Page 52 of Burn It Down

I’m still scrolling on my phone, impatiently waiting for his response when there’s a knock on my door.

“Yeah?” I call, wondering why Cassie or my dad are up this late.

“Twin talk?” Cassie asks, opening my door.

Twin talk is the name we gave our late night chats when we were younger. Cass and I shared a room until we were twelve. We wanted to share a room for longer, but once we hit puberty our parents told us we needed our own spaces.

If one of us had something on our mind and needed to talk about it without being teased or judged or in fear of the otherone telling mom or dad, we called a twin talk. Kind of like cryinguncle,mercy, orno joy. It means we’re serious and something’s up.

I flip my covers open and slide over making room for her to climb in my bed.

“Always.”

We lie on our backs in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask her.

“You. Dad. The three of us.”

Although Cassie isn’t shy about calling a twin talk, she often needs leading questions to start opening up.

“What about us?”

“Are you ever resentful that we’re twenty-seven and still live with our dad?”

I know what she means and this isn’t the time to remind her that we made this choice.

“Sometimes I resent a lot of things,” I admit. Mom for dying. Dad for needing us. Myself for being attracted to men and making life much harder than it already was.”

“Would you resentmeif I moved away?”

My body jolts with the question and the bed shifts as I roll onto my side to look at her in the darkness. Immediately, I want to beg her not to leave me here alone, but I can’t be that selfish. She deserves more than this shop and a lifetime of servitude.

“I’d miss you like fucking crazy, but I wouldn’t resent you, Cass.”

“I just…I saw your smile when Jake picked you up for the lake and I want that for you. And then I realized I want that for me, too, and I just don’t think I’m going to find it here.”

“What will you do? Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure quite yet. I just think it’s time for a change. You at least lived by yourself for a period of time and got your automechanic’s certificate. I need to choose a path and take some chances for myself.”

I grab her hand and lace our fingers.

“You know I’ll support you and help you any way I can.”

“I know Dyl.” We lie in silence until she finally asks. “So, what happened between you and Jake yesterday? You were so busy today we didn’t have a chance to catch up.”

“Well, for starter’s you were right. He’s gay.”

“I KNEW IT!” she yells excitedly.

“Cass, shhhh!” I clamp my free hand over her mouth, making her giggle and pull her other hand free from mine undoubtedly so she can make wild hand gestures while she shrieks in the dark.

She kicks her feet in excitement under the covers like a six-year-old, making me laugh.

“Iknewhe was into you! How’d you find out?”

I summarize yesterday’s events, leaving out the gory details of the mutual hand job in the kitchen and the blowjob in the parking deck.

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