Page 79 of Up In Smoke

“I told him he didn't love me. I tried to explain that I wasn't you.”

“You can't tell anyone!” Ivy spouted it off, just as she had for the last few days, but Lily was finally looking like her old self. Like the sister who'd snuck out to a club with her at sixteen. The one she shared all her secrets with. The one who called Ivy on her shit and who she looked up to for all of Life Number One.

“I know what you've told me about him. And I know you're not a liar. And I saw the way he looked. You can trust him, Ivy.”

That was all she needed. If her sister had met the man for all of thirty seconds and made that deduction, then she would trust herself and trust Lily.

Ivy ran down the hall. She'd never gotten dressed so quickly. She could only pray that Luke went back to his apartment as she threw on jeans, sneakers, and a sweater she pulled from the drawer. She grabbed her coat, shoved her arms through it, and stopped only to hug her sister tightly before heading out the door.

She barely caught that Lily glanced up and down at the outfit. While she thought of herself as having been free a lot longer it only now occurred to her that also meant she’d been captive a lot shorter.

What Lily’s future held, she didn’t know. A hard lesson. The other one she’d learned was that, if she wanted something, she had to fight for it. She had saved her money. She had gone to school. She fought for every penny of financial aid. And she'd scrabbled her way through every A she’d earned. She'd lobbied hard to get the job here in Redemption and, as she looked back, she'd won all of it. She was going to win this, too.

She made it to Luke's apartment, knocking, realizing only then that she had left her keys in the ignition and the car door open behind her. She didn't care.

She knocked again, but no one came.

“Luke? Luke!” she called through the door but then she turned and looked around the parking lot. His car wasn't here.

Where was he?

But the town wasn't that big, she told herself. So she climbed back into the car—still running—and she drove. The snow began falling again. The weather had predicted the first good pile up, plausibly several feet overnight. The sky was darkening despite the early afternoon, and she wouldn't be able to stay out much longer.

As she passed the park, she saw him. Or at least she thought it was him.

Ivy no longer cared if she tapped a random stranger on the shoulder and bothered them if she found Luke in the end.

But, sure enough, there he was. Sitting on the park bench, his butt planted in the snow that had already fallen, his eyes staring out over the pond.

Sitting beside him, she took in the strong profile, the straight nose, the blank stare.

“Luke,” she said his name softly.

He looked up finally, hope in his eyes for a moment before his expression shuttered. “Ivy.”

It wasn't a question. It wasn't an invitation. But she made it one anyway.

Moving closer, she shoved her hands down into her pockets and spoke from a place of fear and hope. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“There's nothing you can tell me except what you already told me.” But then he turned to her, regret and acceptance in his eyes. “You may think that I don't love you. But I do and there's nothing you can do about it.”

She grinned, tears pressing at the corners of her eyes. It was too cold outside to cry and she did it anyway. He was shaking his head at her, his hand lifting, probably to wipe away her tears. But then he shoved it back in his pocket.

“I didn't say that to you,” she tried to explain.

“I was there. It wasn't that long ago.”

“No,” she almost laughed. “You were there, but I wasn’t. That was Lily.”

She waited as his realization slowly dawned on him. “Lily. Your Lily?”

She nodded. Who else could it possibly be? Who else would share her face? She'd never imagined that she pulled a twin switch as an adult. “I should have told you more when I talked about her. But I told you it was hardest of all being betrayed by Lily.”

“Because she's your twin,” he said.

Ivy nodded, looking out over the pond now herself. “We were always together, always alike in everything. Sometimes they even treated us like the same person.” She watched as he shook his head. “Whatever you said, you said to Lily, and Lily was right: you don't love her. At least I hope you don't.”

There was so much to untangle, so much to do for her sister. So much to deal with, because no matter how much she helped, and no matter how much Lily needed, Lily had still betrayed her in the worst way. Though Ivy thought she had left all the hurt of it behind, seeing Lily's —her own face—staring at her had brought it all flooding back.

---