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I shrugged and looked away. “I’m not sure I’d want anything to do with them, even if they did call.” The truth sat lighter in my heart than I’d expected. “I thought that James had taken my family from me.” I turned back to find Leon’s grey eyes shiny with emotion. “But I realised today that losingthemopened up a space for better people to fill.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Leon cupped my face and I marvelled at the obvious love in his eyes.

“I thought I would never trust someone again, not with my heart, not with my truth, but I was wrong. I thought I didn’t want love, or a family, that those couldn’t be real things in my life. But I was wrong about that as well.” I fisted Leon’s shirt and pulled his big body close enough to kiss. “And I’m really, really looking forward to what else I might’ve been wrong about.”

And then I kissed him, putting every unspoken wish and shy hope that fluttered through my greening heart into it. Wishes and hopes too fragile to stand the light of day, at least not yet, but maybe soon.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

Leon

I peeredthrough the drizzle and read and reread the words carved into the stone above the image of my twin sister, the same words carved into my heart for seven years.

A bright light in the world, a beloved daughter and sister. Where you walked, beauty followed. You will be missed, always.

I knelt on the wet grass and ran my fingers over the still sharp edges of the letters.

“I think I fucked up,” I told her, resting back on my heels. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”

Silence.

“Yep, I really did.” I lifted my face to the gunmetal clouds that filled the sky and dropped the umbrella to the side. Soft rain ran down my face and my eyelids fluttered closed as an image of the two of us as teenagers came to mind. Caitlyn had gone through a stage of wanting to be a hair stylist and so I’d been drafted as her model. She’d wash my long hair and pin it into ridiculous dos. Then she’d take a photo and show all our friends. She could be such an arsehole like that.

I grinned and raised my umbrella again.

“So... I’ve decided to talk to someone. I know, I know. But I wasn’t ready back then. Besides, you don’talwaysknow what’s best for me.” I picked at some grass and threw it at her headstone. “You’re such a fucking know it all.”

I waited until the laughter in my head quieted and then stared for a minute at nothing. At the rain leeching into the sodden dirt. At the African daisy closed tight against the cold. At how the tui feather I’d brought with me hung limp in the tiny vase I’d glued to the footing.

“I’m scared of letting the pain go, sis. Scared that you’ll go with it because it feels like it’s already happening.” I wiped at my eyes. “And I still don’t know if I’m ready. But maybe it’s time I tried.”

I laid my palm over her name like I could somehow pull her through it.

“Please don’t hate me, but some days I can’t even summon your voice or feel you here with me anymore. Parts of you are fading and I hate it. For a while, right at the beginning, I could pretend you were still here, laughing at how we’d call at the same time and be sent to voicemail. That you still knew every word I was going to say before it came out of my mouth. That we’d dream the same dream on the same night, and how we’d laugh about stupid fucking research that said only identical twins could do that kind of shit. What the hell did they know? Or how we knew when each other was hurt. L-like... that day... your scream in my heart, so fucking loud, and then... nothing... Jesus, Caitlyn, how do I forget that? I never told a soul. I mean, what the fuck do you say about something like that?”

I swallowed around the choking lump in my throat and stared through the lightening rain.

“Anyway, lately I’ve been wondering whether it’s not actually a matter of you starting to fade, but rather you trying to move on to where you need to go next. That maybe it’s me holding you back. That maybe you’re worried about me. And so I’m here to tell you that I’m gonna be okay. You can leave if you need to.”

I stood and closed my umbrella. “I don’t know what next year will look like, but it will be different, although honestly, a fucking tree?” I blew out a sigh. “I guess it’s not so bad. But it’ll be me who has to look after the damn thing, you know that, right? God knows none of the rest of our family could keep a weed alive.”

A slice of watery sunlight cut across Caitlyn’s grave and I looked up, smiling. “Yeah, yeah, but you’ll have birds shitting on you all day, so that’s something in its favour.”

I took a deep breath. “And there’s one more thing.” I turned and held a hand out for Chris. He smiled and walked across from the tree he’d been sheltering under to take it, threading our fingers together.

I pulled him tight against me. “This is Chris. And if it weren’t for him, I’m not sure I’d be able to do any of this.”

Chris squeezed my hand. “Yes, you would.”

I kissed his cheek. “Maybe. But watching you this last month has taught me that if we want to be happy, we have to try and let go of the pain that holds us back. Not forget it. Not pretend it never happened. But learn from it and move on as best we can, hearts open.” I ran a thumb under his glistening eyes. “You’d love him, Caiti, just like I do.”

Chris pressed a soft kiss on my lips before laying a single white rose on Caitlyn’s grave. Then he kissed his fingertips and touched them to her name. “I’ll look after him, Caitlyn, I promise.” He glanced back with a wicked grin. “And I’ll kick his arse when he needs it.”

I shook my head and laughed. “You’re such a fucker.” I pulled him into my arms and tucked his damp hair behind his ears. “But I love you, so fucking much.”

“Mmm.” He slid his hands around my waist. “Just as well. I love you too.”

We stood wrapped in each other a moment longer, staring at Caitlyn’s grave, until the sun slid behind another cloud and fat droplets of rain splattered on my face.

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