She laughs too and I drop my chin to my chest, covering my face with my hands as my laughter turns to tears. All the guilt and shame and anger too much for me as my shoulders hitch with sobs.

She doesn’t hesitate but pulls me to her, taking my head and pushing it into her shoulder, her arms circling my back. I weave my arms around her and it’s like nothing’s changed.

We still fit together—two mirrored halves.

I close my eyes against the twisted joy and pain and try to control my breathing and swallow my sobs but I can tell that she’s shaking too. I can feel her tears trailing over my skin.

Finally, she pulls away, her fingers tight around mine. She’s staring at my hands and she traces a thumb over my scars. I stay utterly still and hold my breath, waiting for her to say something. She finally looks up at me, her eyes following the fissures across my face. “Elias never mentioned …” She trails off and I look back at our hands. At how smooth and perfect her skin is. Especially against mine that’s so marred.

It’s strange to hear her say Elias’s name. To think about them talking about me. For so long it’s felt like he’s belonged only to me—a desire so intense and hot burns inside me to know what they said. To know how Elias spoke about me.

I want to know why he didn’t mention my scars. Is he just so used to them that he doesn’t see them anymore? Or is he ashamed? Suddenly I’m hyperaware of each line along my face and down my neck, trailing over my arms, hip and thigh. Twisting around my knee and ankle.

“What happened?” she asks softly. It’s a question I’ve gotten so many times before and I always brush it away. But with my sister, I don’t hear the horror in her voice. I hear only the sadness that something so painful could have happened to her twin.

I swallow a few times—I’m not used to anyone but Elias caring about me like that. Not sure how to handle it.

And then I tell her about Elias and me. About where we went after we left her on the path—how we got lost and couldn’t find our way back to the village and eventually discovered a way out of the Forest and to the Dark City. How I fell into a patch of barbed wire when I was exploring the tunnels for artifacts and how Elias refused to let me go down into them ever again.