"Happy Birthday, Morgan," I whisper into the night, tucking my phone away. There's no response—of course, there isn't—so the silence presses in on me until words pour out. "And Happy New Year, I guess. You never really cared about New Year unless we got extra cake. Now we're sixteen. Or I'm sixteen. I don't know if you would really age since you're... gone... And I don't know how mad you'll be at me for knowing this, but I'm pretty sure it's been eleven months, thirteen days, and twenty-one hours since you died... Give or take a few..."

I shut my eyes tight. Why am I just rambling? It seems like a waste of time to come all this way just to spare a dead person's feelings. I take a deep breath and sit about an inch from where Morgan's feet should be.

"So..." I play with my bracelets. "Kate misses you. If you're wondering. She said she hated me when you died because you couldn't. I think you're proud of her for that, and I don't blame you. I think I'd be proud if our roles were reversed. But I think Kate and I are on good terms now.

"Mom and Dad seem tired, but I think they're starting to do a little better. I mean, they miss you. Of course, they miss you. And for the longest time, I thought they didn't trust me or even love me anymore because of that night. But I know that's not true. It never was. They're just worried.

"Hannah..." What to say about Hannah...? Her voicemail goes through my head, but I also can't stop thinking about what she said to me before I left the house. "I think you know how Hannah is. It was her idea to have me move in with her because she thought I would get better if I was away from you." The wind picks up. "I know you're offended, but for what it's worth, it didn't make me feel better. I just felt... empty... I guess it shows that Hannah cares. She always cared in her own way.

"As for me..."

I swallow, gripping my bracelets. The stars are pulsing right in front of me. I'm here with Morgan, but it's not like I said anything I needed to say. I take a deep breath and get ready to grab the trailing star.

"I'm sorry," I say. "For everything I said to you before you died. I'm sorry I don't even remember what I said to you. All I know is it wasn't nice—and that's an understatement. I just..." I swallow, looking down at my hands. "You know I cared about you a lot—" I laugh "—but you didn't hear that from me." My smile slips as I remember where I'm going with this. "It's just that it was... hard... to realize that maybe you cared about me, but no one else really did. Especially when you made me confront pretty much everybody for you and with you."

I feel the heat in my chest again, but it's a lot heavier than when Nathan looked at me and implied I was a major trailing star. Less of a gushing feeling and more of an angry one. Guilt comes with the anger, but Morgan's dead. What can he do to me if I say everything I need and want to say right now? Haunt me? He'll get annoyed or bored or both within an hour.

"I didn't need Kassie and Leah to hate me," I say, my eyes already filling with tears. "I didn't need to get in more trouble than I usually did. We both know I did just fine getting grounded on my own. And yeah, I know you did stuff for me, too, and maybe you thought it made up for whatever I did for you, but I didn't ask for that. I just needed things to be okay, you know? I just wanted to have a dumb conversation with you without being asked to do a favor every few minutes. That only added to your two times infinity debt to me anyway. I don't know how you're gonna repay any of that now."

I run a hand through my hair, shutting my eyes. My heart is pounding, and some tears spill from the corners of my eyes. "But I didn't come all the way out here just to yell at you for all the things you made me do no matter how mad I am at you for it. I know I wasn't the perfect sister either." I drop my hand, gripping my bracelet again. "Maybe this makes me an even worse sister than I already am, but I don't think what I did is as bad as what you did—or didn't—do. But that doesn't mean I wasn't wrong to keep everything to myself and push you away out of nowhere."

I look down at my bracelets. There's a sliver of distance between the two halves, but if I move my finger even a little bit, they would align. It's probably Nathan's influence, but I can't help but appreciate the metaphor here. If one of us did just one little thing differently, maybe Morgan and I would've been okay. Maybe we would've aligned and neither of us would've been stuck with trailing stars. But no matter what happened between us, I think we would've always aligned. We were too close to really do anything else.

"I'm sorry," I say. I grip the halves of the heart in one hand and hold my wrist against my chest. "And I know that you're sorry, too. You were annoying all the time, but you were still my twin brother. You still cared about me more than anyone or anything else, and I like to think that I cared about you more than anyone or anything else, too. So I'm sorry that in the end, it came off like I hated you."

I let out a soft laugh. "This is the part where you either say, 'The light is too bright—'" which means "obviously" "—or 'The sun is rising.'" That last one means "to a new start."

"What makes the light too bright is you're gone." I take off one of the bracelets. "What makes the light too bright is I didn't talk to you when I should've." I start to dig where Morgan's right hand would be. "What makes the light too bright is you weren't always good to me, but I don't think I was always good to you either." I drop the bracelet into the shallow hole. "What makes the light too bright is nothing here is white and I'm sorry I didn't make sure it was." I push the dirt over the hole and pat it down. "What makes the light too bright is you were really annoying, but I miss you a lot—not that you heard that from me." I sit back on my heels and stare at Morgan's name. "What makes the light too bright is I can't take back anything I said to you that night and neither can you. But the sun is rising, and we always make up one way or another. I don't see why we can't now, right?" The wind picks up again. "I'm taking that as a yes."

I can just see Morgan rolling his eyes at me, and the thought makes me laugh. I probably look hysterical right now, but at the moment, I couldn't care less. Not when I feel like things are okay between me and my twin brother.

I look up at the sky. The stars are really bright. I hold up my hand and look at them through my fingers. I focus on one and close my hand over it. One less trailing star I have to worry about.

"Wherever you are, Morgan," I say, holding my fist to my chest, "I hope you're having a great sixteenth. I'm glad we got to spend some of it together."

I give his name one last glance before I stand and walk back down the block to Nathan and Clara. They push themselves off the car when they see me coming.

"Are you okay?" Nathan asks.

I nod, letting out a breath. "Yeah. I'm okay." I smile. "I think I'll be okay for a while."

Clara smiles, wrapping me in a hug. "I'm proud of you."

When she lets go, Nathan takes her place, brushing a kiss against my head. "Happy Birthday."

I smile, pulling away. "Thank you. Happy New Year."

We pile back into the car and drive home. The ride back isn't anything like the ride here. We still talk and joke and laugh, but there's a calmness to it that wasn't there before. I can almost say it's soothing.