by Jo Raven
It makes me want to start all over again, even though I know I’ll walk funny tomorrow.
I don’t care. Never thought it could feel so good. That I’d want anyone so much. That I’d feel…
No, I shouldn’t go there.
But when he lifts one hand to my face and cups my cheek, it’s hard to numb what I feel for him, even though I barely know him, even though we were fighting a minute ago.
Might as well be another lifetime.
He’s holding me, still buried inside me, looking at me like he can’t believe I’m here, joy fighting with uncertainty in his gaze.
Then he says, “Sophie…”
Breaking the spell.
Breaking me.
He thinks… he thinks he’s fucking my sister. Not me. Turns out he’d noticed my sister after all, enough to know her name.
Jeez, did they do it before? Did they date? Did they…? I can’t think. My mind’s a jumble of tangling threads and knots.
I push at his chest, and he draws up, blinking those pretty golden lashes at me. “Let go.”
“Sophie,” he says again, a question in the word, and I can’t bear to hear him say her name again.
He pulls out of me, and I grit my teeth, a painful burn where there was pleasure moments ago. I can’t believe I let him come inside me, fuck me, when he wanted…
All this time he thought…
Oh shit, oh shit.
He wants my sister. I’ve been hitting on a guy who’s in lust with her, not me. Letting him fuck me.
Can the earth please open and swallow me whole?
Straightening my skirt, I take a deep breath. “I’m not Sophie.”
I wait for him to say something, acknowledge what I said, and realize he never once spoke my name. Did I even tell him my name?
Oh God…
He finally chuckles. “Is this a joke?”
A pain shoots through me, like a small heart attack. An attack on my heart.
A single thought spins around inside my mind. I can’t do this… Can’t believe I got used again, and this time by mistake. I can’t take it.
Someone knocks on the door of the storeroom, and I grab the opportunity to run.
Running is what I do best…
Chapter Nine
Merc
“I’m not Sophie.”
What the hell does she mean? What does it mean? And why did she walk away again?
Goddammit, did I kick someone’s puppies in a previous life? Did I fuck up my karma? What am I doing wrong?
I get to have her in my arms after I had given up on ever having her, have her on my dick, her legs around me, my name on her lips as she came again and again.
Only to have her slip away again.
Did I hurt her? Why did she look so wounded? And after that, this… “I’m not Sophie” talk. I mean, does she have a twin sister or what?
Wait, if I got her name wrong… Jesus, that would sure piss off a girl you’ve just fucked against the wall, Mercury Watson.
Then what the hell is her name? I’m such an idiot.
And on top of that I can’t sleep. My head’s fucking killing me. Everything looks dark, the day ahead like deep tunnel I can’t see the end to.
You’re fine, I tell myself. Everything’s okay, even if life kinda sucks right now, between the nightmares and psycho girl’s coldness. Boo, so sad. You can’t always get what you want in life, buddy. Get over it. And make those nightmares fucking stop.
Walking into the kitchen and finding JC having coffee doesn’t improve my mood any. Not in the mood to talk.
“Hey,” I mutter.
He keeps drinking his coffee, checking his phone. “Another bad night, huh?”
Ya think? “What gave it away?” What nineteen-year-old guy still has night terrors, huh? Next thing you know I’ll be wetting my bed.
“I heard you,” he says.
Hell. I run my hand under the water and then splash my face, trying to wake up for real.
“Look…” I turn around slowly and look at JC, only to notice the dark circles under his eyes. I slide into the chair beside him. “I’m fucking sorry if I woke you up, okay?”
He studies his mug, dark brows drawn together. “You had a nightmare.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“You were talking in your sleep.” He shoves his mug away, flicks his phone one last dark look and gets up. “Gotta go.”
“What? What did I say? Wait.”
He shoots me a frigid look, anger like ice crystals in his gaze, and steps back. “Some of us have to go to work.”
I slam my fist into the table. “Fuck you, man.” Before I know it, I’m on my feet, curling my fingers in his shirt and backing him up against the counter. A red haze has fallen over my eyes. “Are you fucking with me? What did I say in my sleep? Tell me.”
“Back off, Merc. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me? You nuts?” My grip tightens.
What did I blurt out? Why am I afraid to know? And why won’t he tell me?
“Let go now.” And he’s still cool. Cool and relaxed, despite the paleness of his face, cold in the face of my anger and fear, when I’m still seeing after-images of gore and my fucking heart still hasn’t slowed down. “I really have to go to work. We’ll talk later.”
He’s seeing right through me, straight to my weakness, my issues, the rotten core I don’t wanna let anyone see, when he should… he should…
What, Merc? Be your friend? Your brother? What does JC owe you?
Nothing.
“Let. Go,” he hisses, his cheeks finally flushing, a dangerous glint entering his eyes. He grabs my hands and pries them off him. He straightens his shirt. “Goddammit. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
“Maybe you were.”
“You’re looking for a fight. I’m not gonna give it to you. You should see a therapist, dude, like I am, help you work through your issues.”
Rubbing my hands over my face, I let out a long breath. Is he right? Is this what I want, to throw some punches, roll about, get my heart pumping for a reason other than terror?
“Fuck…” What am I doing? “Sorry.”
I stare at him, at this cool stranger, stare as he nods at me, then walks out of the kitchen. The apartment door slams shut behind him, and I stagger back until my back collides with the wall. I let myself slide down to the floor.
What the fuck am I doing? What’s happening to me? I haven’t picked a fight since I beat up my half-brother Ross, that asshole, back in Destiny, years ago.
Who are you? I ask myself. Were you inside me all along?
What have you done with Merc?
Over the following days I avoid my family, especially Gigi who can read me like an open book, and even the garage. Matt knows me way too well, and his brother and his buddy Evan who work the shop are bound to wanna talk and ask how things are.
Damn my inability to lie or wear a blank face, like JC.
Why didn’t he fight back?
Stupid question, Merc. Wrong question. The real question is why did you manhandle him? What got into you? Why did you go looking for a fight?
We haven’t talked since that morning, despite him saying we would. I’ve barely seen him this week, and maybe it’s better that way.
A headache is hammering on the inside of my skull day in and day out, and doesn’t seem to want to go away. It’s driving me up the wall, making it impossible to focus in class or on assignments, to listen to music and lose myself in its rhythm.
Between that and the sleepless nights, I’m fucking beat. Fucking done. It’s as if it’s getting worse. I’m getting worse. And no damn clue why.
There’s probably something I can do about it, need to do about it, but I’m locked in a spiral of exhaustion and stress. I bet my family know something’s off. It’s hard to hide it when I refuse to visit my sister Octavia and see the kids, when I refuse to have Sunday lunch at my mom’s with everyone. I’m not a recluse normally. I don’t a
void these meetings like other people I know.
But now I am.
I can’t see Octavia.
The thought startles me, and I stumble to a halt in the middle of campus, on my way to a history group project meeting.
Why Octavia? What’s my deal?
Wait, it’s something… something she said. She’d been talking about Destiny and Ross, wasn’t she? She’s been talking about Ross a lot more lately.
Maybe that’s why. Reminding me of Destiny, of my childhood, of everything that happened—or didn’t, because Jesus fuck I don’t even know anymore—it’s making the nightmares worse. Possibly. I mean, who the hell knows?
I’m still puzzling over this weird realization, when I see her.
Sophie, or whoever she is.
Her dark head is bowed as she pores over something on her phone, a frown tightening her fine features. In a dress and long purple coat, in high-heeled pumps and—bangs? —yeah, it’s her, and yet...
Slowly I start walking toward her. I haven’t looked for her. Between the nightmares and the confusion over her reactions, I told myself to give it up. Give her up.
But she’s here and I need to solve this fucking riddle. Every night I wake up as much hard and aching from dreams with her, as shaking with dread from my usual bad rides.
It’s driving me nuts.
“You, girl.” I cock my head to the side when she looks up, steel my resolve not to fall for her innocent act. “Remember me?”
I swear to God, if she says no…
“The Calculus guy.” She tilts her head like me. “Right?”
“For fuck’s sake.” I run a hand through my hair, a nervous tic. “Look, what’s your name?”
“Sophie. Yours?”
Sophie. Of course. I scrub a hand over my face. “This is a bad joke, right? Please tell me that’s what it is.”
Because this is all off. Even the way she talks, the way she looks at me… annoys me. This doesn’t feel like the girl I want, but the name is right.
“I can’t help you there, sorry.”
Fuck this. This isn’t the sweet girl I talked to before. Can’t be. “You said you’re not Sophie.”
She frowns at me. “What? When did I say that?”
Okay. What the hell. “Do you by any chance have a twin sister?”
“Yeah, I do.”
The world dims a little. Tilts. My knees do a funny thing, bending.
“Hey, you okay?” She takes a step toward me, eyes going big and round. “You went kind of pale.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
No. I’m not okay. This can’t be happening.
“Sure?”
“What’s her name?”
She looks like she’s about to blow me off, but eventually she says, “Cos. Cosima.”
Cosima.
That’s the girl. The girl I want, I lust after, the girl I fucked, the girl I kissed.
My girl.
Not this one.
How didn’t I see it? How differently she dresses, and talks, and acts. How she never knew me. All this time, I thought she was a psycho girl, when it was the world that was crooked, not her.
Well, knowing this much is at least a start.
“You sure you’re all right?” her sister asks. “What can I do?”
“I need to find her. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of looking for her, too.”
Twins. Just my luck.
I still can’t believe it. It’s like something out of a thriller. ‘And it turned out to be her evil twin!’
Only Sophie doesn’t seem evil. As for Cosima…
I remember fucking her against the wall and groan as my dick hardens. I seem to be walking around with a permanent hard-on these days. Kinda hard to focus in class when you pitch a tent the size of the Empire State Building in your pants.
All for a girl I may never see again. Why did she run off? Does she want me or not? Was she the one who brushed me off coolly time after time or her sister?
This is fucking with my brain so bad.
Sophie said her sister sometimes sits in for her in class and work. She didn’t explain why. So the mix-up makes sense. After giving her my phone number, we parted ways. She said she’d pass my number on to Cosima.
Cosima.
I’m still getting used to this new name, still trying to sort through things in my mind. Memories of things said and done. Trying to separate Sophie from Cosima. Who said what? Who liked sci-fi movies like me, who was good at math? Who wears a black coat and who a blue jacket? Who wears dresses and who prefers pants and the odd skirt?
Who am I hard for?
At least now I can look her up online, since I have her first and last name.
Cosima Parker. I don’t expect to find her easily—because everything I try with this girl seems to go south—but there she is.
Both her and her sister Sophie. There they are together, side by side.
Fucking twins.
I trace a finger over the photo, over the two pretty faces. Which one is Cosima? The photo is tagged to SophieP and CosieCat.
Okay then. I send a friend request to CosieCat and rub at my aching temples.
Please, girl.
Give me another chance.
My phone rings as I head toward Mancave, startling me out of my thoughts. I dig out the phone as I cross the street, the familiar smell of car oil and exhaust already in the air.
It’s Mom. I haven’t talked to her since last week. Since she moved in with her man, she’s been busy living life.
“Hey, Mom.” I cradle the phone between my cheek and shoulder to open the door of the small office. Nobody’s inside. I drop my bag in a corner and head out of the back. “How’re things?”
“Mercury, honey. How are you?”
I bite back a groan. “Fine.”
“Just checking to see how you’re settling in your new place. Gigi tells me you have a nice roommate.”
“How would she know? She never met him.”
“Merc…” Disapproving. As if I said something mean. “You’re coming tonight, right?”
“Coming where?”
“Birthday party. Oh, don’t tell me you forgot! It’s little Mary’s birthday. The kids can’t wait to see you. Octavia says you haven’t visited in weeks!” Only my mom would make it sound like a war crime. And I saw Octavia not so long ago, two weeks, tops. “And you have to see how much little Max has grown.”
Shit. Mary and Cole are Matt’s kids, and I love them like my own blood, and Max is my sister’s son. I love the little tykes, but I hadn’t been expecting to face more family today.
“Merc?”
“Here.” I rub at my forehead as I walk between cars, spotting Matt and his head mechanic, Evan, in a heated dispute over an engine. “I’ll be there.”
“Octavia made the coffee cake you like. Remember to bring the kids those cupcakes they’re so fond of? And don’t worry about presents, we all know you’re busy with your studies. Gigi said you’re swamped, so we got them something.”
Gigi said that? “Good. I, um, I’ll get the cupcakes.”
“See you later, love.”
Matt nods at me as I approach. “Merc.”
“What’s up, man?” Evan says, looking up from the gutted car they’re working on, quirking a faint smile at me.
“Evan, good to see you.” We shake hands, and he goes back to tweaking things in the engine. “Hope everything’s fine back home.”
He was away for a while, taking care of his house back in Destiny, apparently. His property and family, but that’s all Matt has told me. He’s very cryptic when it comes to Evan—why he moved here, where he disappears sometimes.
“Yeah,” he grunts. “Quiet. Same people.” He tsks. “I saw your old man.”
“Say what?” I still, my hand halfway up to shove my hair out of my eyes.
“Saw old Jasper. He owes me some money. Not that he gave it to me. He…” He chuckles. “He said he’d carve
me up and give my innards to the vultures to feed on. I swear, that motherfucker gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“He does?” Matt asks. He just makes me wanna smash my fist into his damn face. “That cunt.”
His voice seems to come from a distance. Black spots swim in my eyes. I lean against the car, my head strangely heavy all of a sudden. “Carve you up?”
“He always spouts bullshit like that,” Evan is saying. “I give up. He can keep his fucking money. I don’t give a damn.”
“Man is crazy,” Matt adds. “I’m gonna head inside, grab a coffee. Want one?”
I nod, say something, I don’t even know what. Watch as he walks away from the car, nod when Evan speaks to me.
What is this new hell? Am I sick? Between screwing it up with Sophie—I mean, Cosima, dammit—the nightmares getting worse and feeling like shit without really knowing why, I bet tonight’s family gathering will be pure joy.
“So… Sophie, huh?”
I choke on the cake. “What?”
“Saw your new friend on Facebook.” Gigi waggles her brows. She looks ridiculous. “That your new girlfriend?”
“You stalking me now, sis?”
“Someone has to.”
That’s Gigi logic in all its glory. “No, actually, nobody has to. Would you want me poking my nose into yours and Jarett’s affairs?”
“Jarett and me, we’re fine,” she says primly, then giggles when Jarett tugs on her ponytail and grins at her wolfishly. “It’s just that you’ve been pining for that girl for ages, Mercky. Tell me she’s the one.”
“The hell I have.”
By now everyone at the table is staring at us. The kids have stopped moving their food around on their plates and are watching us with interest.
“You shouldn’t use bad words at the table,” Mary says.
“How about away from the table?” I inquire politely. “Or under the table?”
She snickers. “Um…”
“Merc!” Octavia frowns at me. “Don’t give her ideas.”
“What?” I lift my hands. “Was it something I said?”