Becky’s footsteps fade away into the velvet darkness, until there’s no sound in the canyon but the wind echoing mournfully through the trees. This late, even the crickets are silent. The moon looks ghostly, shining through tattered clouds and casting strange shadows all over the clearing, warped and grotesque. Far below me, the lights of Tucson sprawl at my feet. I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life.

The breeze is sharp on my damp cheeks, and I rest my hands over my face for a long moment, hiding from the world like I did when I was a kid. Between the darkness and all the crying I’ve done tonight, my eyes are starting to feel strained. The pressure of my palms soothes me, shutting out my surroundings—but it can’t shut out the memories that keep flashing through my brain. The fight with Thayer, after I’d spent so long looking forward to seeing him. The accident, the terrible crunching sound of Thayer’s leg snapping as my own car plowed into him, driven by someone I couldn’t see. My father, coming to tell me that I was his granddaughter, that my biological mother is his daughter Becky. And then Becky herself—my sad, tormented birth mom—telling me that somewhere out there, I have a twin sister.

I think of my old dream, where my reflection would step out of the mirror and we’d play together. I would always wake up feeling peaceful and somehow sad. I never wanted to leave her, this other girl who looked like me and yet wasn’t. A part of me has always known, I realize now. A part of me has always missed her.

Anger spikes through me. I lean down and pick up a handful of rocks, throwing them as hard as I can out over the side of the canyon. The muscles in my shoulder flex and burn with the effort. I’m mad at Becky. I’m mad at my grandparents. Because they couldn’t work out their own problems, I’ve been kept from my twin. I’ve been denied the one person who might have understood me, who might have made me feel less alone. It hurts, even more than the years of wondering why my birth mother abandoned me, why my parents loved Laurel more. It hurts because without this missing piece, I will never feel complete.

“Selfish!” I shriek, releasing another stone into the night air. “You’re . . . all . . . just . . . selfish!” My voice echoes around the canyon, bouncing back at me fainter and fainter until it’s gone. Then my hands are empty. I stand there for a moment, my breath heaving, my fingers clenched. I could pick up more rocks. I could throw them all night.