Chapters (44)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Julie Murphy
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
She scoots down the bed toward me, and begins to undo her braids, which is code for you can play with my hair. “I love being your twin. It’s one of the most important things I am, but we can’t always be Waylon and Clem. Sometimes you have to be just Waylon and I have to be just Clem. Didn’t you ever wonder what your plan would be if it weren’t something that had to work for both of us?”
My eyes well with tears. “No, actually, I hadn’t. I just. I thought it would always be the two of us.”
Her expression softens at the sight of me letting my guard down. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was scared. It was wrong. Everyone told me so, even Hannah.” She grimaces. “I was so scared you would hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I mutter. “I wish I could. That would be way easier. Instead my stupid, stone-cold heart only cares about a few people and you happen to be one of them. I build up walls, Clem, I know that. But it makes it so much harder when someone inside the wall hurts me, because I’m not in the business of letting people in.”
“Oh, I know all about your walls,” she says with a sympathetic frown.
I sigh so hard my lips sputter. “And now I don’t know where I’m going or who I want to be and I made that stupid video and what if that’s all anyone ever knows me for? What if I’m always that fat gay kid with the embarrassing video who ran for prom queen?”
She loops her arm through mine and leans her head on my shoulder. “You’re Waylon. Before the video. After the video. With me. Without me.”
I was so ready to live our lives out in Austin, but the thought of being there without my Clementine makes me feel like I’m trying to find my footing in a pit of quicksand. “And God, why Georgia?”
She smiles sheepishly, and I immediately know she’s about to drop another bomb. “Well, I was wait-listed at UT, but I also got into the University of North Texas, and then a few others. One in Florida and another in Arizona, but, um, Hannah actually has a full ride at the Savannah College of Art and Design. We’d still be four hours away, but—”
“Oh.” I want to snap back with something pithy, but this hurts a little too much for me to come up with a venomous response. She’s just twisted the knife. It’s not that she’s going somewhere else on her own. She’s going somewhere with someone else. A someone else she chose over me. “What happens if . . . what if y’all . . .”