Page 5 of When the Sky Falls

Twins.

The word drops like an anvil into my chest. Heavy. Final. Cracking something open that might never close again.

I go still. Rigid. Like if I move too fast, the Earth might split in two. Like I might.

That’s… that’s exactly when I ended it with Fletch. Eight weeks ago. When I made the brilliantly masochistic decision to torch our situationship because my stupid heart wanted more than just his hands on my body and his name in my mouth. I wanted him. The real thing. The version he refused to give me.

So I walked.

And now?

Now I’m carrying two rapidly multiplying reminders of him—like a cosmic double middle finger from the universe.

“I know that look,” Dr. Sanders says, watching me with the kind of practiced sympathy that makes me feel like a cautionary tale. “Breathe, Mya. This isn’t a punishment.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter, voice hoarse with disbelief. My hand drops instinctively to my stomach, like maybe I can press rewind and stop time before it ever started. Two. There are two of them. Like I wasn’t already emotionally constipated enough dealing with the idea of one tiny person calling me Mom.

It was raining that night. I remember because we couldn’t even make it to his bed. I was dripping wet in his hallway, laughing and shivering, and then I was up against the wall with his mouth on mine and his hands doing things that made me forget every reason I had for saying goodbye.

Except I didn’t forget. I just ignored them. Like every other red flag.

I stare at the ultrasound screen like it’s a glitch in the simulation. But no. There they are. Two flickering heartbeats—fluttering in tandem. Like they’ve already decided they’re in this together. Unlike their father and me.

“I can print this for you,” Dr. Sanders offers.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until the tear hits my collarbone.

“Yes. Please.” My voice is barely above a whisper, raw and trembling, but my hands reach out anyway—like maybe holding onto this small, printed proof will help anchor me to something solid in a world that suddenly feels anything but.

Big Red growls beneath me as I ease the pick-up to a stop, gravel crunching under tires like it’s chewing on the quiet. The sun’s doing that moody-late-afternoon thing, slanting gold through the cotton-candy sky like a promise or a warning—I’m not sure which. Probably both. The cottage Reese and I have been sharing sits stoic and still in the distance, its porch swing swaying just slightly in the breeze like it’s waving me in.

I don’t go to it.

Instead, I kill the engine, shove open the heavy driver’s side door, and hop down from the truck like I haven’t been using it as a panic room for the last hour. My fingers clench tighter around the envelope in my hand—the one that holds the grainy, too-small picture of a future I haven’t figured out how to tell him about yet.

The barn-turned-studio looms ahead, its once-weathered exterior transformed with new siding and soundproof windows that gleam in the dying light. Still smells faintly like hay if you stand too close to the walls, but inside, it’s all cords and coffee cups and the occasional dirty lyric scribbled on a whiteboard.

My boots crunch over the gravel path. The air hums louder the closer I get. Not just with music, but tension—tight and toxic and ready to snap.

Inside, the heat of frustration hits me like a wave.

Benji’s standing between Carson and Fletch like a dark-haired and exhausted referee.

“You’re not even here, man!” Carson’s voice bounces off the soundproof walls, a jagged edge slicing through the bassline playing quietly in the background. “You’re phoning it in! This track needs your soul, not your goddamn voicemail!”

“Okay, let’s take five,” Benji says, palms raised, tone tightrope-walking between calm and for the love of God, shut up.

Fletch doesn’t answer. His jaw ticks. His arms are crossed. His eyes, a storm I’ve drowned in too many times to count, are locked on Carson like he’s one bar away from swinging a mic stand at him.

And then—like he feels me—he turns.

His shoulders jerk, breath flaring through his nose like a bull staring down the red flag he didn’t know was coming.

Me.

I see the shift in his expression—the flicker of guilt, the fracture of panic, and the instant slamming of every emotional door I was hoping to crack open today.

He storms toward me without a word.