What’s Left of Me. Kat Zhang

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      For my mother and father, in thanks for everything they have taught me about life

      CONTENTS

       TITLE PAGE

       DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

       NINE

       TEN

       ELEVEN

       TWELVE

       THIRTEEN

       FOURTEEN

       FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       NINETEEN

       TWENTY

       TWENTY - ONE

       TWENTY - TWO

       TWENTY - THREE

       TWENTY - FOUR

       TWENTY - FIVE

       TWENTY - SIX

       TWENTY - SEVEN

       TWENTY - EIGHT

       TWENTY - NINE

       THIRTY

       THIRTY - ONE

       THIRTY - TWO

       THIRTY - THREE

       THIRTY - FOUR

       THIRTY - FIVE

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       COPYRIGHT

      ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

      

ddie and I were born into the same body, our souls’ ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath. Our earliest years together were also our happiest. Then came the worries—the tightness around our parents’ mouths, the frowns lining our kindergarten teacher’s forehead, the question everyone whispered when they thought we couldn’t hear.

      Why aren’t they settling?

      Settling.

      We tried to form the word in our five-year-old mouth, tasting it on our tongue.

      Set—Tull—Ling.

      We knew what it meant. Kind of. It meant one of us was supposed to take control. It meant the other was supposed to fade away. I know now that it means much, much more than that. But at five, Addie and I were still naive, still oblivious.

      The varnish of innocence began wearing away by first grade. Our gray-haired guidance counselor made the first scratch.

      “You know, dearies, settling isn’t scary,” she’d say as we watched her thin, lipstick-reddened mouth. “It might seem like it now, but it happens to everyone. The recessive soul, whichever one of you it is, will simply … go to sleep.”

      She never mentioned who she thought would survive, but she didn’t need to. By first grade, everyone believed Addie had been born the dominant soul. She could move us left when I wanted to go right, refuse to open her mouth when I wanted to eat, cry No when I wanted so desperately to say Yes. She could do it all with so little effort, and as time passed, I grew ever weaker while her control increased.

      But I could still force my way through at times—and I did. When Mom asked about our day, I pulled together all my strength to tell her my version of things. When we played hide-and-seek, I made us duck behind the hedges instead of run for home base. At eight, I jerked us while bringing Dad his coffee. The burns left scars on our hands.

      The more my strength waned, the fiercer I scrabbled to hold on, lashing out in any way I could, trying to convince myself I wasn’t going to disappear. Addie hated me for it. I couldn’t help myself. I remembered the freedom I used to have—never complete, of course, but I remembered when I could ask our mother for a drink of water, for a kiss when we fell, for a hug.

      <Let it go, Eva> Addie shouted whenever we fought. <Just let it go. Just go away.>

      And for a long time, I believed that someday, I would.

      We saw our first specialist at six. Specialists who were a lot pushier than the guidance counselor. Specialists who did their little tests, asked their little questions, and charged their not-so-little fees. By the time our younger brothers reached settling age, Addie and I had been through two therapists and four types of medication, all trying to do what nature should have already done: Get rid of the