Without Merit(80)

“That’s random.”

“Just humor me. I have a point to make.”

I look out the window and watch as Sagan digs up the same hole he dug up earlier today. “I barely know him,” I say to Honor. “But there are things I love about him. I love the way he makes me feel. I love being around him. I love his quiet laugh and his morbid art and how he seems to think in a different way than most people our age. But I haven’t known him long enough to be in love with him.”

“Forget about time, Merit. Look at him and tell me you haven’t fallen in love with him.”

I sigh. Fallen is an understatement. It was more like collapsed. Plummeted. Crumpled at his feet. Anything but fallen.

I pull my legs up and turn in my seat to face her. “I feel so stupid saying this because I barely know him, but I felt like I loved him the first moment I laid eyes on him. That’s why I’ve been so cranky lately, because I thought you were dating him, so I did everything I could to stay away from both of you. And now, the more I get to know him, I care about him so much I can’t stand it. He’s all I think about. All I want to think about. It’s so hard to breathe when he’s near me, but it’s also hard to breathe when he isn’t. He makes me want to learn and change and grow and be everything he believes I can be.”

I take a breath after that verbal vomit. Honor laughs and says, “Wow. Okay, then.”

I close my eyes, embarrassed all of that just came out of me. When I open them, Honor is turned toward me in her seat. Her head is resting against the head rest and her eyes are downcast.

“That’s exactly how I felt about Kirk,” she says quietly. “I mean, I know I was a kid, but I felt those same things for him. I thought he was my soul mate. I thought we would be together for the rest of our lives.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “And then . . . he died. But all the feelings I had for him were still there, with nowhere to go and no one to latch on to. And I worried about him constantly because I couldn’t see him or touch him. And I thought maybe, wherever he was, he was just as devastated as me.” There’s a hint of embarrassment in her voice as she tells me all of this. She shrugs and says, “That’s when I started talking to the guys in support groups online. Talking to other kids like Kirk who were dying. And I would tell them all about Kirk. I would make sure they knew how much I loved him so when they got to Heaven and they found him they could say to Kirk, ‘Hey, I know your girlfriend. She sure does love you.’?”

She falls back against her seat and kicks her feet up on the dash. “I don’t think any of that anymore, but that’s what started all this. A few months after Kirk died, Trevor, one of the guys from the Dallas support group, was put in a hospice. I didn’t love him like I loved Kirk, but I cared about him. And I knew when Kirk was dying that my presence brought him peace. So when Trevor needed that, I gave it to him. And it was nice. It made me feel good to know that I made his death a little more bearable for him. And then after Trevor, there was Micha. And now . . . Colby. And I know you think it’s this terrible thing, like I’m taking advantage of people, or I’m somehow oddly attracted to guys with terminal illnesses.” She looks at me pointedly. “You’re wrong, Merit. I do it because I know that in some small way, I help them through the hardest thing anyone should ever have to go through. That’s all I’m doing. It makes me feel good to make them feel a little more at peace with their death. But you make it seem so terrible and you constantly talk about how I need therapy. It’s . . . mean. You can be really mean sometimes.”

I haven’t said a single word the entire time she’s been talking. I’ve just been listening . . . processing. I’m looking at my sister . . . my identical twin sister . . . and she’s completely unrecognizable to me in this moment. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m looking at a complete stranger. Like maybe all the opinions I’ve held about her all these years have actually been severe misjudgments.

I look away from her and glance out the window, watching the guys as they work to fill the grave with dirt. I try to imagine how I’d feel if something happened to Sagan. How would I feel if I had to sit by his side and watch him die?

Not once when Honor was grieving Kirk’s death did I ever empathize with that. I didn’t understand that kind of love. We were so much younger then and I honestly thought she was being dramatic.

All these years I’ve hated Utah for not making an effort to be closer to me, and here I am treating my own twin sister the exact same way.

I turn and reach across the seat and pull her to me. As soon as I do, I feel her sigh, like all she’s needed from me was a simple hug. For so long I’ve been resenting my family for not hugging me when maybe they’ve been resenting me for the same thing.

“I’m sorry, Honor.” I sooth my hand over her hair and say the same thing to her that Utah said to me. “I’ll be a better sibling. I promise.”

She lets out a quiet sigh of relief, but she doesn’t let go of me. We hug for a long time, and it makes me wonder why everyone in this family has been so opposed to honesty and hugging for the past several years. It’s actually not so bad. I think we all just got to a point where we were waiting for someone else to initiate it, but no one ever did. Maybe that’s the root of a lot of family issues. It isn’t actually the issues people are hung up about for so long. It’s that no one has the courage to take the first step in talking about the issues.