Walking to my bedroom, I found that the door was closed. My fingers wrapped around the doorknob and I pushed it opened.

Just like the rest of the apartment, everything was the same but somehow different. I hated that.

My side of the bed still had a few of the books I’d left behind sitting on my dresser. The closet was filled with both my clothes and Gabby’s.

I moved to my bed, which was perfectly made, and sat down on the edge of it. Patting the spot beside me, I invited Daniel to sit with me.

“It smells like you,” he noticed. “I know that sounds weird, but it does.”

My eyes moved to my pillow and I picked it up, breathing it in. It had recently been sprayed with my favorite perfume.

“I’m going to tell her how much trouble she caused,” I stated, staring up at Gabby’s side of the room. Her Beatles posters were still hanging up. Leaned up against her bed frame was her acoustic guitar. Pictures of her and Bentley were still taped all over the wall. Photos of her and me… “She abandoned me when I needed her the most.”

I looked to Daniel, who was giving me pained eyes, yet he didn’t speak.

“She—she told me to go away!” I stood up, feeling my blood start to boil. Being back here was stirring up my emotions; being back here was pissing me off. “I could have helped her! I could have taken care of her!” I screamed, pacing back and forth.

He kept staring. I kept breaking.

“And then she has the nerve to spray my pillow?! As if she misses me?!” I huffed and puffed, my face heating up. I pounded my hand against my chest. “Gabby was my twin! If anyone should have fallen apart, it should’ve been me!”

I was both furious and nervous. Furious because Mom had turned to alcohol when she could have turned to me. And nervous because I was afraid to see her broken.

Moving over to Gabby’s bed, I started ripping her comforter off, tossing her pillows to the side, tossing her sheets to the ground. “She’s not coming home, Mom!” I cried into the air.

Next, I hit Gabby’s posters, tearing them down. I reached for the photos and started tearing those to the ground, too. Daniel wrapped his arms around me and pulled me off of the bed.

“Ashlyn, stop,” he ordered.

I couldn’t. My mind had been taken away from me by the sadness, by the memories. How dare Mom order me to leave. How dare Henry take care of me. How dare Gabrielle get cancer. How dare Ryan kill himself!

“I gave Ryan a place to stay. We were supposed to sleep it off and figure things out in the morning. Rebecca calmed down. She wanted him to come home. Hailey needed him… What an ass**le. He’s an ass**le for dying!”

It wasn’t fair. They’d all left me when I would have done anything to stay with them. I would have given them all the love they needed.

Why wasn’t I enough?

He was holding me around my waist, yet I kept kicking and screaming. “Let me go!” He held on tighter. I started kicking my legs around, clawing my fingernails into his arms, trying to rip his hold of me away. My howls grew deeper and the pain only intensified. “Let me go!”

“No.” He held on and placed me against a wall to control my kicks. My body landed against the cold wall and I cried. “I’m never letting you go, Ashlyn. I’m never letting you go.”

“You will! You will let me go.”

My stomach twisted and I felt like I was going to vomit. He wasn’t trying to, but he was lying to me.

Because everyone always let go.

My vision began to blur over and I felt lightheaded.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Daniel whispered against me as my breathing started to increase. My insides tightened. “Calm down for me, sweets. Steady your breathing.” He turned me around so I was facing him. I yanked on his shirt, pulling him closer to me.

I lost it.

Completely lost it.

But he was still there.

We sat on the couch, facing toward the front door. When I heard keys jingling, my heart pounded against my ribcage. The door opened slowly and I saw Mom walking in with Jeremy behind her.

I stood to my feet and heard Mom gasp. Tears built up in her eyes and her shoulders slumped.

I was supposed to be mad.

I was supposed to hate her.

But all I could do was hug her, pull her to me, and cry into her. I didn’t know what to think of the exchange between the two of us.

And maybe tomorrow, I would be mad again.

And maybe when I went back to Wisconsin, I would hate her once more.

But right now? On Christmas afternoon?

Right now, we were just two people made to screw up, f**k up, and learn new things. We were made perfectly imperfect.

Chapter 38

Snow falls soft.

I love you slowly.

~ Romeo’s Quest

Those few days in Chicago, Mom and I didn’t figure things out. We didn’t work on our issues.

We mourned the first Christmas without Gabby. On New Year’s Eve, we cleaned out the bedroom, too. Mom lifted up Gabby’s guitar and smiled toward Daniel. “You can have it.”

He frowned. “I can’t.”

“Please,” Mom whispered, running her fingers over the guitar strings. “It deserves to be played.”

Daniel looked over to me and I smiled, nodding.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the guitar into his hands. As Mom and I folded up the last of the clothes to send the Goodwill, Daniel played Gabby’s guitar.

“Do you know any Beatles?” I asked him. Mom looked up toward him and smiled, waiting for his answer.

He played Let It Be, singing quietly. His voice was smoother than I’d ever heard it before. It gave me the best kinds of chills. Outside the window, snow fell at a tamed speed, falling against the tree branches, falling against every inch of Chicago.

And when the clock struck midnight, everyone cried.

“What do you think?” I asked Daniel as we arrived back at the train station in Edgewood. “Do you think she’ll be able to stop drinking?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I hope she does.”

“Me too.” I looked around and smiled at Daniel. We stood in a hidden corner by the payphones in the Amtrak station. “She wants me to come back to live with her…to work on our relationship.”

He nodded slowly. “I know.”

My voice whispered with the next topic. Mom had given me the letter from the college of my dreams on the way out. “I got into the University of Southern California.”