The cashier reached toward a bag.
“Two blueberry scones?”
For ten years, I had bought things in pairs almost automatically.
Two mugs.
Two pastries.
Two of anything that somehow felt incomplete alone.
I looked through the glass.
“No. One blueberry.”
Then I pointed toward a chocolate croissant.
“And one of those.”
Clara had ordered one at our previous lunch.
The cashier packed them separately.
That felt right.
Clara and I were not picking up where we had left off.
There was no old relationship waiting for us to restore.
She had spent ten years becoming someone I didn’t know.
I had spent ten years learning how to exist without her.
Now we had to meet each other again.
Not as identical halves.
Not as the twins everyone expected to want the same things.
Just Sarah.
Just Clara.
Two very different women carrying two very different bags.
And for the first time in our lives, neither of us had to disappear for the other one to exist.
