This Much Is True by Katherine Owen

that.” I bite at my lower lip.
    “But you did. And you’re right. You’re not Holly. Can never be. No one can.” His voice catches.
    “Sorry.”
    “Thanks for the ride.” I slide out the passenger side and lean back into the open door. “Thanks for the ride,” I repeat myself for some unknowable reason.
    “Do you think you’ll ever be able to drive again?”
    “No.”
    “How do you know ?”
    “I don’t want to. I’ll be in New York without a car. Just stuff I know about myself, I guess.” I stare at him hard in fervent hope that I look bitchy enough to somewhat end this conversation.
    “I got into NYU,” he says in sudden earnest. “I start this summer.”
    He gives me the implied maybe I’ll-see-you-around-Manhattan hopeful look.
    I must shut this down. “Anxious to get to New York, I see.”
    “No. Anxious to get through college, get it over with.”
    He gets this expectant look, as if I’m already supposed to know this. All I can do is shake my head in endless wonder because he is so different from every other guy Holly went out with. He is hot, but not. Kind of cool, but not. Kind of awesome, but not. A conundrum. I’m staring at him, and he starts to smile. It’s crooked. It’s weird. He’s weird. He drives a Volvo. His dad has more money than God, and he drives a Volvo . It’s a losing proposition for him socially; and he doesn’t even care. He is Wonderland. Johnny Depp. Sawyer from Lost . The dead Kurt Cobain. He’s wearing a black Nirvana T-shirt. How did I fail to notice this before?
    “Tally? Tally?”
    Apparently, he’s said my name quite a few times. “Thanks for the ride,” I say again.
    “Maybe I’ll see you tonight?”
    It’s a question looking for an answer. His face gets hopeful, and I feel this insane, impassioned need to crush it right now .
    “I don’t think so. Look, I have plans.” I wave my right hand toward the red front doors of Tremblay’s dance studio. “One focus. One goal. I don’t have…” He’s biting his lip, and it’s distracting as hell and in a sexy way, which is weird and downright incestuous. He was Holly’s boyfriend. “I don’t do relationships of any kind. I’m in. I’m out. Everybody wins.” I flash him my award-winning smile. My best stage smile.
    “Right.”
    There’s that word again; and the emotive disappointment from him is even more real this time and duly noted by me, whether I like it or not. What the hell is wrong with me?
    “Right. Right. Right ,” he says with more intensity each time.
    “Thank you for the ride.” I hesitate. Me. Tally Landon, hesitating? No. No fucking way. “We’re not…we’re not friends, Thorn . I just think we should be honest here about that .”
    “Holly?” he asks gently, just as I’m about to close the car door all the way.
    My fury knows no bounds at that salutation for my dead twin. “What did you just say? I’m… Tally . You are so… messed up !”
    Now he looks mortified at having spoken Holly’s name aloud, as if he’ll be struck down by lightning for saying it. Or God. Or both. “Sorry. Sorry. Right.”
    Oh, my God. Will the remorse from his mortal wounds ever stop? Ever?
    My anger quickly dissipates, and I’m left with this overriding uncanny need to comfort him. It’s sixty-five degrees out. It’s a perfectly sunny day and yet this Arctic chill seemingly passes through me as if Holly is visiting my psyche from the great beyond. Console him. Don’t kill him this way.
    I glance at his car radio clock. Shit. I’m late on top of everything else. Tremblay is going to kill me.
    “I’m late.” Rob’s face goes white. Every word I utter just makes it worse for both of us. “For class? I’m sorry? Thanks for the ride? I’ve got to go?”
    I slam the car door because there just isn’t anything else I can say to him that will make this any better. But then I stand on the curb and watch him slowly drive away and give him this little silly wave. If he looks in his