“I’ve decided that you need to stop loving me,” she says, matter-of-factly.

“Oh yes?” I ask, eyebrow raised.

“Yes. It’s the only way.”

She’s lying on her back, eyes closed, fingers tracing shapes in the sand.

“Imagine all the pain you’d be sparing yourself if you just… switched it off?”

“Switched what off?”

“The love.”

I look away from her. Chew the inside of my cheek. Think about how strange it is to grieve someone whilst they’re still breathing. 

“Sage?”

“Mmm?”

“Look at me.”

I look at her. Her eyes are still the same. Her eyes are still my eyes. 

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.

“That’s okay.”

“I love it here.”

“I know.”

I lean back on my elbows next to her. She nudges my shoulder with her nose. 

“Are you cold?” I ask.

“No.”

“Hungry?”

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

“Quit fussing. I’m fine. I’m more than fine. I’m fantastic. Fabulous. First-rate.”

“Funny.”

“’Fanks.”

I roll my eyes. Try not to smile. 

“Want to go swimming?” she asks.

The ocean looks white, like crumpled paper smoothed out, poured like milk between the two headlands. 

“You’ll freeze,” I say, shaking my head.

“Please?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe means no.”

“No, it means maybe.”

She stands up and holds out a hand. “Walk with me?”

I wrap my scarf around her neck three times and loop my arm through hers. Aside from two small figures in the distance, the beach is deserted. We crunch through the remains of a bonfire, blackened wood, charred cans. She bends down and picks something up amongst the debris. A lighter. She flicks it on and off and then puts it in her pocket. As we walk she collects other things. A shell. Another shell. A piece of sea glass. A white feather. 

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Let’s paddle,” she says.

She spins me round and jumps on my back. She’s so light. So fragile. She holds my braids like reigns and tells me to giddy-up. 

“So this is why you wouldn’t let me cut my hair off?” I call over my shoulder.

I wanted to shave my head as soon as her hair began to fall out, leaving dandelion tufts scattered across her scalp. I’d find hair on pillows, in the sink, on coat collars. I’d find it in her hands as she held it and looked at it and didn’t cry even though she wanted to. But she wouldn’t let me cut mine. She’d said that she needed to see my hair because it was her own. She brushes it for me every night. Braids it every day. 

We reach the shoreline and she slides down, stuffs her socks inside her shoes, rolls up her jeans and wades into the water. I hesitate. Then line my shoes up with hers and follow her, hissing as the water glides over my feet and ankles. 

“Baby,” she laughs.

Gritting my teeth, I press against the tide until I’m next to her. The sky looks like ash, the clouds swollen with rain. We stand knee-deep in cold wet emptiness like we are the only two people in the world. That’s how it’s always felt. That’s how it’s always been. I didn’t have anyone else, but I didn’t want anyone else either, because I had her.

“Remember in junior school when we were asked what we wanted to be?” she asks, thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“You said you wanted to be a vet.”

“That’s right.”

“What did I say?”

The corner of my mouth twitches. “A mermaid.”

She laughs. Nods. “That was it.”

“Where did that come from?” I ask.

“I’m just trying to picture you in my head. What you’ll be doing at this exact moment in ten years’ time. Or twenty or thirty or forty or–”

“–I get it.”

“I wonder when you’ll start to gray. Or get wrinkles. See, that’s something I never have to worry about, getting all old and stiff and saggy. That’s one perk of all this at least. I’ll be this age forever. Frozen. Like a vampire. Forever young, like the song.”

I swallow the sour protests that gather on my tongue and let her continue.

“I can’t imagine you with wrinkles because that would mean imagining me with wrinkles and my skin is too nice to have wrinkles.”

“Stop saying wrinkles,” I tell her, laughing. 

Then my laughter sputters out. I inhale a lungful of cold salt air.

“Sage?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t feel my feet. Are they still there?”

I dry her feet with my T-shirt. Stuff them into my socks as well as her own. Tie her laces. It starts to rain lightly and the wind whips up the sea. I watch it all and find myself thinking that she’s vibrant and I’m dull and she’s dazzling and I’m dreary and she’s every type of weather and I’m just drizzle.

“Okay,” she says, after a while. “I take it back. You don’t need to stop loving me. That would be incredibly difficult. Impossible, even.” She smirks slightly. “But you need to contain the love, Sage. Compartmentalize it. Tuck it away inside a little filing cabinet and only let it out when you come here. Love me here.”

Her words vacuum the wind, the lapping waves and cawing, keening gulls. Sand and silence stretch out into the space before us and I want to scream. Just to fill it. 

The figures in the distance are getting closer. I can almost make out their faces.

“You can’t let me always be there when I’m not anymore, or else I’ll hurt you forever,” she says, softly. “And that’s not fair. That’s not fair on me.”

She looks at me and I look at her shoes. She picks up a stick and begins drawing in the sand. An S. Then another S, intertwined. Like the tattoos on our wrists. 

“This is our place. Ours. And this is where you can come to remember me. Because this is where I want to end up. This is where I’ll be waiting.”

I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to listen to what she’s saying. I want to crawl inside her ribcage and curl up next to her heart. 

“You need to promise me,” she says, driving the stick into the sand beside our initials. “You need to promise that you’ll live for me. For both of us. I want you to go places and see things and then come back here and tell me everything.”

In all these months I’d avoided this conversation. But I knew it was coming. 

I swallow hard. “I don’t think I can,” I whisper, hating myself.

She gives me a reproachful look. Tuts. “You can’t refuse a dying wish. You’d be insulting my memory. And you know I don’t accept insults. Only compliments.”

Even now, she’s still trying to make me laugh. To take care of me. I may only be ten minutes younger than her, but in this moment it feels like ten years. 

“Promise me.” She holds out her little finger and I smile in spite of myself. 

“Are we really still doing this?”

“Sage, breaking a pinkie promise is sacrilege. If you break this sacred vow, I will haunt you. And not in a good way.”

I link my own little finger round hers and squeeze tight. “You better.”

“Fine. Now promise me.”

I want to say: how can I promise you, Silver? How can I promise to tuck my love for you away inside a little filing cabinet, or go places and see things without you? How can I promise to go on living after you’ve stopped? I love you more than anything. I love you more than everything. How can I switch that off? You can’t leave. You can’t leave me. You are me.

But I don’t say that.  

“I promise.”

She nods, satisfied. “Good. Now close your eyes and hold out your hands,” she commands.

I close my eyes and hold out my hands. 

“I’ve realized that when it happens you’ll get nothing. Apart from my clothes. You can have my clothes. Though just remember that they always looked better on me. Anyway. I’ve decided that this is what you’ll get. This is what I’m leaving you.”

Something tickles my palm.

“No peeking.”

“I’m not peeking.”

“Okay. You can open now.”

In my cupped palms lies the lighter. Shells. Some pink, some gray, some white. A piece of sea glass. A white feather. 

I look at these things. Then at her. And the pain in my chest crawls up my throat and out my eyes. It claws at me. It burns me. It forces me to feel it. It’s so extreme, so convulsing, that it is silent. I scream. I wail. I sob. And no noise comes out. Silver throws her arms around my neck and over her shoulder I see the two figures, I see their faces clearly now, two little girls, each a mirror-image of the other, laughing, splashing each other, walking out into the sea. One of them turns round to look at me. 

“I love you,” I whisper to my sister. 

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.

The love is carried on the breeze. It’s everywhere. I’ll never contain it. I’ll never switch it off. How could I deny that she is, and will forever remain, my right hand, my favorite color, my light, my heart, my love, myself.