This is my long day, so I know Cat is home already and has been home for some time now, so I'm hoping to spring William on her for dinner won't be too much of a hassle.

I open the door to the apartment and it gets stuck on some packing boxes that have my name on them. "What the...?"

"You moving out?" William asks as he squeezes past me.

"Not that I was aware of?" I see more boxes in the kitchen marked KITCHEN and another in front of my bookshelf. What the hell is going on here?

"Cat?!" I yell out as she seems to be nowhere in sight. "Cat, you here?!"

I walk over to the boxes marked KITCHEN and they are empty. So I pull them off the counter.

I pull out my phone and call her.

"Hey, Tiger. I'm at the apartment. What's with all the boxes? Oh. Where are you? Yeah. Okay. See you soon. Love you too."

I hang up and William is looking in the box marked Alex and he pulls out a mug he had given me as a gift last Christmas. "I gave this to you," he says with a pouty face.

I shrug. "I... don't have a clue what she's doing here, but supposedly she right around the corner at that market. When I texted her to say you were coming for dinner, she didn't have what she wanted to make so ran out to get it, but she's parking outside."

I hear someone shuffling with keys outside the door and I open it to see Cat with a key in hand. "Hey! Let me get those for you. Are there more?"

"No, this is it," she says handing things over to me.

She gives William a kiss on the cheek and follows me into the kitchen.

"So... uh... what's with the boxes?" I put the packages on the countertop and she unpacks them.

"We talked about this remember?"

"Uh... no," I say, putting the refrigerated items away.

"I asked if I could bring some stuff of mine from storage. You don't remember us talking about that?"

As she's talking, I see her pull out what looks like a wok from under the counter that used to have my pots and pans in it. I look at the cabinet, wondering where they all went, when I look up at William, who's holding up my saucepan, "Can I have this?"

I look at him like he's lost his mind and shake my head no, and he reluctantly puts it back.

"Okay, I remember you saying you had some stuff in storage and that you wanted to bring it here and I said I imagined that would be fine and we'd make it work out somehow."

"See, you do remember," Cat says smiling at me and gives me a kiss on the cheek and I watch her pour some oil from an olive oil bottle that she grabbed from the countertop into another pan. The countertop now sports a breadbox, a piece of decorative pottery that holds a bunch of cooking utensils, and a cutting board.

"Um ... so when I said, 'we'd work it out' you took that as pack up all my stuff up in boxes and move all your stuff in?"

I see her stiffen as she's steaming the vegetables. Yeah, I probably could have worded that better, but it's a little too late now. She turns down the heat and slowly turns to look at me.

"Alex, there is not a matching set of anything in this kitchen. I have a full set of cooking pots and pans, plates, cups, mugs, even utensils we can use."

My eyes grow wide as I go over to the cabinets and fling them open to find she has emptied them of everything of mine. In its place is all brand new shit. I look at her with disbelief.

"So what? You got nicer stuff, so all my stuff is going to be... donated or something?"

"Nuh... no," she says and pivots to turn off the chicken so it doesn't burn, as she's finally figured out that she's upset me.

"I just thought..."

"What?! What Cat?! What did you think?!"

"I... uh, just thought I put them in storage until maybe we got a bigger place."

"So now you want to MOVE now, TOO?! So is nothing I have good enough for you?"

"It's not like that!" I can see her getting mad, but at this moment, I don't care. "But you can't honestly think we can continue to live here after the baby is born? Alex, there's only one bedroom."

"I'm going to go for a walk. I'll be back. If one of you would text me when it's good to return... that be great," William says and opens the door and walks out, but neither of us acknowledged him.

Cat makes a good point, but she walked into a minefield without realizing it.

"Aiden and I got this place. Together!" I don't mean to raise my voice, but I'm hurt.

"Those mismatched everything... you just discarded took us weeks to accumulate from thrift shops and rummage sales. You didn't even talk to me about it, Cat! You just decided your shit is better than mine and mine's got to go. Well, some of those things mean something to me. Did you even consider that?!"

"Yes," she says meekly, and she goes over to the cabinet that had all the mugs and glasses in it. She pulls out the 3 mugs I use nearly every day and the two glasses I would use for water or ice tea that have my favorite manga characters on them and places each one on the counter in front of me.

"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you first. In my head, I thought it would be a nice surprise. My intention was to have everything ready before you got home. I thought maybe I could finally cook you a decent meal now that I have what I am used to cooking with."

I pick up a mug that read, 'Can't play it straight.' "This belonged to my brother. He drank his coffee out of it every morning."

"Now you do," Cat says, coming to stand beside me. "I'm so sorry, Alex. You're right, I'm totally wrong. I've just been feeling so displaced," I hear her voice crack as she continues talking, "with every going on with the baby, I feel so unprepared and so much is out of my control. I just thought maybe having some familiar things around might make me feel ... I don't know..."

"At home," I say, staring at the mug. I'm still angry and I'm still hurt, but I know if I look at her I'll crumble and I need her to understand me. 

"This one here was a birthday gift. My brother wasn't big on birthdays either," I say with a sad laugh. "Probably because he had to share it with me, his perfect brother. My parents always treated us differently. If they could pretend he never existed, I think they would have."

I run my finger over the pottery mug. "You know he actually made this for me?"

I look up at Cat and she just shakes her head no as the tears course down her cheeks. I look away and back at the mug. "He did. He and William took a class together. The one William made was completely unusable. I think he dragged my brother to the class hoping to create a 'Ghost' movie moment or something," I laugh, and then I start to sob and Cat just wraps her arms around me and I think she's the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart at this very moment.

"God, I miss him so much!" I get out between sobs. Cat just continues to hold me. She doesn't say a word, but what could she possibly say. I don't know how long I cried basically until I was cried out.

When I catch my breath I say, "I'm sorry, Cat. I'm sorry. You packing all these things away and knowing they were just going to disappear just set me off. I know it's stupid, but it felt like suddenly I'm losing him all over again."

"Oh, Alex! I'm an idiot." Cat reaches up wipes away my tears with her hands. "I'm so sorry. You're right, I didn't think. I didn't think at all. None of your stuff has to go. We can keep everything, right here."

"No..." I say with a half-grin, "You're right, it's crap... most of it. Aiden and I got what we needed, what we could afford when we first started out, and I just stuck with it. It's time, it's time for a change."

Cat cradles my face in her hands. "Whatever you want to keep, we will keep," she tells me. We'll go through everything together as we should have and you decide. I'll just put the boxes in storage and when we're READY for a bigger place. We'll bring it all with us. Okay?"

The idea of walking away from this place was not something I was ready to face just yet. Letting go of the damn mismatched cups and plates was hard enough. "Okay, Cat."

I rest my forehead against hers for a moment, feeling that wave of tiredness wash over me again. "We should probably text William and tell him to come back."

Cat gives a slight chuckle. "Okay." She lets go of my face to grab her phone from her back pocket. She sends off a text and picks up the last mug. It said 'Never Give Up' "Who gave you this?" she asks, looking up at me.

"That one, you can actually give away."

She gives me a strange look. "But you use it every day?"

"I got this as a reminder to myself. To expose those who hurt my brother, or at the very least, expose the type of hate that causes such crimes to happen. There were so many times I wanted to give up. The pain was too much, but it was my reminder that I couldn't. I had to do it for him."

"So you're just giving up?" she questions, and I shrug.

"It's been four years since his death. The men who did what they did to him will never face justice. They'll never be found. In holding on to the idea, you got hurt. No... it's better I let this one go." I go over to the box and place it in, but pull out another to replace it.

Cat puts the cups back into the cabinet, and she laughs when I hand the new cup over to her. It read, 'I'm too sexy for this mug.' 

"Well, it is true," she says and I laugh too.

"Christmas present from William, last year."

"Perfect," she says to me, and she puts it in a prominent place with others right upfront. She closes the cabinet doors and I turn her around and into my arms. She just stares up at me.

"So we had our first real fight." She still has a sad look in her eyes. "We okay?"

I answer her question with a kiss, a long, torturously slow, my heart is an aching, kiss. When I pull away she says, "I'm sorry."

"Me, too. It's a shame I invited William over for dinner. I've always been curious if makeup sex really is better than actual sex."

The laugh just burst out of her and seeing her smile again was totally worth it.

"It's not too late... I could always text him and..."

There's a knock on the door, and I shake my head at her. "Guess I'll just have to wait until our next argument." And I reluctantly let her go, so I can get the door.

"Never fight, huh?" William says the moment I open the door for him. "Thank God. You too sorted that out. I thought I'd be wandering the neighborhood for hours."

"Sorry about that."

William shrugs and I pull out the saucepan. "Will you accept this as part of my apology?"

"Sweet! Absolutely, you're forgiven. So Cat? What's for dinner?" William asks, walking into the kitchen to peek over her shoulder.

"Sweet and sour chicken stir-fry with rice." She tells him over her shoulder.

"It smells good."

Then I hear him whisper to her. "I was so rooting for you. His stuff really is crap."

"You suck," I tell him.

"That's what he said," William teases, and Cat giggles.

I act annoyed. I'm just so grateful to have both of these crazy characters as part of my life.

After dinner, I pull out the pictures of Aiden and sit down on the couch with Cat on one side and William on the other. William reaches out for the pictures and I hand them to him one by one. He laughs at the first. It was a picture of Aiden at one of the gay pride parades. He went over the top with how he dressed, gay pride T-shirt, rainbow sunglasses and beads, cut-off shorts, a white top hat, and a rainbow boa he held in his outstretched hands as he dances without care down the street.

"He really had a way of saying, 'I'm gay and I'm here.' " William's hand caressed the photograph as he looked at Aiden.

"That he did. Once he decided he would not hide that part of himself, I think he spent every day broadcasting it to the world."

William's smile turns slightly sad. "And why shouldn't he. He could have been the poster child for Gay Pride. He truly understood what it meant to be gay."

William hands the picture to Cat. "Seeing this, it is totally reasonable why you'd think our boy here was gay."

Cat took the picture in hand, and her eyes grow wide. "He told you that?" she says rather sheepishly, looking at me apologetically. 

William just smiled and nods. Cat turned her eyes back to the photograph. "It's sad to think I'll never get to meet him. He was such a big part of both of your lives."

"Well, we are identical twins, so in a way, you've met. It's been both a blessing and a curse. I get to see him indirectly every time I look in the mirror. Pretty much makes him impossible to forget."

"He looks so happy here. This really is a great picture."

"Thanks, I took it," I tell her. "I just loved how free he looked at that moment."

"Now I can understand why you chose photojournalism as your major. You just captured that joy on his face perfectly."

"It's good to remember it wasn't all bad," William tells me, and encouraged by William's reaction, I get up and move over to the bookshelf and pull out an album.

I sit down between the two... oops, three... sorry Peanut, people I love more than life itself. "He really was a blessing in our lives." We spent the rest of the evening celebrating my brother. After so much sadness, it felt good.