To my dismay, Gray didn't respond to my question. He wouldn't look at me, either. He pulled away from my grasp a few seconds later. Yet, he kept his hand near mine as his finger started tapping away on the surface of the pull-out.

I prompted him again, "Gray?"

The muscles in his shoulders tensed up. "Hmm?"

"Please talk to me."

Gray grunted, "It's nothing. Just a bad dream."

His reply made my eyebrows rise with disbelief.

Even after years of being apart from each other, I still knew him well enough to know when he was lying to me.

I mumbled skeptically, "Are you sure?"

"I'm fine," he insisted. "Totally fine."

Gray sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me. My heart hurt for him. There was something about tonight, about sitting here in the quiet and the dark with Gray, that made me want to lower my defenses and reach out to him.

At this moment, he wasn't the man who broke my heart and betrayed me by knocking up my sister.

At this moment, he was simply a friend I cared about. A friend who was in pain. He looked so vulnerable a moment ago, and I didn't want him to feel alone in his time of need.

"Sometimes," I found myself revealing in an uncertain voice, "I have dreams about Lydia."

In the past, I learned that the best way to get information out of Gray was not to press him about the issue at hand but rather to change the subject for a bit and circle back at a later time.

The mention of my sister's name caught his attention.

Gray turned towards me with an intent expression.

"What kind of dreams?" he asked.

My stomach twisted at the thought of Lydia.

"All kinds of dreams. Good ones. Bad ones, too."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Sometimes... I dream about her when we were kids—"

✧

Crayons and markers were spread out before us.

Childish drawings of bunnies with crooked ears and pink capes and pink tutus filled the pages.

'Lydia Bunny and Gracie Bunny were ballerinas by day and superheroes by night...'

✧

My voice caught, then.

Deep-seated emotions crept up my throat like bile.

I often woke from these dreams about Lydia with wet eyes and a tear-stained pillow. I hated dreaming about my sister, thinking about her, talking about her. My twin's death always made me feel a crippling amount of guilt for resenting her. The human heart was such an irrationally complex organ. Somehow, it was possible to hate and love and miss a person with the same heightened levels of intensity—like the way I hated and loved and missed Lydia—and confronting such violent emotions always left me feeling drained and bereft.

But I forced myself to keep going for Gray's sake.

Maybe if I opened up to him, then he would open up to me in turn?

"—I dream about her when life was easier, more carefree... when Lydia and I simply enjoyed each other's company... because... we were sisters. We used to make these terrible children's books together about twin superhero ballerina bunnies. She would draw the pictures, and I would write the story."

Gray smiled faintly. "No shit."

"Yeah... but I also dream about her in ways I'd rather forget."

At times, my dreams played out like real life memories.

Other times, they were very nonsensical and downright nightmarish.

Replaying them in my mind was never any fun.

✧

I stood before Lydia in a vast, open desert. We were alone. There was nothing around us except for sand and cacti as far as the eye could see.

My sister was screaming and screaming and screaming at me in Filipino.

No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn't seem to understand what she was saying. She was so angry at me, and I didn't know why, I didn't know what I had done to upset her.

I started to cry.

She didn't care, though.

She never cared about how I felt about anything.

I cried and cried and cried until the skies began to rain.

The heavy downpour flooded the desert, turning it into a sea.

Lydia and I began to flail and flounder in the waves.

Desperately, I tried to swim towards her, to grab her hand. I wanted to save her, but she was swept away by the dark, stormy waters before I could reach her.

✧

Gray's voice cut through my reverie. "What do you mean?"

I hesitated, taking a moment to recover my composure. Admittedly, my dreams seemed to carry hidden messages about my resentment towards Lydia. I had always been scared to examine them up close. This was the first time I was willingly diving into the deep end.

I was doing it for Gray.

I didn't know if I would've found the courage to face my demons otherwise.

I sighed, "Growing up, my parents tried not to take sides whenever Lydia and I got into arguments—"

Gray waited for me to continue.

"—but I knew, each time the dust settled, Mom and Dad would go comfort Lydia, to try to soothe her bitchy moods. They never came to me because I was supposed to be the reasonable one. The nice one. The easier one. They knew that I would likely come to my senses without their help and apologize and make nice with Lydia in an hour or two."

Gruffly, he remarked, "That's so fucking unfair to you."

I cringed inwardly, admitting, "Back then, their behavior didn't bother me. It was the norm in our family. I even took pride in being 'the good twin.' Yet, now, the special treatment my parents gave Lydia makes me angry. My sister always got her way, and I always had to bend to her whims. It's kinda fucked up. I know this, now, but it's a 'too little, too late' sort of epiphany. Because Lydia's gone. There's no way I can talk things out or make things better between us. All I have left of my sister are these fucked up dreams and fucked up feelings that I dunno what to do with..."

A strange and unfamiliar wave of rage trembled through me.

It unnerved me a little.

But it also made me feel powerful.

Clarity struck.

Ultimately, I suspected that it had been Lydia's sense of entitlement and selfishness that led her to sleep with Gray behind my back.

My sister knew better, but she simply didn't care about hurting me.

My sister didn't hesitate to spread her fucking legs for my fucking ex because that was the way life had always been for her.

My sister could do whatever the fuck she wanted, and I'd always forgive her.

But not this time.

I wasn't going to forgive her. In fact, I wondered if I could ever forgive Lydia. Death had a way of putting a heartbreaking, indefinite pause on troubled relationships and unresolved tensions. It also had a way of shining light on unseen shadows in my relationship with my sister: Lydia might be a bitch, but I was an idiot for letting her walk all over me. We were both at fault. In hindsight, this should've been obvious to me, but I guess this was why I was an idiot.

That light extended to the shadows in my relationship with Gray as well: My heart certainly didn't feel strong enough to forgive him.

Not yet, anyway.

But Gray, unlike Lydia, was still very much alive.

For Gray's sake, for Stevie's sake, I needed to try to be strong. I needed to find a way to genuinely move on and put the past behind us.

I glanced over at him in the dark. "You know what, though?"

He leaned towards me. "What?"

His eyes never drifted from my face.

Despite the horrific episode he had just suffered through on his own, the man looked as though he was listening to my every word with his whole heart.

He cared about what I had to say.

He saw me and understood me in ways no one else ever did.

This was the strong, selfless, steady Gray I had fallen in love with years ago.

In a strong, selfless, steady voice of my own, I tried to comfort him through my pain, "I think it's okay to be fucked up. We have both known so much tragedy in our lives, after all. It's not fair that we didn't get our happy endings, but our fucked up lives are what made us who we are today. Tragedy will always define us, affect us in negative ways, but, I think, it also shows how strong we are—the fact that we're still standing, still surviving, still... trying. That speaks volumes. You're one of the strongest people I've ever known, Gray. When I see all the shit you've overcome as a son, as a man, as a soldier, as Stevie's father, it inspires me to be stronger, too. You're fucking amazing. Never forget it."