She really was. She was stunning. I hated that she was still so beautiful to me.
She looks just like her sister.
I blinked, stopping myself before I shook my head at the bitter thought.
Except, no. She doesn’t. Not at all.
About two years ago, when I’d begun to suspect the truth, I’d compared countless images of the twins. The pictures were more contemporary than my fuzzy memories of the photos at the house in Chicago, the ones where Mona had looked twelve, and Lisa hadn’t.
I decided they looked identical, especially in pictures taken this last year. Side by side, they looked like the same person. When the suspicion became growing certainty, their similarity in photos made me feel a little better about the possibility of being so completely fooled.
But now, looking at Mona now, seeing the physical differences in sharp focus, I felt sick.
I should have known immediately. God, I should have known.
The way she’d looked at me then, the way she was looking at me now, so completely different than her sister. The last question I’d struggled with—the final puzzle piece—snapped resoundingly into place. She left after the movie.
I’d suspected, but now I knew with absolute certainty. It had been Mona during The Blues Brothers, and Lisa in the morning. That’s when they’d switched places.
Riding the wave of nausea, I pulled my fingers from hers and shifted my attention to the interior of the ski lift, no longer wanting to touch her or look at her or breathe the same air as her.
“You’re Abram,” she said, moving closer, too close.
I sidestepped her, brushing past into the small building. My tongue felt thick and dry, and a pulse of heat radiated from my skin outward, but also pushing back at me, just like the sensation when a rollercoaster takes a dive. How could I have been so fucking stupid?
Behind me, I heard the door close, cutting off the sound of the wind, and she said, “You and Leo are—uh—good friends.”
Not answering, I closed my eyes against the spike of anger. I took a deep breath. Her boots made noise on the tile floor as she drew near. She was trailing me.
“I didn’t know anyone would be here. We thought it would be just us. I . . .” She cleared her throat, then continued, “I hope we didn’t interrupt you guys or that us being here is an inconvenience to—to—to—uh, to anything. If you need us to go, we can leave.” Her voice had grown quieter as she spoke, sounding like her. Even at a near whisper, I heard every word as I stepped onto the little car.
Grinding my teeth, I spotted a backpack through the haze of red tinting my vision. I lifted it. I turned. “This yours?”
She shifted back a half step, her eyes still wide and searching. “Uh. Yes. Mine.”
I shoved the bag at her chest. Not hard, just enough to force her to retreat another step, clearing the doorway of the car so I could slide it shut, which I did.
She flinched, blinking at me through the glass, visibly astonished by my closing of the door so abruptly, and she either whispered or mouthed, “Abram.”