My Wrath is a Mirror | ONC 2022

One

Mom definitely would try and move around on her own after an injury like that, and Janine was right to call me. She can't sit with Mom all day because of her job, but since I've graduated from college–a whole semester early–I have all the time in the world. Yay me.

I walk through the house one last time, making sure there's no forgotten boxes to bring down. I check each room and the closets, ensuring nothing tangible has been left behind. In the hallway, I hesitate before the open door of my childhood bedroom. I haven't been back since I moved out, leaving all of Kamryn's things on her side of the room. All but one. I finger the necklaces at my collarbone. Twin stars for each of us. Inhaling deeply, I step through the threshold.

Somehow, the empty space seems smaller than when it was filled with our furniture, clothes, and stuffed animals. Sixteen years of our lives reduced to bare carpet and a few straggling dust bunnies. Opening the closet, my eyes trace the pencil marks scribbled up and down the back of the door.

Before I know it, my vision blurs and I can hardly breathe. The thought of Kamryn never getting any taller, never growing any older—it squeezes my stomach in an iron fist as I head for the front door, not bothering to look into the rest of the rooms. After locking the door and handing the keys back to Janine, I can finally inhale enough to fill my lungs.

"Would you mind grocery shopping for a few basics while I start unloading at your mom's apartment? I won't have time to go before work and I don't want her to worry about what to cook tonight." Janine fishes cash out of her purse and presses it into my hand. I frown down at the wad of twenties.

"I could get it on my own, you know, and help you unpack," I reply, raising an eyebrow at her. She only winks, stating that it's for the hassle of going in the first place. Neither of us enjoy shopping, never have. But I only hug her goodbye and slip back into my Range Rover, promising to meet her at the apartment later.

When I'm in the middle of the bread aisle, a high-pitched familiar voice calls my name. Turning, I can only see a blur of red before she tackles me in a hug.

"Kamille! I didn't believe my mom when she told me you were back! Look at you," Loren says, pulling back to look at my face. Her smile is cherry bright and entices my lips to mirror hers.

"Word travels fast, I've only been in for like two hours." I take the chance to look her up and down, and am not a bit surprised that she looks older, more mature since last I saw her, and not a freckle out of place. When we played softball together in highschool, we were attached at the hip. But four years away can change a person, and I'm glad to know that Loren and I are picking up where we left off.

"Sorry I didn't message you sooner, I thought I was going to be busy with moving Mom from the hospital to her apartment and all, but Janine insists I let her handle it. At this point, I'm ready to close on the house and become Mom's live-in chef." Indicating the eggs and fruit in my cart, I offer her an exhausted smile.

She grins. "It's fine, you know how much of a gossip my mom is. Half the town probably already knows you're back. Even Mrs. Biltmore was asking about you."

At her words, my stomach drops and I let out a groan. The one family I didn't want to know I was here most definitely knows now. Loren giggles and digs an elbow into my ribs.

"Come on, I'm sure it'll be okay. I heard her son's been busy with his new job. Something to do with the medical field. I doubt you'll even cross paths." She winks. The mischief gleaming in her eyes makes me swallow.

Moving along to a safer topic, I ask about her and her long-time boyfriend Tyler, whom I learn proposed shortly after we graduated high school, but they have yet to get married. For a moment while she talks, I'm pulled by memory to the football field I crossed to receive my diploma, the ghost of my sister beside me. And when I'd walked across that stage to receive my Bachelor's degree in Nutrition just two weeks ago I still felt her absence like a missing limb. I'm beginning to wonder if I'd ever feel whole again.

Sudden silence brings me back to the present, Loren's expression a bit dimmer than before as she peers at me solemnly. "I'll tell Mom you said hello. Let's meet up for dinner tomorrow night or something, 'kay?" Loren kisses my cheek before heading to the checkout line.

As hard as I try to shake the feeling, I can't help but sag under the weight of being back home. The familiarity and mundaneness of simply paying for groceries, riding down the street, or buying a newspaper puts a knife in my side.

This is why I left. This town moved on from the tragedy, but I never could. Reading, Wyoming recovered from the loss to their community, but the gaping hole in my heart never healed. Instead, being back here, seeing the proof of how little really we matter ignites something within me. The world as I knew it went on as if dad and Kamryn's lives hadn't blinked out, and now there was something inside me that wouldn't stop until the whole world was blood. I was devastated. Now I am wrathful.

The only magic left here is the way this town made me want to run fast and far, away from the sickness of grief burrowed deep inside my soul. And if they can live without my twin, I will make them live with my rage.