Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Anytime we’re all in town or are close by, they insist on getting together. While I’m not much for hanging out with people, it’s one of the very few get-togethers I don’t dread. However, I’m not here to meet and chat people up.
So as soon as I reach their nook, I slide the phone out of my back pocket and set it down on the table.
Right in front of Shepard.
He’s been watching me approach the group—they all have been—but while they all had looked relaxed before, well, except Shepard maybe, they don’t now. They read the tightness in my frame, the determination in my eyes.
“This belongs to you,” I tell Shepard.
He’s in the middle of taking a sip of his beer when his gaze shifts to the phone on the table. I know the instant he recognizes it as his phone. His entire body tenses, a light frown appearing between his brows. He slowly lowers the bottle, his eyes glued to it for several seconds.
Then, looking up, “That’s my phone.”
I shift on my feet. “It is.”
His eyes are slowly getting dark.
For being identical twins, there’s a tiny difference between him and me. I don’t think people notice that; well, she probably does, but that’s not the point. The point is that his eyes are a touch lighter than mine. So when he gets angry, you can see them getting darker and darker by the second.
While mine always remain dark.
“Where’d you get it?” he asks, slowly and softly setting his beer bottle down on the table beside it.
“I found it,” I tell him truthfully. “In the locker room.”
“When?”
“The night I benched you.”
“That’s the night I lost it.”
“Yeah.”
He watches me for a few seconds, his breaths still even, but like the darkness in his eyes, they’re getting heavier. “So what, you had my phone this whole time?”
“I did, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because”—I take a deep breath and fist my fingers—“for the last six weeks, I’ve been using it behind your back. I’ve been using your phone to pretend that I am you. To lie.” Then, “To her.”
Even though I’m completely focused on my brother, I can see movement in my periphery. I can see Ark shifting; Byron straightening up from his sprawl; Homer fidgeting with his crisp tie. I can even hear them mutter things. Ark cursing; Byron whistling under his breath and Homer, being closest to me in nature, simply holding his silence, but I can sense his gaze sharpening.
The only person who hasn’t moved or said anything is my twin brother.
It’s coming, though.
It’s going to happen.
Because unlike her, he believes me. I can see that.
I can see that he believed every word I said.
Good.
Slowly, he stands up.
Again, I see movements in my periphery; Ark’s coming to his feet as well. Byron too. Ark and Byron and Shep were inseparable back in high school. All three of them were soccer gods and popular as fuck. All of them never backing down from a fight. With Ark’s tatted up body and Byron’s heavy muscles, no one messed with them at school. I know they’re both doing it to be on the ready, to have Shepard’s back. Homer stands up as well, but given that we used to be the closest to each other in the group, he’s probably doing it for me.
They don’t need to do that; I’m not here to fight or fight back.
Not only because I will never fight my brother, my family, but because I’m here for the exact opposite reason: surrender.
“You’ve been using my phone,” he begins, his voice low, eyes now completely dark, “behind my back.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been doing that to pretend. To lie to her that you are me.”
“Yes.” I nod. “She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that the guy she’s been talking to these past weeks is me. That she’s been talking to the wrong twin. She’s got no clue and—”
He pounces on me then.
And given his reflexes, it happens in a flash.
One second, he’s on the other side of the table and the next, he’s upon me. He’s got his hands in my collar, and he’s pushed me several paces back until my back thumps against the pillar. And with him, come our three other friends, who simultaneously grab Shepard and try to pull him off me.
I address them all in general. “It’s okay. You can let him go.”
They don’t.
But before I can insist, Shepard thumps my back against the pillar once more and gets up in my face. “You’ve been pretending to be me.”
I keep my fists at my sides and reply as calmly as I can against the jarring pain in my back, “Yes.”
Another shove against the pillar. “To get with my girl.”
“She’s not your girl, though,” I say, again as calmly as I can.
He tightens his fist in my collar. “What’d you say to me?”