Come Back to Me

Chapter 1 Present Day

My twin brother was dead.

Gone.

Deceased.

Departed.

Unalive.

No words made it sound any less horrible.

We had entered this world together, and that was the same way we wanted to leave it. Zig and Zag, as our parents had lovingly nicknamed us, were a pair, partners in crime, R&R, twin terrors, and best friends.

And now I was just Zig without my Zag. Regan, without Riley. No more R&R.

Just me.

The voices drifting up from downstairs irritated me. They meant well, my family, but I was so sick of seeing them under these circumstances. This was our third funeral in as many years, and at this point, it all just seemed like routine. We were going through the motions one was obligated to perform when family died. My role as the perpetual leading lady in all of it was to shed some tears, hug everyone who showed up, recall a few pointless memories, and then persevere. Triumph over tragedy.

Fuck that.

I was numb. My grief for my mother and then my father had taken almost everything out of me. My foundation had weakened under my mother's death, only to crumble to dust when we lost our dad. I only made it through their deaths because Riley was by my side. He had been there leading me through it, taking charge and somehow making the two worst days of our lives a little more tolerable.

"Damn you, Riley," I cursed, ripping one of our old soccer pictures from where it had been taped to his dresser mirror. I had to cover my mouth with the back of my hand to quiet my sobs.

We were about twelve in the picture, sitting on the front steps of the porch, laughing and covered with mud in matching soccer uniforms. Our knees were scraped up, the bandages falling off, giving thumbs up to the camera, and we couldn't have been happier. I didn't recall what exactly we had been laughing about since whenever we were together, we were usually up to trouble and causing hilarious chaos.

I backed away from the dresser and closed my eyes.

Hiding out in his old room was only making my grief worse. It was still decorated the same as it was when we graduated high school, complete with posters of half-naked women and questionably dressed bands. My heart was breaking looking at all his stuff. His prom pictures with his first serious girlfriend, Renee, were taped to the top of the mirror. Shot glasses he used to collect on all our family vacations were lined up on his dresser. All it was doing was forcing me to recall our younger years -our best years - together.

I struggled to repress my sobs. My teeth bit into my bottom lip so hard it was a wonder I wasn't bleeding.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Repeat until I die.

His voice kept echoing in my head, replaying our last words to each other, which had been spoken right here. That's why I couldn't bring myself to leave this room. It was just six days ago that he had been standing in here, laughing his fool head off at me walking in on him and a girl in a rather precarious position.

Riley was back in town to help me clean out our childhood home. After the deaths of our parents, it was time to sell it. Except he had been too distracted chasing after some tail to really be much help. Riley had been a bit of a celebrity in our hometown, so when word got out that he was back, suddenly all the women found excuses to traipse around, trying to get his attention.

Three nights in a row, he had brought a different girl back to our home, and that was my limit. Furious, I stormed upstairs and barged in, not expecting them to have gotten naked so quickly. She had screamed and left, dressing as she ran down the steps and out the front door.