The habit had survived longer than logic.
I looked through the display.
“No.”
The cashier waited.
“One blueberry.”
Then I saw a chocolate croissant.
Lily had ordered one the previous week.
“And one chocolate.”
“Same bag?”
I thought about it.
“No.”
“Separate.”
She packed them separately.
One blueberry.
One chocolate.
I stood holding the two bags and finally understood what rebuilding with Lily required.
We were not restoring what existed before Blackwood Highway.
That relationship was gone.
The twenty-year-old twins who shared clothes, jokes, grudges, and half an identity did not exist anymore.
Lily had spent ten years becoming a woman I did not know.
I had spent ten years becoming a woman who believed Lily was dead.
There was no way backward.
Only forward.
When I reached the café, Lily was already there.
She waved.
I sat down.
Then placed the chocolate croissant in front of her.
Her face lit up.
