Sometimes, Hannah, I try to be someone other than who I am. I think it is because I do not know how to be without you. But maybe it is for no good reason at all, that I meet a stranger in the street and I give them a fake name and a fake life to go along with it. Does that make me creative, or wrong? Maybe it just makes me lonely. Sometimes I sit in your room and I wait for you to come out of the shower, or in from the hall. I am still figuring out how to live a twinless life, even if you are not truly gone.

You would not believe the fun I can have, sometimes, if I just let go. If I just allow myself to have it. Oh, sister, to party all night and to love everyone and anyone without really loving them at all—without having to worry about whether they will get too close to me. Sometimes, it is easy to be more like you, than like me. More like popular, outgoing, everyone’s favorite, Hannah rather than quiet, unwavering, uncanny Lotte.

There is no before you, Hannah. There is only when you were here and after you.

How can there be anything else?

We have always been together, since birth, and you are all I have ever had and needed. Not in the way we needed mother and father to keep us alive, until they were gone. Not in the way we needed our brothers after that, to look over us and keep us safe. In the way that you are an intrinsic part of who I am. Without you, I am not me.

I got along okay with them—our brothers—not in the same way that you get along with everyone. Others adore you. Stop and stare when you walk into a room. Long to get closer to you. You get along with everyone. I simply tolerate them, and more now than ever. Elias, well, most of the time I do not know what to make of him and I am certain he does not know what to make of me. Vasily was, in a lot of ways, the easiest to be around and Marco is never around even if I wished he were.

Now, it does not matter. It does not matter because Hannah you are not here and without you I am only half of myself, if myself at all. With you things were easier because you always made sure to include me, no matter what. You always knew exactly what I needed and when.

After you?

Well, I am only sometimes me and sometimes you and sometimes I am someone else entirely. And depending on who I am, it is easier to talk to them and to anyone.

Hannah… do you remember mother and father at all? I try to. When I am lying in your bed at night, waiting for you to join me, I try to remember their faces, and their voices. And sometimes, I try to picture grandmother even though I have no memory of her at all.

There is no before her, for me. Only after.

I still remember the night you dared me to get the tattoo. It was summer, and the air was oppressive and suffocating. We laid on the floor of your room with the windows open, and it was so late that there was not a sound. Even the crickets and the wind in the trees were asleep. You leaned your neck against mine dramatically—your skin was warm, and slick with sweat, and your eyes were too bright with mischief. You said, “Lottie, you should get a tattoo.” I blanched at the idea, but you were in too deep. By the time we fell asleep, you had talked me into it.