Buried secrets, two girls with the same face, and a boy who loved too much.
***
When Travis and Nicole meet on a bus for the first time, he thinks she's his ex, Rachel, who broke his heart two years ago. But he doesn't understand why she's pretendin...
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THIS WAS unreal.
This felt like something manifest from a nightmare.
And goodness, to know I've had nightmares about this particular moment, nightmares of hurting her, of losing her-
No.
I'd suffered over and over in those nightmares, torturing myself with imaginings of the day this would happen. But the pain of my nightmares and imaginations was nothing, nothing compared to this fright that seized my entire body.
It was too much to deal with.
My feet were frozen in place, staring at the spot Raine had been parked in even long after she'd driven off. I had no idea how long I stood there, shock and denial flowing through my veins like frost while the rain pelted me with no mercy.
The night sky was bare and blurry. There were no stars. The moon was gone. And in that moment, I feared the lightless heavens would be my life onwards.
An umbrella appeared over my head, blocking the icy drops that soaked me. "Let's get you inside," my sister whispered.
"I don't want to go anywhere-" What if she changed her mind and came back? I wanted to wait a minute more. An hour more. Who cared?
"You're going to fall sick if you stand here a minute longer." Her voice was stern yet uncruel. "Come on, let's go inside."
"I don't-how can I-what do I do to-"
"You're shivering with cold."
Shivering, I was. But from cold, I wasn't so sure. It was terror and disbelief mixed together. I was in pain, but my mind was in denial, steadfastly pushing everything back. Because if the dam broke, no one knew the kind of madness I'd spiral into.
I struggled to breathe.
Nellie closed her fingers around my wet ones, pulling me along. I could only stumble beside her blindly. Nellie was shaken as well. Her breath stuttered as we entered the living room, our eyes resting on the balloons and the cake that sat on the table, waiting to be carried off to the dining room.
Tonight was supposed to be a party to celebrate Rebecca's and Nellie's success.
My hand flew to my chest as a pang of pain hit me at the thought. I hadn't even gotten the chance to congratulate her in person. Everything had happened so quickly, and now she was gone. She was gone, and I had no idea if I'd ever see her again.
Probably not. Remember how she looked at you when she found out how you met her at the movies?
Yeah. With horror and a vein of disgust.
I pressed my eyes shut against the pain.
"You know, I'd seen her on the news alongside Cornelia-"
"Just leave," Cornelia cut Rachel off quietly. "You've done enough damage to him as it is."
