
Mom was crying now. "I never knew you felt like that."
"Neither did I. Not really. Not until after the crash."
"At first it was terrifying — nobody knew who I was, I didn't know who I was. But then pieces started coming back, and something else came with them." She swallowed. "For the first time in my life, nobody was comparing me to you. I liked things because I liked them. People met me without asking where my sister was."
"So the second you remembered us," I said, "you stayed gone."
"At first I was scared."
"And after that?"
"After that, I chose myself."
I took a step back. "You chose yourself by letting us bury you. Mourn you. For ten years."
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds monstrous because it was."
She nodded. "I know."
Mom reached for her. Vivian pulled away.
"I loved all of you. I did. But I was terrified that if I came back, I'd stop being Vivian again."
"So the only way to be yourself," I said, "was to make sure I spent ten years grieving a sister who was alive?"
She wiped her face. "I looked you up four years ago."
"You found me."
"Your house. Your job. Pictures of you with friends. You'd built a whole life."
"And that made you stay away."
"I was curious about you."
"Curious enough to search for me. Not curious enough to pick up a phone."
She looked at the floor. "No."
She sat down on the arm of the couch.
"Once I was well enough to make my own decisions, nobody could force me to contact anyone. By the time I remembered enough to put my old life together, I'd already started a new one. And when the rest of it came back — you, Mom, Dad, the house — I still didn't come home, because for the first time I was just Vivian. No twin questions. Nobody saying 'Nora did it this way' or 'Nora was better at that.' I could find out what I wanted without wondering if you wanted it first."
"You could have told us that," I said. "You could have driven to my house, looked me in the eye, and said, 'I need my own life.' Instead you let me grieve you."
"That's the part I can't defend."
"Good. Don't."
"I was selfish. I wanted to be free. And every year I stayed gone made coming back harder. I told myself you were fine. That showing up again would just tear everyone open a second time."
"And watching me look happy online made that easier."
Her face crumpled. "Yes."
I looked away, then made myself look back at her.
"I can understand wanting to be your own person. I can understand hating the comparisons. I can even understand being scared you'd lose yourself if you came home." I held her eyes. "But I am never going to understand why my grief had to be the price of your freedom."
She was crying hard now. "I know."
May you like
"No. Listen to me." I waited until she went still. "You don't get to vanish again just because having a sister is complicated. And I don't get to shove you back into being the girl you were at twenty."
She nodded.
