Page 9 of Mirror Image

She was the favorite without trying—teachers adored her, neighbors praised her, grown-ups whispered how mature she was “for her age.” Jess remembered birthdays, helped lost kids find their classrooms, collected praise the way other girls collected seashells. Everything she touched turned gentle. Easy. Golden.

And I was the storm that trailed behind.

She was all sweetness and sunshine compared to my bitterness and shadows. Jess never once doubted that she could have anything, do anything, be anything.

The scene flickers. The sand darkens, the sound of the surf replaced by the faint buzz of electricity. When I look down again, I’m not running on sand anymore—it’s asphalt under my bare feet, painted with scuffed yellow lines.

The air is thicker here—hotter—and the breeze carries the smell of fried dough, powdered sugar, something burnt and sweet.

Jess is still in motion, darting ahead between shadowy shapes that shift too fast to identify. The world tilts around her. Neon smears across the sky, and a low mechanical hum vibrates through the soles of my feet.

“C’mon, scaredy-cat!” she calls, turning back, her ponytail swinging. “One more time. You’ll love it.”

“Every time you say that,” I mutter, “something terrible happens.”

She laughs—bright, careless, irresistible. “And every time, you survive. See? I’m good luck.”

That’s Jess: pure kinetic light. A little reckless. A lot fearless. The kind of girl who climbs rooftops to see fireworks and wades into storms just to feel the rain hit harder. She’s always first to jump, certain the ground will rise up to meet her.

I try to match her grin, but my stomach’s already tight. The blurred shapes around us begin to move faster, the hum swelling into a roar. Wind lashes my face, stinging my eyes with grit and sand.

“Jess?”

She’s still smiling, but her gaze flicks past me toward something unseen. She squeezes my hand. “Don’t look down,” she says lightly.

The words echo, stretching thin as the light bends and the ground drops away.

I wake with a sharp inhale, heart pounding, the sheets twisted tightly around my legs. Gabe is asleep beside me, his breathing slow and even.

The dream never plays the same way twice. Sometimes she’s laughing; sometimes she’s silent. Sometimes I see her fall; sometimes she just . . . disappears. But it always ends like this—with me awake and her gone.

I stare at the ceiling, willing my pulse to slow, grateful that Gabe’s a heavy sleeper. If he’d heard me cry out, he’d have asked what it was about, and I’d have had to tell him. And then he’d tell me not to go.

And maybe he’d be right. Maybe I should stay far away from my hometown and everything buried there.

But I won’t.

I reach for the band around my wrist—hers—and snap it once, just to feel something real.

Tomorrow, I’m going back to Miami.

To the place where she’s been waiting all along.

Chapter Four

Mary

Five years ago

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Sam said as she buckled herself into the passenger side of my car. “Maybe you should go see them alone first. Or just call them.”

“Oh, no, I want to see the look on my parents’ faces when the two of us show up at the door! Trust me, they’re going to be thrilled. Stunned, for sure, but thrilled too.”

It was obvious that she wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t push the topic. “Nice car,” she noted instead, twisting around to get a look in the back of my Camry.

“Oh, thanks. It’s used. I’ve never had a new new car,” I explained, navigating us out of the parking lot and along the surface streets near campus. “My parents are big on teaching me to be ‘fiscally responsible.’ What about you? What do you drive?”

She shook her head. “I don’t.”