Once We Were

Once We Were by Kat Zhang Page A

Book: Once We Were by Kat Zhang Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kat Zhang
Tags: sf_history
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away. As if it might show up in our reflection.
    Slowly, I shrank into myself, folding myself smaller and smaller in the nebulas of our mind. What would ten-year-old me think if she knew what I was doing? She’d clutched on so fiercely. She’d just wanted to live. To have a chance.
    I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t think about anything. I focused on untying myself, on letting go, like a boat’s sail finally ripped free of its mast.
    Addie hadn’t closed our eyes, so I couldn’t, either. But the girl in the mirror wasn’t me. I murmured this mantra to myself as I loosened the threads binding me to our limbs, our fingers, our toes.
    The girl in the mirror wasn’t me.
    Blond hair. Brown eyes. Freckles. The swoop of a collarbone, the curve of an arm.
    The girl in the mirror wasn’t me.
    The world reduced to our breathing, then our heartbeat. Then even that disappeared.
    Addie reached for me, as if on instinct.
Come back!
I thought I heard her cry, the instant before it happened.
    Her voice.
    Come back!
    I plunged and was gone.
     
    Nathaniel
    At three
    Five jam-sticky fingers
    And a jam-sticky mouth
    A grin. My name on his tongue
    Eva, look.
     
    The apartment where I grew up
    The fort beneath the table
    Flashlights after dark
     
    The park, where I climbed the tree
    And fell
    The lake
    Where we went camping
    Before Lyle and Nathaniel were born
    When it was just Addie
    And me
    And Dad
    And Mom
    Soft breathing in the tent
    The warmth between their bodies
    The
swish
of our fingernail against the sleeping bag
     
    Eva.
     
    The scrape of our fingernail against a coverlet.
     
    
     
    I woke.
    Before sight, before sound, before smell or speech or feeling—was Addie.
    Then came the first thought, as the world inked itself back into existence around me:
    
     
    We were still sitting on the bed, our knees drawn against our chest, our fingernails digging into the blue-and-white patterned coverlet.
    Addie stared at the girl in the mirror, who stared back. I struggled to reorient myself. Everything felt at once too sharp, too real, and not real enough. I hurt with the memory of—of what?
    I wasn’t sure. There had been so many memories, memories mixed in with dreams—truth swirled together with lies and hopes and fantasy.
    Nathaniel. I’d dreamed about Nathaniel. For a second, his face floated back to me, how he and Lyle had looked as a baby. Addie and I had been four years old when he was born. We’d stood on tiptoe to stare down at him in his cradle, his hair so light and fine it looked like he didn’t have any hair at all.
    
    
Addie’s voice was steady, but I felt the force of will it took to keep it that way.
    Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of my life excised. In a way, it was no different from sleeping at night or taking a nap during the day. But I wondered if I could think the same once I started going under for hours at a time.
    
    
Addie plucked at the coverlet.

    
The image of him was fading. He was just a blurry face now, a baby that could be any baby.

    
Addie murmured.

    
I remembered my first time alone after Hally and Devon had drugged us. I remembered how Addie had been at thirteen, after
her
first time alone, her fear burning in the back of our throat.
    Addie shifted, leaning back against the headboard. The wood was cool against our shoulders.

    I’d had a month to get accustomed to being the sole occupant of our body. But this was Addie’s first taste of it in nearly three years.
    Funny, how
I
was more experienced than Addie at something. Me. The recessive soul.
    
I said.
    
    Despite her words, Addie had more trouble than I did, both with dealing with my disappearances and with going under herself.
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