Morgan walks back toward the thicket of brambles where he had tossed his phone with such dramatic flair moments ago. He finds it nestled in a patch of stinging nettles. It feels small in his hand, a plastic-and-glass toy from a world he has already outgrown.
Inside his head, the space where his heart used to be is a vast, air-conditioned vault. The silence there is magnificent. No more frantic pounding, no more heat, no more of that sticky, suffocating love for a twin who was never really his twin.
He looks at his reflection in the dark screen of the phone. His eyes are flat. He experiments with a facial expression, pulling the corners of his mouth down and squinting his eyes.
Grief, he thinks. This is what grief looks like.
He practices a sob. It's a dry, hollow sound at first, so he adjusts the tension in his vocal cords, adding a bit of a tremor.
Better.
He needs to be a masterpiece tonight.
