I was still bracing for her to fall because I understood something had to give. She couldn’t keep on like this forever.

And then when I went by the bakery one afternoon, she wasn’t there. Fiona looked worried. Really fucking worried.

“She said she was going to pick up something,” Fiona said by greeting. Her tone and her expression had me on high alert, the pit in my stomach opening up wider.

“How long ago?” I barked, louder than I’d intended.

Fiona flinched at my tone and probably my expression. I couldn’t rein it in. Not now. Not when fear had sunk its talons in.

“About an hour,” Tina replied for Fiona, her own face filled with worry. “She’s not at home, already been there.”

I nodded. “I’ll find her.”

Tina scowled at me coldly. “You fucking better.”

There was a threat there. An unsaid ‘or else’.

But the thing was, I didn’t need the threat. Because there was no other option but to find Nora in one piece.

NORA

I wasn’t well versed in drowning my sorrows. Sure, I might’ve salved some hurt with a bottle of wine—or even two—in extenuating circumstances, but I wasn’t someone to slam countless tequilas. Wouldn’t swig from a bottle of vodka while soaking in the tub, though I loved the visual of it, so hardcore and dramatic, yet not for me. I never liked the taste of hard liquor. And I’d always been mindful of the way my brother’s addiction had taken hold of him.

I’d always thought if I kept hold of myself, if I didn’t give anything too much power over me, it would mean that my brother would be able to get his power back. We were connected after all.

But that had obviously been bullshit.

I didn’t know how fucked-up it was to be getting drunk in order to try to deal with my twin brother dying of an overdose. I didn’t care much at that point.

That was the wonderful effect of whiskey. The first two tasted like shit, but after that, I barely noticed. I came to crave the burn at the back of my throat.

I was slumped at the bar, staring into nothing, thinking about nothing. It was nice.

But every now and then, memories would rush in. The service at the park. Ansel’s friends. Their tears, their laughter, the stories about my brother. They loved him. They knew him. But no one could tell me what happened. What triggered him to go back to the thing that killed him.

“Sometimes there is no answer, honey,” Gunner had told me gently. “Not one we can know. Ansel took it with him. Just know that he didn’t want to leave. He just didn’t know how to stay, feeling the pain we couldn’t see.”

His words had been wise and comforting, but they didn’t stop me from staying up, racking my brain, searching for a reason why my brother picked up the needle again.

There was a chasm in my stomach, one that told me Ansel had taken that reason to the grave.