Missing You

So maybe signing on for a work trip in New York wasn’t my best idea. I really didn’t do it because of Seren. I just thought that maybe if I ran into her while I was here, it would be fate. Or maybe just seeing a glimpse of her would settle the weight that had been in my stomach since we broke up. The first few days I focused on work. I didn’t think of her. I stayed mostly in my hotel room and only ventured out for food. But today is a free day, and I find myself at places I think she’d like. Like my soul is trying to pull me toward her without my knowing. I get lunch at an Italian restaurant that specializes in vegetarian cuisine. She doesn’t eat meat. I sit on a bench in the park with absolutely no shade in sight. She loves the sun. I walk past and through bookstores, wandering aimlessly. She says books find a direct line to her soul.

I find myself in front of one now—a bookstore—telling myself it's time to stop this. I shouldn’t go in, she’s not there. The odds of finding her in this city are one in eight million. It’s cold out and it’s only getting colder. I need to get dinner or go back to the hotel. She hates the cold.

But before I can walk away, an employee in the shop shelving books catches my eye. My feet lead me toward her without permission. I’m through the door, hearing the tinkle of the bell, walking across the wooden floor. And my suspicions are quickly confirmed the closer I get. Same calm face, same shampoo-commercial hair. It’s her. It’s Seren.

“Seren,” I breathe, now only steps away from her.

Her head turns on a swivel; she looks like a deer caught in headlights. “What?” It doesn’t sound like a response to hearing her name, she just sounds flustered, confused.

“Seren.” I don’t know why her name is the only thing I can utter. It’s been too long to just say “hey”, but we knew each other too well for me to be polite and fake. I think I’m mostly in shock. Her name feels like the perfect reprise.

She shakes her head wordlessly. I wait. What does she mean ‘no’? Doesn’t she have anything to say to me? Even if it’s to tell me that three years hasn’t been long enough – that if I never spoke to her again it would still be too soon.

Finally, she speaks up. “I’m Samara, actually. Seren’s sister.”

The wind leaves my sails in an instant. “Oh.” I never met Samara in the time Seren and I dated. We lived in San Francisco and Samara always lived here in New York. But I know that when Seren left, she moved here to be closer to her family—to her twin sister, Sam. Samara. “Um, sorry, I’m Jack.” The tables have turned, and now I’m the one who’s flustered. “I don’t know if Seren has ever told you about me.” Now that Samara has revealed she isn’t Seren, I can tell tenfold. Samara is as beautiful as Seren, but she has a different atmosphere to her. While Seren’s green eyes make her look open and approachable, Samara’s give off an air of mystery. Seren always did say her twin was aloof, I just never understood fully what she meant without meeting her.

She clears her throat. “Yeah, um, she didn’t want to talk much about you after the split but…I’ve seen photos. With less facial hair involved, I believe.” She attempts a lighthearted smile. My hand instinctively reaches up to my beard and scratches at it. The beard is new and kind of my latest defense mechanism. It still feels a little foreign on my face. I’ve felt a little foreign since the split. I’ve moved on as much as I could, but some part of me stayed behind.

And although I hate myself for asking, I’d hate myself more if I didn’t. So, I ask her, “Does she still live here? In New York?”

Samara immediately freezes again. Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have asked her protective sister. She’s not going to dox her near-and-dear twin sister’s whereabouts to her desperate ex. I can only imagine what Seren has said about her side of our relationship. I know I wasn’t perfect, but Seren left mad. But as Samara’s face washes over with pain, I get the feeling something else is wrong. That weight in my stomach bobs up and down on the rockiness of the feeling. Her face reads like I should be privy to some substantial piece of information, and like she’s a little shocked that I’m not. Samara hesitates, looks around, like she’s dreading having to be the one to report this news. “Um, Serena actually passed away, a little over a year ago.”

The words float around somewhere in my head, but they don’t exactly land. My mouth feels ashy and dry, but I yearn to speak. My immediate response is to call her a liar, to accuse her of creating a horrible lie just so her twin doesn’t have to face her ex, because that’s what this has to be, right? An elaborate but completely unfunny joke. But I don’t berate or attack her. Because I can see it in her too-Seren eyes, in her too-Seren mouth, her chest and shoulders. Her entire demeanor has deflated with grief. She isn’t lying.

Which means the truth is that Seren is gone. But she can’t be. Not Seren. I never even got to see her again. I saw so many versions of the future with her—some where we became friends again, some where I saw her in a scenario like this, just passing on the street briefly before getting back to our lives. I even dreamed hopelessly about a future where we got back together. But never one without her. Never one where she died. I almost didn’t think she was capable of death. Not Seren.

I want to scream this at Samara. A soft “no” is all I can manage. I feel like I must sit there, staring at the floor and rubbing my jaw for an hour, but in reality it’s only been about fifteen seconds. And when I look back up, Samara is staring at me hard, empathy shining in her eyes, like if she can stare hard enough she can laser some peace and comfort into me. Realizing she’s probably also breaking inside, having to regale the tale of her sister, I offer, “I’m sorry.” I mean it as a condolence to her but also as an apology, for making her be the one to shatter my life in the small aisle of this bookstore. To rip open her healing wound and watch mine bleed freshly.

“No, I’m sorry,” she counters. “I’m so sorry you didn’t know. I…I figured you would have found out somehow, I didn’t even think about…” I don’t mean to walk away in the middle of her sentence, but the more I look at her, the more I want to see Seren. And my brain is short-circuiting trying and failing to realize that isn’t possible. I can’t be here right now, but how do I go anywhere else? How do I even stay in New York knowing that Seren isn’t here? How do I leave knowing this is the last place she ever was? I never planned on contacting her but just knowing she was here, living a life after me, felt like enough peace. Did she die here? Is she buried here? “Hey, Jack, wait.” Samara followed me outside. She wraps a colorful scarf around her neck as she approaches me. I’m so numb that I forgot that I was freezing. I recognize the scarf as Seren’s, and I want to rip it off of Samara’s body.

I understand that the basic principle of being identical twins is that you’re identical, and it isn’t like I didn’t see pictures of Samara when I was with Seren. But she looks so much like her that it’s making my stomach turn. “How do you look in the mirror?” I don’t mean to ask the question aloud, but it tumbles out before I can stop it.

Her eyes shut for just a moment longer than a normal blink, and I think she may be holding back tears. I can’t blame her. If I could process this information—or feel anything at all—I’d be sobbing. “Believe me, it’s hard,” she admits, then diverts back to me. “Are you gonna be okay? Do you wanna go get a coffee or a drink or…?” She realizes she dropped a truth bomb on me. That my life is different now, blown into pieces. “We could talk about Serena.” She pauses. “Or we could talk about literally anything else.”

Serena. Something about hearing her sister call her by her real name is oddly sentimental to me. No one called her that, to all our friends back in San Francisco, she was Seren. I wonder if any of them know about her death. I don’t think she kept contact with any of them, but I’m not in contact with many of them either these days…

A little over a year. How did no one tell me? “Thank you for the offer, really, Samara. But I’m having trouble…” I hesitate. I don’t want to make her feel bad. Even though she’s had a year longer than me to deal with this, it’s her identical twin we’re talking about. I can only imagine how heartbroken she is.

“Looking at me? Hearing me talk?” She doesn’t seem offended or upset—she seems concerned, caring even. I nod, finally feeling like crying but knowing my tears would freeze on my cheeks. I’m not even sure why I’m so upset. It’s not like Seren and I were together close to her death. She’s an ex from three years ago, a relationship that ended with a messy breakup. We don’t share mutual friends anymore. I don’t even live in the apartment we shared. But if you asked me, even today, I would tell you that Seren was the love of my life. She had to be. Complicated ending or not, I’m not capable of loving someone the way I loved her. And my hope was always that Seren would say the same about me, though I’m not certain she would. Samara nods back. “It’s nice to hear you call her Seren. Since she passed, everyone's been really formal, calling her Serena.”

My lips curve into a smile despite myself. “I was thinking the same about you calling her Serena. Like I’m talking to someone who really knows her. Knew her.” She smiles softly, then looks at me for a long time. I let her look, not knowing what she’s looking for.

Eventually, she turns around and gestures for me to follow her. “Come on.”

I’m hesitant for a few reasons. “Weren’t you working?” I question.

Samara shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve broken down and ran out in the middle of a shift. They won’t miss me.”

Miss. That’s the word. I thought I missed Seren before. I had no idea what that word could really mean. I follow Samara down the sidewalk, into the freezing evening air.