“I-I know that, Tal!”
“You’re going to get hurt, and then I’m going to be the one picking up all the fucking pieces of your heart he shatters. I don’t know if I can glue them back together again.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I assure him, even though I’m less confident than I would ever admit.
“Did you fuck him?” Tal asks me pointblank.
“No.”
He raises one blond eyebrow that clashes with his dyed black hair.
“I didn’t!” I tell him. “We just…fooled around.”
“You got each other off?”
“Yes.”
Tal’s shaking his head. “It’s been years, and you’re still not over him.”
“If you had ever loved someone, then maybe you would understand.”
His jaw clenches tighter, and I immediately regret the words. “That’s a low blow and you know it.”
“I’m sorry. It was wrong to point that out,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. When you love someone, it doesn’t just go away because one person ends the relationship. At least, not for me it didn’t.”
“Well, it did for him,” Tal says, pointing his finger at Sage’s room. “If he loved you, he wouldn’t have let me have you without putting up a fight.”
I shrug and cross my arms over my chest since there’s nothing to say to that. He’s right. When Tal told Sage he had come to see me at school and slept with me, he didn’t even bat an eye. He just wanted to know if Tal and I had hooked up while Sage and I were together. Of course we hadn’t. It wasn’t like we meant to that night.
I had just moved into my dorm after Sage said he needed to end things with me to focus on his training. I was crying and eating my weight in ice cream every night that first week of school when Tal suddenly showed up at my door with a bottle of tequila, telling me he was sorry his brother was being a dick and that he would regret losing me.
We got drunk together (I was a lightweight at nineteen), I cried some more, Tal confessed his big secret to me that he had never told another soul, and we felt so close that we kissed.
When he went home and told Sage we slept together, it was a lie. We hadn’t. Well, we did sleep in the same bed, but we didn’t have sex. At least not until a few weeks after Sage said we had his blessing. Then, I think I slept with Tal the first time just for spite.
Everyone thinks Tal and I have been fucking like bunnies over the years, but really, we have hardly ever had penis and vagina intercourse. I mostly just give Tal blowjobs; and in exchange, he licks my clit while shoving a vibrator inside of me. Once in a blue moon, when I’m feeling incredibly generous and have succumbed to several amazing orgasms, I’m so relaxed and high on endorphins that I give him the green light for anal.
“Eden,” Tal says, finally ending our silent standoff. “You know I’m not jealous and that I’m just worried about you, right?”
“Yes,” I agree.
“And I’m worried about Sage. His head is really fucked up right now,” he adds as he runs his fingers through the front of his jet-black hair. “Cyrus is going to pay for this.”
“You should fight him,” I tell him. “Get him in the cage and beat his ass.”
“I’m not sure if I would stop before I kill him,” Tal says, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating. He loves his twin more than anything, even me. Especially me. I may be his friend with benefits, but Sage has always been his best friend, even if he can’t open up to him…
For the first time, I notice something different about Tal.
I lean in to sniff him closer, but all I smell is clean soap and laundry detergent. “You’re sober,” I say in surprise. “You must be really worried.”
“I am!” he exclaims just as a CNA pushing a cart gives us the side-eye before slipping into Sage’s room. “I haven’t had a drop of alcohol or a hit since last night before the fight. What if after all the shit I’ve done, I’m the one who turns out okay and Sage ends up with his brains scrambled?”
“Don’t say that! Sage will be fine! His memories will come back soon. He sounded…good last night,” I assure him.
“Yeah, I bet he did,” Tal mutters before he stomps back into Sage’s room.
Chapter Seven
Sage
“What’s your problem?” I ask Tal when he stomps into my room with a sneer on his face while the nurse is taking my blood pressure and vitals. My brother looks…different. Not in a good way. He looks…unhealthy. “And when did you dye your hair black?”
“A long time ago,” he says. “I was getting sick of everyone thinking I was you.”
“Oh,” I mutter, stung by his admission. I didn’t know that being mistaken for me was a negative thing. I mean, I get it, that shit has happened since we were babies. Only our parents and close friends could tell us apart. And even then, if we worked hard on it, we could sometimes fool them for shits and giggles. Teachers were the most fun when we switched classes without them knowing, then laughed about it that night.
I can’t remember the last time my brother and I laughed together.
“Vitals are good,” the nurse says when she puts the blood pressure cuff back in her cart. “The doctor is on the floor. He’ll probably be in to see you,” she adds.
“Thank you,” my dad replies. “Hopefully you can go home this morning.”
“God, I hope so,” I agree. Looking to the door, I ask, “Where’s Eden?”
“She probably just went to get some breakfast,” Mom says when she comes up and pats my leg through the blankets. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
“Why are you playing along with this?”
