• • •

Outside, Cass walked quickly along the sidewalk.

“Morning, Charlie,” said Mark Anderson, an old acquaintance from high school who ran a karate dojo down the street from the bakery.

“Morning, Mark,” Cass replied. “But it’s Cass, actually.”

She knew why Mark had mistaken her for Charlie, though: because she seemed more confident, more sure of herself than usual. She was not going to allow this to change. She was finished with pretending to be her sister and knew it was time for them to finally grow up and never switch places again—but she also knew that she was going to be forever changed by the past week, and not just because of her new tattoo.

She had to be. Or she was never going to have the life she knew was possible.

• • •

Brett was still in his pajamas when he answered the door of the house he had purchased for them just a week ago. As she had approached it Cass had realized something: it was not the perfect house for her. But it was the perfect house for Brett, and she hoped he planned to keep it.

His hair was rumpled and he looked confused when he saw her. “Cass? What are you doing here?” Then he looked closely at her. For a moment she felt nervous—but then realized she had nothing to be nervous about. For the first time in a long while she wasn’t going to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.

“You look . . .” he began, running a hand through his messy hair. “More like yourself. More like the Cass I know.” Of course Brett knew her, had an inner sense that it was really her again. Things had gone bad between them recently—but he had still been her first love, and an important part of her life.

“Brett, can I come in? There are some things you need to know.”

When she got inside, she explained that she and Charlie had switched places, that it had been her sister, not Cass, who had shouted at him the other day. “But it doesn’t change anything. We aren’t right for each other. We’ve outgrown each other, we have different values. It’s time to stop holding on to the past like this, and move on.”

Brett was silent at first. “I get it,” he said, surprising her. “Look, maybe it wasn’t you giving me a talking to the other day, but I needed it. It was a wake-up call. Walking away from the bakery that day, finally letting myself picture a life without you? It was what I needed. I realized something in that moment: I was clinging to the past. And I was ignoring what you wanted. I was trying to keep you because I was doing what I always do in my life: trying to keep up appearances. When I realized it was really over— Well, the thing is . . . Cass, I felt relieved, not sad.”