“She’s coming with me,” Dad answers forcefully. He looks over at Siri. “Goodbye, sweetie.”

My eyes shift to Siri, who’s staring at Mom.

“Mommy.” The word dribbles out of my sister, waterlogged and desperate.

Dad heads toward the door. I turn my back on Mom and Siri. We head into the garage. I slide into Dad’s back seat. He turns on the car and pushes the button to open the garage behind us.

As his car starts up, Mom’s face appears at the side door, her expression dead as she presses the garage door button up on the wall.

The giant mechanism shudders for a moment and then starts to close on us. Dad throws the car into reverse, stepping on the gas. I’m screaming as I slam back against the seat. The car roof screeches against the closing door. We’re going to die. We’re going to be crushed.

But then we’re in the driveway, zooming backward away from the house and into the street.

That’s when Siri emerges, running from the front door. Sprinting for the car in her pink leotard with a thin satin skirt wrapped around her tiny waist. Screaming for us to wait in her little four-year-old voice. I watch her through the back window. Mom comes sprinting wildly after her, screeching for her to stop. Siri’s fast.

Mom catches her in the middle of the road and scoops her up. Siri is kicking and crying and wailing …

I jolt awake on Terry’s couch, sweating. I haven’t relived that day via nightmare in years. It still feels fresh. Vivid. Every stupid six-year-old Jamie thought is so clear. I hated our ballet teacher for calling us the Fedorovs. Like we weren’t two separate people.

I remember thinking that if I stuck around, I would become one of the Fedorovs to everyone. Then Siri’s sister. And eventually no one. And I couldn’t stand the thought of being no one.

I’m pretty sure that makes me a giant dick.

I snuggle back into the knit couch pillow and close my eyes again. Terry’s been in and out, every hour, bringing me food, and testing my brain function with random questions about my favorite things. I’ve been prescribed Tylenol with a side of ice, and I’m to be woken up every hour for the next twelve hours, so I’ll be sleeping here at Terry’s.

When the door creaks open again I wiggle deeper into the couch, focusing on the crackling sound of Terry’s fire. She lit it sometime between check-ins.

“Time to get up, Jamie,” Terry says as she walks past.

I hear her sit down in the sofa chair next to the couch, and I take my sweet time, stretching like a child before sliding up the edge and lazily opening my eyes.