My Better Life

Jamie smiles at me, and her lavender blue eyes, her glass flame hair, her freckles, they all hit me, and I imagine I could spend the rest of my life looking at her, finding all the different ways she’s beautiful.

We walk through the tall grass, hand in hand. I pat Scooter as he hurries by, heading for the plate of chicken no doubt. The kids are seated already, and Gran’s pouring iced tea in all the cups. Tom and Diedre are arguing about something, well, more like Diedre is arguing and Tom is silently letting her.

It’s a picture that I hope I get to see many more times in my life. I’m just about to tell Jamie so, when there’s the sound of another car coming down the drive. I turn my head and frown.

Jamie grins at me. “Did you invite someone else?”

I shake my head. “No.”

We turn and watch a sleek black car come around the bend. I narrow my eyes on the curved lines, the gleaming paint, the familiar design. That’s a Bentley. A quarter-million-dollar car. Why is there a Bentley in Hollow Creek, at our house, and why do I know that Bentleys have glossy wood trim, butter-soft leather, a dashboard that spans like the wings of the logo across the interior and that driving one feels like steering a cloud? Was I once a car buff? I don’t think I was.

I lift an eyebrow at Jamie as it pulls to a stop twenty feet away. The engine hums, a soft, expensive rumble that sounds loud and obtrusive amongst the country crickets and the background clucking of the chickens.

I tilt my head. Maybe they’re here to see Jamie’s work, maybe they saw her website and she’ll have another sale. I smile down at her.

But instead of looking happy, her face has gone pale. She drops my hand and takes a step back.

I shake my head. “I’ll go see what they want.”

I walk across the gravel and dirt, a pleasant expression on my face. I’ll help them out and then we’ll get back to celebrating. Maybe tonight…maybe Jamie and I will finally—

The driver side door opens and a tall, brown-haired, firm-jawed, stern-looking man steps out. He’s in a gray suit, a blue shirt, and a gray tie, and he looks as straight-faced and sardonic as ever. Of course he does.

I grin at him. “Hey Will. You here for the party?”

A black-haired woman with big soulful eyes steps out of the passenger door and gives me an impish grin.

“Oh. Hey Jessie. You came—”

I stop.

Stare at my brother.

My twin brother.

Everything is back. I remember everything. One moment the door in my memory was closed, and the next it swung wide open. It’s all right there before me. I’m Gavin Williams. My brother is Will. I have a fiancée, okay, ex-fiancée. I travel the world, I like extreme sports, adrenaline, and I have a life, a history, a family.

My entire life spreads out before me and then beside it, jagged and out of place, is the last month. That’s a life too. But it isn’t mine. There isn’t a single part of it that’s mine.

When I stayed in the Arctic one winter, when the sun never rose, and the cold bit at your soul, there was a night that the wind howled and it sounded like a person weeping. It shook me, gave me chills to the bone. That is the exact feeling I have right now.

There’s my life, and then there’s this month, a piece that doesn’t fit in the jigsaw puzzle of Gavin Williams, that isn’t even part of the same set.

I turn and take in Jamie. Her face is pale, her eyes guilty. Oh, she knows. She knows what just happened. Any hope that this was all a mistake, that she isn’t guilty as sin, well, it just disappeared.

I look back at my brother. “That’s Will. That’s Jessie,” I turn to Jamie. “But who the hell are you?”

She looks like she’s holding back tears. She quickly shakes her head back and forth. Then, there are tears at the corners of her eyes. They make me unreasonably angry. Why should she be crying? Why should she be sad?

Then I take a closer look. There’s something familiar about her. Not from the month we spent together, but from before, when I was me.

She’s a redhead in overalls, smelling like a chicken coop, dirt on her face, demanding I pay her what she’s owed.

I stare at her in horror, take a step back.

“You’re that woman.”

Jamie steps toward me, her hand up, “Gavin—”