The next morning, bleary-eyed and groggy, I made Ruby and myself a cup of tea. The kettle, a box of tea bags, and a few mugs were the only things in the kitchen not wrapped in newspaper and stuffed into a box. We had a few large items Dad had decided to replace rather than move that were being picked up by a disposal service tomorrow for recycling—the worn-out sofa, the oven with the wobbly door, our old mattresses—but the rest was up to us.

“You don’t have to help today, you know.” I kissed Ruby’s cheek and tried to sound like I only wanted to spare her the hassle. “It’s really not your job.”

Truthfully, I was struggling with the guilt of skipping out on Mum. I couldn’t exactly disappear for an hour this morning without Ruby noticing. If she left now, I could still go.

“I want to. I get to be with you.” She smiled and flipped her hair from one side to the other and I felt an ache. She really was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen in real life. Over the last few weeks I’d grown used to her in a way and she just looked like Ruby, but sometimes, like in that moment, I saw her as if she was a stranger again. I noticed her blue freckle and the way her hair always looked like she was after running her fingers through it; I saw her hazel eyes, wide and wondering; I saw the curve where her waist met her hips in a way that made me want to grab her close, and I could barely believe that she let me kiss her and touch her and do all the things we did that made the air between us sticky and hot.

I supposed I could skip seeing Mum this one time. My two lives were getting uncomfortably close in a way that was giving me palpitations and anxiety sweat on the back of my neck. I reminded myself that Ruby would be gone in four weeks and everything would be back to normal. Somehow that didn’t comfort me the way it should have.

Even though it felt like I’d been packing for approximately six months, there was still stuff all over the house. Things had to be cleaned and fixed before we left for good, like scrubbing the insides of the kitchen cupboards and tightening the loose hinge on the bathroom door.