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“Ooh!” She exclaimed, tapping around on her screen. “I found it. I’m gonna send you the link.”

The alert came through on my phone a second later.

“Speaking of audiobooks, I finished yours.”

“Yea?” She asked with a hint of surprise.

“What you mean,yea? I told you I was reading it.”

“I know, but that was a while ago. I thought maybe it wasn’t for you and you didn’t finish. No biggie.” She shrugged, picking up her paperback again.

“Nah. I finished it.” I was a slow reader, even when it came to audiobooks. The only time I could focus on the words being read to me was when my hands were busy doing something else, so I usually saved her book for when I was done with excursions for the day and working on her desk before I left the resort. “I loved it. You can write your ass off, Red.”

True looked at me from the corner of her eye, and it was the first time I’d seen her look shy in my presence. Even when she was standing on my doorstep in a towel, asking for help, she’d managed to look proud and defiant. “Thanks, Noah.”

The question I wanted to ask stood out in my mind when the car got too quiet again. “At the end of the book, in your acknowledgments, you thanked your sister for being your alpha reader and critique partner.”

She went still, staring straight ahead before a strained “Mhmm” came from her side of the car.

“I didn’t know you had a sister. You never talk about her. Y’all don’t talk anymore or something?” She brought up her parents and grandparents all the time. But her having a sibling had never came up. I thought she was an only child.

Her voice shook when she replied, “No, it’s not that.”

Guilt gnawed at me at the change in her mood. What the fuck had I done? This was a sore spot. You didn’t pick at sore spots. Especially not when they made the person look as hollow as True did right now. “Red, I’m sorry. We ain’t gotta?—”

“It’s okay. She’s dead. That’s why I don’t talk about her.”

Oh, shit.

“True…”

“She used to read all my stuff first, though,” she added, sounding quiet and distant.

“I’m sorry, mama. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I knew.”

Shaking her head, she lowered her feet to the floor in front of her and sighed. “It’s okay. It’s not a forbidden subject. She was a big part of my life. And I want you to know things about me, Noah. Even the uncomfortable parts.”

My heart grew ten sizes in my chest, but I still felt like shit.

“Her name was Promise. We were twins.Aretwins. I’m still here so I guess I shouldn’t use past tense.”

“Was it sudden?”

“Kinda…?” She hesitated, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We knew she’d been diagnosed, but when she went in for further testing and found out there was basically no cure, she decided to take matters into her own hands. So we knew…we just didn’t know it would be so soon.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around what she was telling me. The rawness of her words and the change in her demeanor were one thing, but the reality of it was…too fucking much.

“I left King’s Town trying to run away from how much I missed her.” She laughed dryly. “I told myself that a change of scenery and a new project would be enough of a distraction. But most days, I sit in my cabin and think about her anyway.”

I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to comfort her. So, I stayed silent and reached across the console to grab her hand, praying my touch could do more than the words I couldn’t form right now. True welcomed my touch, squeezing my fingers in return. And she didn’t let go, not until we got off our exit and the mall came into view.

“You’re so pretty,” I whispered when True stepped out of the dressing room in a floor length, pomegranate dress with a slit running up her thigh.

She walked over to the mirror in the corner and twirled before smiling over her shoulder at me. “You’ve said that for the past five dresses, Noah. It’s not helping me narrow anything down.”

“But you look pretty in everything.”

True fisted her hands at the waist of the dress and puffed up her cheeks before releasing a loud sigh. “We’ll add it to the maybe pile.” She walked over to me and turned her back to mewhen she was a few inches away. “Can you help me unzip it? I used a hanger to zip it up, but I don’t think I’m flexible enough to try unzipping it that way without pulling something.”