THEN WE'RE EVEN

THEN WE'RE EVEN
Anise blinked once, then twice, before turning her face into the pillow with a soft sigh.

The scent of Aunt Marie’s lavender detergent clung to the bedsheets. Familiar, yes, but no longer comforting. It was just another reminder that she wasn’t home. That nothing felt like home anymore.

Her phone was already in her hand before she even registered it. The screen was dim and cold. With one tap, it came alive, revealing a paused reel on Instagram—the last video she had watched before sleep took her. She resumed the loop: a dog wearing sunglasses, running through sprinklers. She wasn’t even smiling. She just needed anything to mute the noise in her head.

Swipe—a couple dancing on a rooftop.
Swipe. A motivational quote with lo-fi music.
Swipe. A recipe for pancakes with golden syrup dripping down the screen.
Her thumb hesitated. Ally made pancakes once. She was rambling about how the secret was all in the cinnamon.

Anise hadn’t eaten that morning. She didn’t feel hungry, and her body was operating, but her soul still felt like it hadn’t come back from the place she left it last night.

Another swipe. This time, she stopped at a clip of a girl sitting in therapy, awkward, arms crossed, fidgeting with a bracelet. The caption read: “Your first session doesn’t have to make sense. Just speak.”

She smiled bitterly. Maybe the algorithm knew her better than she knew herself.
She sat up in bed slowly, stretching her arms over her head. Her muscles ached like she had been sprinting in her sleep. Maybe she had. Running from memories, Running toward answers.

She stood and walked to the window. Outside, the neighborhood was already alive. Kids were dragging backpacks to school buses. A woman watered her front garden with robotic precision. The normalcy stung, it always did. Because her world wasn’t that simple, it hadn’t been since the day she came back from her solo trip to find her mother cold on the floor, her world had been flipped inside out.

Anise turned away and walked to the bathroom. The face in the mirror was pale but determined as she picked up her toothbrush, then paused again.

Today, she would leave.

Aunt Marie’s had once felt like a refuge. But ever since Gianna started pulling away—snapping at nothing, leaving rooms with a storm in her eyes—the house felt heavy. Like it wasn’t hers to rest in anymore. And maybe it never truly was.

Downstairs, the house hummed with the sound of dishes being washed and low chatter. Aunt Marie’s voice, Gianna’s footsteps.

Anise took a breath, steady and slow.

Today, she would return home, she said again—not because it was perfect, but because she needed to face everything she had left behind. The memories, the silence, the unwashed mug she had used.

Her home wasn’t just a place. It was a battlefield now. But it was hers.

And she was ready to walk through it.

She slipped on a hoodie and sweatpants, her comfort armor. As she packed a few essentials back into her bag, her mind drifted. The conversation with Dr. Rosenthal still lingered, especially the part where she had said, “Healing isn’t about forgetting. It’s about integrating the pain until it no longer defines you.”

Define. That word, that idea.

She didn’t want to be defined by tragedy. She walked downstairs and approached Aunt Marie. Gave her a few reasons why she needed to head home and prepare for her next session tomorrow. Her therapy session.

Aunt Marie was proud of her. Proud of how she was handling things. She understood and told her that she could come back anytime, any day.



Anise stepped out of the cab, slinging her small overnight bag over her shoulder. The sun had already begun its descent, casting long shadows across the porch of the home she shared with Dexton.

She paused at the front door, hand on the knob, chest tightening.

Home. That word had lost its comfort over the past few weeks or months.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The familiar sound of the wall clock ticking greeted her first, followed by a soft clatter of dishes from the kitchen. The place was clean—too clean, like someone had tried to scrub away tension.

“Anise?” Ally’s voice called from the kitchen, soft and wary.

“Yeah. Just got in.”

“Oh, hey. Welcome back,” Ally said, appearing in the hallway with a tea towel in her hand. She looked nervous, but forced a smile.

“Where’s Dexton?” Anise asked.

“He stepped out to grab something for dinner. Said he’d be back soon.”

Anise nodded. “Cool.”

She didn’t want small talk. Not today. Not when her chest still felt like it carried the weight of the world. She walked past Ally and into her room, dropped her bag, and sank onto the edge of her bed.

It was supposed to feel like relief, being back in her own space. Instead, it felt like walking into a glasshouse with cracks already forming in the walls.

She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

By the time dusk had turned the windows into mirrors, she was hungry. But she didn’t go to the kitchen. She just sat in the silence of her room until voices rose—faint, but sharp—from the hallway.

Ally and Dexton.

At first, she wasn’t paying attention. But then a name cut through the wall like a blade.

“She’s not the only one grieving, Dex. You can’t just keep babying her forever,” Ally whispered.

“I’m not babying her,” Dexton hissed back. “She’s my twin. She’s barely holding it together—”

“I get that, I do,” Ally interrupted. “But at some point, she has to stop making everything about her pain. We all lost someone.”

Silence.

Then Dexton said, softer now, “She didn’t just lose a mother, Ally. She lost the truth.”

Anise felt her throat close up.

She stood there frozen, hand pressed to the door. The words weren’t cruel. They were just… honest.

Too honest.

The kind of honesty that opens a wound instead of healing it.

She turned, walked slowly to her dresser, and opened the drawer. There it was—the bottle of gin she’d tucked away weeks ago. Still sealed. Still waiting.

It didn’t take long.

She unscrewed the cap and drank until the fire slid down her throat and numbed everything else. The pain. The voices. The guilt.

Another sip.

Another.

By the time Dexton and Ally left, Anise was lying in bed, her eyes glassy and her thoughts.

She reached for her phone and stared at Jake’s name in her messages.

No texts, no calls. Just the last one from days ago.

She hadn’t replied. She hadn’t wanted to.

But now? Now she needed something—anything—that didn’t feel like this tightrope walk of grief and betrayal.

She got up, stumbled a little, grabbed her hoodie like she always does, and walked out the door.

She wanted to drive, but she knew she couldn’t, and she knew she couldn't call anyone to pick her up, too, so she went for the easier option, which was ordering a cab.



Anise

She wasn’t even sure how she got there.

Her breath fogged the cold air as she stood in front of Jake’s apartment, swaying slightly, her heart a mess of feelings she couldn’t name—rage, guilt, grief, desire.

She had downed too much alcohol.

But it wasn’t the vodka that brought her here.

It was the silence. The echoing ache of returning home to memories she hadn’t healed from. The sound of Dexton and Ally in the kitchen whispering—something about her, definitely—and the loneliness that screamed into every corner of her room. She wanted to forget. Or remember everything most recklessly.

And Jake—he had always been both.

She knocked.

Seconds later, the door creaked open. Jake stood there shirtless, sweatpants hanging low, eyes rimmed red. He blinked as if seeing a ghost.

“Anise?”

She didn’t speak. Just stared.

His apartment smelled like scotch and something burned—probably from the toast he forgot on the burner. His jaw clenched as she saw the slight sway in his step.

He had been drinking too.

“How much did you drink?” he asked quietly, stepping aside.

She walked in. “Enough to be here.”

When he closed the door, they stood in silence, the air between them almost unbearable.

Then Anise stepped forward, slow, deliberate, and placed her palms on his chest.

“Tell me you didn’t lie to me,” she whispered. Her voice cracked. “Tell me it wasn’t all just… strategy.”

Jake looked down at her, jaw working like he had too many answers and none of them would fix this.

“You know I didn’t.”

But she didn’t. Not really. That’s why she came.

Still, her hands stayed. His heartbeat was a storm under her fingers. They were inches apart. Her lips were parted. His breath mixed with hers.

The electricity wasn’t subtle. It was savage.

“You’re drunk,” he said, but his hands had already moved to her waist.

“So are you,” she replied.

“Then we’re even.”