With no one left to distract me I set the kettle off and run to my steps. The wood is rough under my hands as I lower myself down on the second step. Years of untreated life and exposure to the elements has left the grain exposed and the planks splitting in places. The handrails might’ve been green at one point, based on the few chips of paint left. I rub my fingers across the deep marks in the step I sit on, grounding myself in it. Tucking my knees into my chest I wrap my arms around them, hugging myself tight. The town is silent. Everyone is probably asleep. I can’t even hear the Brown boys’ car. It is still hot and sticky so we won’t get any cool chill tomorrow. This will be the coldest part of the day. I put it at around 30 degrees.

If Laney were home we’d be fighting over the remote while Mum yelled and forced us to turn the TV off and go to bed.

The panic finds me again, dancing on the edge of my vision. Part of me wants to leap up and keep moving, keep avoiding it for all I am worth. But it isn’t helping. If anything it is feeding the panic, making it grow. As hard as it is, I swallow down my defences, dig my fingers into the step and let it come. Just this once while I am alone and can’t hurt anyone else with my pain.

Only it doesn’t swallow me the way I think it will.

What do you do when it feels like your limb is detached? When a piece of you that’s always been there, isn’t. Usually that severed chunk of flesh lies there. You can reach out and pick it up. The still-warm skin reminds you of holding some part of another, or maybe your nerves twitch in recognition of their own.

My twin is part of me.

A part of me I’ve always been able to reach out and touch. An infuriating, sometimes selfish, annoying as hell part of me, but always there even when I don’t want it to be. I judge her so harshly sometimes. Guilt mixes with the panic.

I’ve always seen the golden core of her. The soft melting heart that the hard shell protects. I’m one of the very few who sees it, and only then because she’s never had the ability to shut me out. We’d been so close when we were little. If one of us got hurt, the other would bruise. It’s been a long time since we’ve been that connected.