Baby Gemini went quiet. Then, softer: “That’s the right answer.”
Ricky stood still for a long time. Then he took off his jacket and put it around Baby Gemini’s shoulders—both shoulders, equally.
And that was enough.
They became a strange pair. Ricky drove an old sedan with a busted radio, so they talked instead. Baby Gemini told two versions of every story. The time I almost drowned (heroic / pathetic). The first person I loved (they loved me back / they never knew I existed). Ricky listened to both and never asked which was true, because with Baby Gemini, both usually were.
That was how it began: Ricky, the only child who learned early how to be alone, and Baby Gemini, who was already two people in a thrift-store coat.
“I didn’t forget. The other me wanted to see the water.”
