It rains on the night of Anna’s funeral. The sky splits itself open and weeps for her and Abner does not.
Anna is dead.
It’s the first time in years that all the Drummond children are together and nobody is fighting and Anna is dead. Abner’s twin is dead.
Anna is dead.
Anna’s body is placed in the family plot, next to their mother and the place where their father’s body would be if anyone knew where he was.
Her gravestone is plain, marked simply Anna Joy Drummond, the date of her birth and the date of her death. Sixteen years carved into the rock in flowing script like that was long enough.
Drummond is a proud name, but it looks so lonely on a gravestone.
Looking at the grave, Abner wishes it had been him.
It should have been him,
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It cracks.
Over and over he punches the mirror, ignoring the shards that dig into his knuckles and the slick blood that smears over everything, the tug on his stitches, until it’s is just a few silvery red pieces of glass clinging to the frame.
He grips the edge of sink, watching his blood swirl in the water.
That’s how Michael finds him some time later.
Michael cleans the cuts on Abner’s hands with the gentle fingers and precision of a doctor. He makes Abner take off his shirt so he can check on the stitches.
There, spanning from his chest to his hipbones, and then from his shoulder to his wrist on his his right arm, are the scars. The only marks that Abner has to show for the accident that took his sister.
They are raised and jagged, dark red and hideous and he hates them. He hates them.
He hates that they means that he’s alive and Anna isn’t.
Michael moves his lips as if in silent prayer. He meets Abner’s eyes.
“’m sorry,” Abner mumbles. He’s sorry for so many things. For the mirror. For being a screw up. For killing their sister.
Michael’s eyes are sad, “It’s not your fault,” he says.
Abner presses his palm against the scar on his