it took a full day of shopping, eating, and bonding, but mia could finally admit her sister looked more composed than she did.

ava had spent the entire evening in her dress despite the plummeting mountain-top temperature. mia kept hers on too, but asked to borrow her sister's sweater the moment they stepped outside the restaurant.

on the way home, rain pummeled the windshield and soaked the streets, but ava never flinched when trucks passed or held her breath when mia had to drive around curves.

by the time they reached home, mia's tolerance for late nights and prolonged intoxication kept her awake while ava struggled to walk from the garage to the porch to the ugly green door.

the rain had stopped, but water still veiled the windows in a blurry veneer of moonlight, just enough to illuminate an enormous arrangement of lilies in the center of the coffee table.

"holy shit," mia said and plucked a card from the bouquet. "did mom drive all the way out here to see us?"

ava face planted on the couch and muttered between cushions, "they're lovely. she's a good mom."

"i feel bad we missed her. maybe we shouldn't keep ignoring her calls."

ava didn't respond.

mia kneed her sister in the side... but she didn't flinch. "you're kidding." she pulled out her cell and typed a group text to ava and mom. "hey! just got home from eureka. sorry we missed you. the flowers are LOVELY. ave crashed hard, but she'll see them first thing in the morning!" she pushed send. ava's purse immediately buzzed on the floor.

mia moseyed to the kitchen, opened the fridge, poured herself a glass of imitation tea, and spiked it with a splash of vodka... then two more. even with the booze and crappy powder, it still tasted like home.

both phones buzzed at the same time with a reply from mom. "hope she likes them! i had a little help bringing them inside ;)"

mia hated when her mom used emoticons. "who helped?" she typed, then gulped her tea and drifted back toward the living room.

again, both phones vibrated with mom's response. "your new guy friend! charming and polite and suuuper cute ;)"

mia blinked as if blinking would help her brain process what she just read. it didn't, so she tried again.

"your new guy friend."

every hair from neck to arms prickled with a thousand static-electric shocks.

i was right.

the sense of validation quickly succumbed to fear as mia's eyes flicked to her sister's bedroom door. what if he's still here... what if he's hiding? waiting for ava to come home?

she sucked the last of her tea. it was these last few drops that traveled to her head instead of her stomach, soaking her brain and leaking from her eyelids to create a liquid veil just like the windows, blurring the living room, stretching the distance between her body and ava's door, spiraling her perception counterclockwise with every step forward, reinvigorating her desire to understand whatever darkness overtook her sister precisely one year ago.

into the black; door locked behind her. moonlight didn't stand a chance against the painted window. she flipped the light but the chandelier only illuminated her sweater arms, the heart-shaped watch on the night stand, and the empty splotches of white around the open closet door.

the shrink was right. the handprint was gone.

"ava's an artist," nolan had told her only a week ago. "she's special, delicate, vulnerable... she needs someone to watch over her... someone to inspire her..."

in this moment of sweet delusion, mia realized the horrific and obvious truth: nolan was talking about himself.

it was NOLAN who was supposed to sleep with ava that first night... if it wasn't for gary and gari-jean, he probably would have.

then there was his pseudo concern for ava, always asking about her, always inviting her places, always saying nice things...

AVA'S boyfriend was MIA'S boyfriend... and that's why she kept him a secret.

"i know you're here," mia said to the open closet. "come out. please."

part of her wanted to steal another xannie to calm herself down and deal rationally with the heartbreak. part of her wanted to stay hot and dizzy and mad as hell.

"i've been trying so hard," she pleaded and stepped closer. "can't you see that? can't you see i'm learning to be genuine? that i WANT to be genuine? can't you see i've been changing for YOU?"

the closet became the epicenter of mia's psyche and soul. her body clenched. her eyes bore through the ebony frame as her brain carried her to that drifty mindset she'd been feeling far too often. "if you care about me... if you really love me like you say... you'll show yourself."

inside the closet, the light turned on.

* * *

trevor didn't bother to close the hatch, but strode barefoot through the feminine ecosystem of ava's walk-in closet and marveled—again—at the intensity of their connection.

with clammy hands and hesitant heart, he stepped into the frame.

he heard her gasp before he saw her, the softest sound in a screaming world; ava, floating before him in her favorite sweater and lipstick gown, glowing in dull light from the chandelier with eyes bigger and brighter than he could have possibly imagined through a ten-dollar monitor.

trevor met her in the dark, close enough to feel her tremble, close enough to see the confused creases in her brow as she accepted the maddening confirmation of his existence.

the whirlwind—which had so many times tugged his pituitary in ways that made him TAKE instead of GIVE—subsided for the very first time. tightness in his cock usually corresponded with a tightness in his gut making him want to CONTROL, to CHOKE, to SUBDUE... but not this time.

not ever again.

instead, he touched the girl like he should have touched HER, one hand—a caress—lifting her gaze to his.

for a moment, he thought she might break away. he thought she might run into the living room and wake up mia and, together, they would foil his transformation nine days too soon.

but ava didn't run. all at once her face relaxed and the fear vanished. she took him by his neck, not to pull him into a kiss, but as a wordless plea to never let go.

trevor found himself perfectly attuned to every detail he would have missed before three-hundred-fifty-six days of solitude, stability, and self-actualization; ava's chest heaving beneath the sweater, the sticky sweet smell of day-old deodorant, the way she pulled his gloves off one finger at a time underscored by the first distant rumble of thunder.

hands bare and calluses exposed, his fingerprints traced her curves as he removed the sweater over her head. "you're not wearing your watch," he whispered, and ava turned from his grip, disappeared into the dark, and returned seconds later with strapless shoulders and his silver gift banding her arm.

her hands found his chest beneath his shirt. they explored like fascinated spiders every hungry follicle and every raised mole. the spiders reached his shoulders, wrapped their limbs around the neck of his tee, and pulled it off.

ava's dress was next. one tug on the zipper and the crimson ensemble melted to her feet until the only thing separating trevor from the scar was a triangle of cotton paisley.

he touched the blemish through the cotton with more respect than he'd given anything in the world, just hard enough to feel the tissue, just long enough to appreciate the enlightenment it had bestowed on the girl he desired.

in a single, delicate move, trevor removed his hand from ava's pelvis, unbuckled his belt, and revealed his own transformative wounds.

she touched his thigh harder than he expected. he pretended to wince. she traced her fingers along the bandaged spiral as if she could feel every gash while comprehending their significance.

she crouched and she kissed it, then kissed again, higher. the next kiss landed on his boxers, then a trail of kisses—wet with no teeth—meandered from waist to chest to chin to lips.

without a word, ava knew ALL. she knew about his year of celibacy. she knew the importance of this moment in both of their transformations. she knew their minds and motives were linked in ways the trespassers and pigs would never understand.

and she kissed him again.

* * *

the sun is queasy, mia thought.

her eyes were open, though she didn't remember waking up.

she rubbed them, blinked them, then looked again at the thin beams of sickly green light poking through crackling paint on ava's bedroom window.

memories of last night manifested slowly from the back of mia's brain, every new detail hammering her heart like a war drum: the flowers, the vodka, the persistent dream-like sensation, the closet, the outline of a stranger, the sex... and, most gut-wrenching of all, the sudden realization that he might still be here.

slowly, mia rolled over.

the bed was empty. she exhaled with relief.

she leapt from the mattress, snapped the watch from her wrist, draped it over the nightstand cross, wrapped herself in ava's blanket, and tiptoed to the walk-in closet.

the man was gone.

for a split second mia wondered if she possessed the same superpower as her sister. did i accidentally kill him? she wondered. her questions became more rational with each bout of adrenalin until she arrived at the worst: did i sleep with my sister's boyfriend?

her phone buzzed with four concurrent texts from nolan sending a final clang against her chest as she pondered which was worse, her drunken accusations against her EXCELLENT boyfriend, cheating on him, or the fact that she had forgotten he existed until just now.

his messages were sent roughly ten minutes apart... but the signal must have been trapped in the storm before pushing all of them through at once: "awake yet?" "tornado warnings til midnight!" "flood warnings for all of nw arkansas." "damn, girl. you sleep late!"

mia's response was simple and precise... and pushing the send button broke her heart. "nolan. i don't know who i am anymore, but i know i'm not the girl you're looking for. thanks for saying what you said. i know you meant it."

she didn't know when the text would reach him through the rain. she didn't know how he'd react when it did.

for ten minutes she stood with her ear to the bedroom door, half expecting to hear ava's boyfriend's horrific realization that he slept with the wrong girl. when she was certain nobody was plotting her death, she creaked open the door, snuck into the living room, and saw the back of ava's head propped on the couch in a beam of olive light. she was staring at her phone.

"how'd you sleep?" mia asked, a crappy segue into her admission of guilt. "that couch can't be very comfortable..."

ava shook her head. "these texts from mom... what the hell was she talking about?"

in all the details mia recalled from last night, she forgot about the group texts.

"she says some guy helped her with..." ava stopped.

"ave," mia stammered, "w-we need to talk—"

ava's head snapped back and cursed her sister with golden eyes. "what the FUCK, mi?" she stood. "you had gari-jean spy on me because you thought i was whoring around, and YOU'RE the one with the secret boyfriend?"

mia's heart pumped bleach instead of blood. "ava—"

"that is a TRULY fucked up thing to do."

"ava..."

"WHAT."

"i don't have..." she tried again. "i don't have a—"

the house cut her off; that same violent clang they heard once before—louder this time, ANGRIER—then again and again and again and again.

END OF PART TWO