Adam King puzzled me, and while he was upstairs putting his bag away, I spent the time analyzing everything I knew about him, as well as the little tidbits I’d seen today. Even though his voice had the potential to be menacing, he was very soft-spoken. Granted, he hadn’t said much, and it wasn’t like this situation was anywhere near normal. If anything, he came across as somewhat of a shy person. And since I’d never had so much as a conversation with him, I had no idea if he was always like this, or if it was because of the situation.
“Have you already eaten?” he asked after returning to the living room.
“Yeah, have you?”
“I grabbed something on the way into town, just wanted to make sure you weren’t hungry.” So far, he appeared to be a good person—which still didn’t explain why he was with my sister. “So, what do you suggest we do to get comfortable with each other?”
“You could start by telling me about yourself. As much as I hate to say it, I don’t know anything about you other than you play professional football.” The moment those words came out of my mouth, I felt awful. “Don’t take that personally, though. It has nothing to do with you. As I’m sure you know, my sister and I don’t really speak.”
The fact that all communication between us while I lived her life went through Ty was proof enough of that. Here I was, pretending to be her, and she still couldn’t pick up a phone to at least text me. Although, no one would hear me complain about that. Being her was enough; I didn’t care to add talking to her to the list.
After the first ten or so minutes, things became rather relaxed between us. It made it much easier to talk and get to know each other. On one hand, it almost felt like a first date. He shared stories from his life, and I shared some from mine. We laughed and made fun of things that had happened to us in the past. It did exactly what it was supposed to…it made us comfortable around each other. Even if we never spoke again, at least tomorrow would go smoothly.
“I can’t get over how much you look like Tiff.” He laughed at himself beneath his breath and shook his head, obviously aware of what he just said. “I realize you’re identical twins, but I guess I didn’t expect you to look exactly like her.”
“Well, not anymore, though. Am I right?” I couldn’t resist a good dig at Tiff.
He was quiet for a moment before taking a deep breath and shrugging. “I told her she didn’t need it, but she didn’t want to listen to me. I finally gave up arguing when it was clear that she was going to follow through with the surgery no matter how I felt about it.”
“So you told her not to go?”
“I never objected to the Botox, because I figured it’s not invasive, and if she needs to do that to feel good about herself, then who am I to tell her she can’t get it done. Then she started with the lip injections. I put up a little bit of a fight with that, but only because I didn’t see anything wrong with her lips before. But when she came to me and said she wanted her nose done, I vehemently objected to that.”
“Wait…all she went to get done was her nose?” I thought about the image of her on FaceTime when she’d called to beg me to do this for her. Either she’d gotten more than her nose done, or they had used a baseball bat to break the bone.
“I don’t know if that’s all she went for and they talked her into more, or if she only told me about the nose, knowing there was nothing I could do about it after the fact. Which would’ve been ridiculous considering she did what she wanted anyway.” He gestured to my face and added, “There was nothing wrong with the way she looked to begin with.”
While most would likely see that as a come-on, I didn’t. He was making a point and using my face to prove it. “Well, I personally agree with you, but then again, I’m a little biased.”
“I just hope that after all this, she realizes how stupid it is. She could’ve died.” Sadness cloaked his words, proving how much he cared about her, which shocked me to the core.
“What do you see in my sister?” I realized how bad that sounded, so I decided to reword it before he had a chance to speak. “I mean, you have to know what kind of person she is and how she treats others. You seem to be a pretty nice guy, which makes it hard to comprehend why you’d want to marry someone like her.”
“Yeah, I see how she can be toward other people, but she’s not like that with me. I know I just said that she never listens to me, but that’s never stopped her from loving me or taking care of me when I need it.”
I believed him—well, more like I believed that he thought that to be true. Tiffany was really great at being whoever she needed to be to get what she wanted. And when she’d set her sights on Adam King, she likely saw dollar signs and a chance to become more famous than she already was. I didn’t doubt for one second that she pretended to be exactly what he wanted to secure her place on his arm. The fact that she was messing around with other guys behind his back was enough to prove that. If she truly loved him the way he thought she did, then she wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of cheating.
The longer I lived my sister’s life, the more I hated her.
The bodies
