The next morning. I packed my bag. Not because I was running away, I am not that dramatic. I just wanted to wander around. I filled my bag with a flashlight, my journal, the blue recorder, a bottle of water and my cap. Aunt Mara asked where I was going and I told her the truth. I had to go to the Ridge.
"I need to go back."
She did seem concerned but didn't ask anything further.
"Take your coat," she said and handed me a pack of mints from her pocket.
This time, the Ridge didn't look the way I remembered.
The sky above was slate gray and heavy with clouds, like it would rain any time. The air was thick with damp earth and something else-oldness. The path had grown narrowed and more twisted. I stepped over roots that weren't there before. I walked past trees that leaned in like they were listening. But I didn't stop, not until I saw it.
The boulder.
And the boy standing on top of it.
He looked like me or maybe I looked like him.
He was barefoot again. His face was pale, almost grey. He titled his head as I stepped closer, mirroring every movement I made with a strange, slow elegance.
He raised one hand. Not to save but to point.
At me.
"Are you ready?" He asked. His voice was mine but echoed.
"I didn't understand?" I said, my voice wobbled.
"Oh, you surely do!"
The wind was picking up, rustling through the trees with whispers I couldn't quite catch.
He stepped forward, balancing at the edge of the rock.
"You made me," he said. "Now you want to leave me?"
It was the first time I'd seen his eyes properly.
They weren't dead or demonic.
They were sad.
I took a shaky breath and stepped closer. I pulled out the recorder from my bag, clicked the play button and my mom's voice started to play, quite but firm.
"You started switching places.
You started forgetting things.
And then you went to the Ridge.
And only one of you came back.
Eli, you have no twin.
There is no Noah in this world."
The boy on the boulder flinched.
"You weren't real," I whispered. "You never were."
H blinked, just once. His grin fell away like dust.
"You needed me," he said softly. "You still do."
I looked down.
Mud on my shoes,
Under my nails.
"You are not a ghost," I said aloud. "You're a fracture."
He nodded. "A splinter," he said. "But you loved me."
I didn't speak.
I couldn't.
Because I did love him like a bother.
Noah had been my only friend in a life full of silence. He had played with me when no one else would. Protected me when Dad got mean, sat beside me in the dark when I couldn't sleep.
He had saved me.
But he had also taken things. My time, my voice, my personality and my face in the mirror.
I stepped past him, to the edge. I looked down into the trees and rocks and everything. I though about jumping.
Not physically, but mentally.
I have to let go of the story I'd told myself my entire life.
The twin. The protector. The imaginary boy with my voice and my face and all the pain I didn't want to feel.
He was now standing behind me. Not smiling but trembling.
"I'm tired," I said.
"So am I," he replied.
Then, for the first time, he looked scared.
"If you let go,"he said slowly, "what if you disappear too?"
I stepped towards him.
"No," I said. "If I let go...I stay because I am real."
"You'll be empty."
"I'll be whole."
I didn't shove him.
I just turned around and walked away.
With every step, the Ridge faded behind me-not like a place but like a memory finally loosing its grip.
I checked myself in the next morning.
The psychiatric facility wasn't grey like the movies. It was beige, warmish with too many plants.
I didn't scream or collapse.
I told them I needed help.
And they believed me.
Aunt Mara visited weekly. Mom was also getting better, in her own way. She cried when she saw me, said my eyes looked clearer now.
I told her I remembered everything now.
Even the stuff I'd buried in Noah.
She nodded, like she already knew.
All this time, I kept a journal.
I draw. I write. I breathe through the panic when it comes. I don't pretend he never extised-that'd be be another lie. He was a part of me.
Maybe still is. But he don't control me anymore.
My therapist asked me today If I feel like myself again.
I told her the truth:
"No. But I'm closer."
She asked what I meant.
I said, "I don't see him much now. I don't see him in dream or mirrors."
Then I paused.
"Hmm, ya I don't see him."
"Well that's great to hear, Mr.Brown! It is good to see you healing and coming back to reality once again." She said in a sweet tone.
But only I knew, that he was watching me. Last night, my reflection smiled, just a second too late.