lueberry scones?”
I froze.
For ten years, I had ordered two.
Even after Lily died.
Sometimes I ate both.
Sometimes one went stale.
The habit had survived longer than logic.
I looked through the display.
“No.”
The cashier waited.
“One blueberry.”
Then I saw a chocolate croissant.
Lily had ordered one the previous week.
“And one chocolate.”
“Same bag?”
I thought about it.
“No.”
“Separate.”
She packed them separately.
One blueberry.
One chocolate.
I stood holding the two bags and finally understood what rebuilding with Lily required.
We were not restoring what existed before Blackwood Highway.
That relationship was gone.
The twenty-year-old twins who shared clothes, jokes, grudges, and half an identity did not exist anymore.
Lily had spent ten years becoming a woman I did not know.
I had spent ten years becoming a woman who believed Lily was dead.
There was no way backward.
Only forward.
When I reached the café, Lily was already there.
She waved.
I sat down.
Then placed the chocolate croissant in front of her.
Her face lit up.
“You remembered.”
“Yes.”
She looked at my bag.
“Blueberry?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“We used to order the same thing.”
“I know.”
“Now we don’t.”
“No.”
She opened her bag.
Then hesitated.
“Claire?”
“What?”
“Do you ever wish the dental clinic hadn’t called?”
