Olivia felt the distance between them acutely. When she asked Ayanna about her church classes, everything about them felt like half-truths. It was Ayanna and three other people, another teenager and two adults who had recently joined the farmlands. Their studies were spread across the seven tenets of their faith: service, curiosity, kindness, wonder, observation, listening, and courage. How could someone learn “wonder”? Olivia thought, but decided that to ask would make her sister feel judged. Sometimes the four of them would sit in silence for two hours, instructed to write down all the things they noticed, to be precise and vivid in the details. They were scolded for bathroom breaks or for taking more than an occasional sip of water. What was missed without that level of fortitude?

They were expected to volunteer their time not just at their church but also in their community. During the summer when Ayanna had begun her classes, she and Olivia worked at a food pantry, sorting cans, checking out the bread donated from different bakeries, making signs encouraging people to donate menstrual-health products and deodorant, and smiling at everyone who came in. It was one of the few places where people seemed too self-conscious to make small talk about the two of them being twins.

After one of these, they decided to throw a twins sleepover, elaborate and planned out, from the snacks to the movies to a promise from Ayanna that her sister could paint her toes something other than black. It was a rare night when their mom was out of the house, was away visiting her own mother for once.

They sprawled on the living room carpet, both facing the ceiling, and played their favorite game, Wild Thoughts. They told each other every thought they had stored up that felt too weird to tell other people. There was an element of one-upmanship, but if they had been asked to directly explain how this was a game, what the rules were, who the winner was, maybe the only answer either girl would’ve been able to give was “Because we said it’s a game.”

“I have this idea,” Olivia said, her tone light in the way that it seemed to be when she was about to say something devastating, “that you rarely tell me the truth. That everything you tell me about your entire life is made up just to be different than me. I don’t know why I think you would do that, but sometimes when I think about how different we are, it feels like a prank you’re pulling on me.”