Kat Zhang - What’s Left of Me

Hally looked up at us from her bed, but there was something in her eyes, something dark and solemn in her stare that made me stop, made me say without hardly knowing why.

And then slowly, so slowly it was like something deliberate, there was a shift in Hally’s face. That was the only way I could put it. Something minuscule, something no one would have caught if they weren’t staring straight at her as Addie and I were staring now, something no one would have noticed—would have even thought to notice—if they weren’t—

Addie took a step toward the door.

A shift. A change. Like how Robby changed to Will.

But that was impossible.

Hally stood. Her hair was neat and tidy under her blue headband. The tiny white rhinestones set into her glasses twinkled in the lamplight. She didn’t smile, didn’t tilt her head and say, What are you doing, Addie?

Instead, she said, “We just want to talk with you.” There was something sad in her eyes.

I echoed.

“You and Devon?” Addie said.

“No,” Hally said. “Me and Hally.”

A shudder passed through our body, so out of either Addie’s or my control it might have been a shared reaction. Another step away from the closet.

Our heart thrummed—not fast, just hard, so hard.

Beat.

Beat.

“What?”

The girl standing in front of us smiled, a twitch of the mouth that never reached her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s start over. My name’s Lissa, and Hally and I want to talk to you.”

Addie ran for the door, so fast our shoulder slammed into the wood. Pain shot through our arm. She ignored it, grabbing at the doorknob with both hands.

It refused to turn. Just rattled and shook. There was a keyhole right above the knob but the key was gone.

Something indescribable was rising inside me, something huge and suffocating and I couldn’t think.

“Hally,” Addie said. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not Hally,” the girl said.

Only one of our hands grabbed the doorknob now. Addie pressed our back against the door, our shoulder blades aching against the wood. Words squeezed from our throat. “You are. You’re settled. You’re—”

“I’m Lissa.”

“No,” Addie said.

“Please.” The girl reached for our arm, but Addie jerked away. “Please, Addie. Listen to us.”

The room was growing hot and stuffy and way too small. This wasn’t possible. This was wrong. Someone should have reported her. This couldn’t be real. But it was. I’d seen it. I’d seen her change. I’d seen the shift. And oh, oh, but didn’t it make sense? Didn’t it make sense for Hally to be—

“You,” Addie insisted. “You, not us.”

“Us,” she said. “Me and Hally. Us.”

“No—” Addie twisted around again. The doorknob rattled so hard in our hands it seemed ready to jerk right off the door. Lissa started tugging at us, trying to make Addie face her.

“Addie,” Lissa said. “Please. Listen to me—”

But Addie wouldn’t. Wouldn’t stay still, wouldn’t take our hands from the doorknob. And I was just there, stunned, unable to believe, until Hally—Lissa—Hally finally gave up pulling at our hands and shouted, “Eva—Eva, make her listen!”

The world shattered at the sound of her voice, the name that leaped from her tongue.

Eva.

Mine. My name.

I hadn’t heard it aloud in three years.

Addie locked eyes with the girl staring at us. Everything was too clear, too sharp. The headband slipping from her hair. Her perfect, glossed nails catching the overhead light. The furrows between her eyebrows. The freckle by her nose.

“How … ?” Addie said.

“Devon found it,” Lissa said. Her voice was soft now. “He got into the school records. They keep track of everything if you haven’t settled by first grade. Your oldest files list both names.”

They did? Yes, they must have. Back in the first years of elementary school, when Addie and I were six, seven, eight, our report cards had come home with two names printed on the top: Addie, Eva Tamsyn. In later years, Eva had been left out.

I hadn’t realized my name had survived the four-hour drive, the transfer of schools.

“Addie?” Lissa said. And then, after a long, shuddery hesitation, “Eva?”

“Don’t.” The word exploded from our chest, burned up our throat, and hit the air with a crackle of lightning. “Don’t. Don’t say it.” A pain slashed at our heart. Whose pain? “My name’s Addie. Just Addie.”

“Your name,” Lissa said. “But it’s not just you. There’s—”

“Stop,” Addie cried. “You can’t do this. You can’t talk like this.”

Our breaths shortened, our vision blurring. Our hands squeezed into fists, so tight our nails bit crescent moons into our palms.

“This is the way it’s supposed to be,” Addie said. “It is just me. I’m Addie. I settled. It’s okay now. I’m normal now. I—”

But Lissa’s eyes were suddenly blazing, her cheeks flushed. “How can you say that, Addie? How can you say that when Eva’s still there?”

Addie started to cry. Tears ran into our mouth, salty, warm, metallic.

I whispered. Everything spun in confusion.

“What about Eva?” Lissa’s voice was shrill. “What about Eva?”

Misery. Misery and pain and guilt. None of them mine. Addie’s emotions sliced into me. No matter what happened, what we said or did to each other, Addie and I were still two parts of a whole. Closer than close. Tighter than tight. Her misery was mine. I said.

But Addie kept crying and Lissa kept shouting and the room packed to the brim with tears and anger and guilt and fear.

Then the world gave out.

Someone must have opened the door, because all of a sudden we were falling—falling backward, and I was screaming for Addie to catch us before we slammed onto the ground, and she was flailing, and I was bracing for the both of us, bracing for the pain, because that was all I could do, until the falling stopped. The falling stopped, and we were staring up, up at the ceiling, and Addie was still crying in her—our—fear, and because she was crying, I was crying, and everything was secondary to our tears. But someone had caught us. His arms were around our body, holding us up.

“What the hell did you do?” he said.

hh, Addie> I kept saying.

We weren’t so much crying as just taking small, sharp breaths now. Addie wouldn’t—couldn’t—speak to me. But her presence pressed against mine, hot and limp with tears.

I said.

“I didn’t mean to,” someone was saying. “She wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t have done any better, Ryan, don’t tell me you would’ve—you weren’t even home, and you said you were going to be—”

“I would’ve done better than this.”

I heard them speaking, but Addie had closed our eyes, and our pain overrode everything else in the world.

“Addie? Addie, please stop crying. I’m sorry. Really, I am.” It was Hally. Or was it Lissa? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was Addie. Addie, who finally took one long, shaky breath and rubbed away the last of her tears. “Are you okay?”