by Emma Doherty
“Him and a bunch of his friends jumped me in a parking lot when I was on my own. They hid and waited for me, all because of some screwed-up jealousy he has. He nearly broke my arm—my throwing arm.”
My body tenses at this. That absolute cowardly bastard.
“I mean, come on, Biz. I don’t get it. Did you really not know who he was?”
“Rachel told me he hated you.”
He lets out a sound of disbelief and shakes his head, looking away. “And you still did it anyway?”
I swallow. She was his mom too.
She would be so, so ashamed of me right now.
“You’re my twin sister,” he mutters, and his voice sounds dangerously close to tears. “You’re my twin and all you’ve done since you got here is ignore me, antagonise me, and try to screw me over.”
I don’t have anything to say to that.
“I don’t understand how you don’t get it. I don’t understand how you can’t see what’s going on here. We’re all we have left.”
That affects something deep down inside of me, but I don’t let it show. I can’t let it show.
“I mean, are you with him? Are you dating him or something?” He looks completely bewildered at the thought of it.
“It was just sex, Ethan.”
He doesn’t let me downplay it. “And then there’s Marcus, who’s way too old for you and who I know you’re still hanging out with.” His face takes on a judgmental look that I can’t stand.
“Don’t judge me on who I date,” I warn him, even though Marcus and I are nowhere near dating. “Not when you’re with someone who bullies half the kids in school but you’re too dumb to see past the act she puts on with you.”
He shakes his head in disgust. “No. Don’t try to switch this on me when you’ve just admitted to sleeping with the guy who put me in hospital.”
The fact that he’s just dismissed what I said about Evie pisses me off. “Oh, I can assure you, we didn’t do any sleeping,” I bite back.
A hard look sets over his face, and I know his confusion has passed and now he’s just plain pissed off at me. “Okay, Craig McGarretty, Marcus Bailey”—he ticks the names off on his fingers—“anyone else I should know about?”
The fact that he’s thrown Marcus in my face pisses me off more than it should. “You forgot about Danny Fields,” I snap, even though we didn’t sleep together. “You forgot about the marks he left all over my neck.”
Finn lets out a noise of disgust from behind me, and I realise he must know him. This is a small town where everyone knows everyone, and from what Marcus said, Danny isn’t exactly popular.
“And there’s the random guy I disappeared into the bathroom of a bar with on my second night here,” I tell him, even though I don’t even remember that guy’s name. “Don’t forget about him. I was too drunk to actually go through with it but I was definitely intending to, so I’d say he counts, wouldn’t you?”
Ethan shakes his head, just staring at me like he doesn’t even know me, distaste written all over his face. “So that’s your thing then, huh? Sleep with as many inappropriate guys as you can?”
I start to laugh now because he’s pissing me off. “Inappropriate? Is that what you’d call it? You know, Ethan, I find it a little creepy how interested in my sex life you are,” I say spitefully, unable to resist sparking the flames of this argument. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
He stares back at me blankly.
“Is this one of those small-town things where the brother starts to—”
He explodes. “YOU ARE SO FUCKING MESSED UP! Do you know that?”
I do know it. I’m so messed up that it scares me sometimes.
“You’re sick. You are such a sick, fucked-up mess.”
I don’t react. It’s not like he’s telling me anything I don’t already know about myself.
“She would hate this,” he tells me. “She would hate the way you’re acting.”
She would. I know she would.
He throws his hands up in the air and takes a step back, still trying to control his emotions. “I’m done. I am so done with you, Biz. You win. I’ll stop trying to talk to you. I’ll stop inviting you to things—I’ll stop everything. Congratulations, you win. From now on, we’re nothing but people who co-exist in the same house. I’m done. We’ll just get through until our birthday and then we’ll forget the other even exists.”
He stares at me for a minute, and I don’t know what he’s expecting me to say—maybe that I’m sorry, which I am…maybe that I didn’t know about Craig putting him in hospital, which I didn’t…maybe that I’m not sleeping with half the town, which I’m not.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead I just nod my head and reiterate what I told him when I first moved over here, because it’s easier to revert back to that than to admit his words hurt, to give him the power to hurt me. “Okay.” I force myself to look in his eyes. “That’s fine with me, because I’ve been done with you for a long time, since we were twelve years old and you picked living over here over me and Mum.”
Then I turn, brush past Finn, and leave the classroom without another word.
I get all of five steps down the hallway before I hear footsteps behind me, and before I can turn, Finn’s at my shoulder, gripping my upper arm and propelling me forwards and into yet another vacant classroom. Where are all the teachers at?
I snatch my arm back and go to walk past him, but he blocks the door.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
His gaze finds mine and his eyes are hard, and it makes me want to scream. He has no right to judge me. He has no idea what I’ve been through.
“Let me out,” I tell him evenly.
“The way you treat him is disgusting,” he says, complete contempt in his voice. “You’re lucky to have him, and all you do is treat him like crap.”
“Stay out of it,” I hiss back. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It does when you treat my best friend the way you do.”
“Best friend?” I mock. “Well I’m glad he’s a good best friend to you because he was definitely a shitty brother to me and son to my mum.”
Finn scoffs. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re so lost in yourself and your own grief you can’t even see how badly he’s hurting in all this.”
“You don’t know how it feels. You have no idea how it feels to lose the one person in the whole world who loves you and know she isn’t coming back.”
His face softens. “There are people who love you here, Izzy.” There’s so much pity and understanding on his face that I can’t stand it.
“Wanting to have sex with me isn’t the same thing, Finn.”
His eyes immediately spark with anger, and he looks at me in disgust. “You are vile when you’re like this, do you know that? You make me sick.”
I hate that his words are like a slap to my face, but I let my lip curl into a sneer, making sure my features don’t betray any of the emotion I feel at him calling me vile. I make to brush past him and head to the door, but he grabs my wrist and roughly pulls me back. I try to tug my arm free, but he’s holding on tight and pulls me closer to him so we’re only inches apart. “No, you’re not going to walk away. Not this time.”
I use all the force I have to yank my arm out of his grip and then I step away from him, but he steps with me, crowding me, using his tall frame to keep me from getting to the door.
“Let’s talk about E,” he starts. “Let’s talk about the brother you’ve made it clear you have no time for, who you act like you hate half the time, the twin who is desperate for you to let him in, for a relationship with the only relative he has left that he gives a crap about, because let’s face it, Iz—we both know your dad is a piece of trash.”
“Stay out of it,” I snap.
“He’s my best friend and you’re taking every chance you get to crap all over him.”
“It has nothing to do with you.
”
“I get that you’re hurt. I get that you miss your mom and no one will ever replace her. I get that you hate that you’ve been uprooted from the home you shared with her and find yourself living in a completely different country you don’t want to be in, but it’s about time you remember that he lost his mom too.”
My eyes snap to his. “Don’t. Don’t go there,” I warn him. “You have no idea what it was like.”
“I have a better idea than you think I do. You think Ethan was over here balling and partying and not thinking twice about his mom sick at home? You think he didn’t walk around like a zombie for weeks when he found out she was sick? You think I didn’t see him fall to pieces when he found out it was terminal?”
“Don’t,” I tell him again, but it sounds less like a warning this time and more like a plea. I can’t hear this. I can’t relieve those days.
“He wanted to fly back as soon as he heard—did you know that? It was a Wednesday. I remember because we have economics together first thing and he didn’t show, then he wasn’t answering his phone or his messages. No one had heard from him all day, and he didn’t show up for practice. So I went over there to his house and saw him sat at his kitchen table with his bag at his feet. I don’t think he’d moved all day. He was just sitting there processing it, and I will never forget that look on his face, the complete helplessness he felt written all over it. That’s when he told me, about your mom and how sick she was. Do you remember her telling you, Iz?”
I don’t respond. I’m physically not capable of responding. If I move even the slightest inch, I’ll burst into tears and won’t be able to stop.
“I bet it was just as bad for you, huh? But at least she was there with you. At least you could physically hug her and tell her how much you love her and not be thousands and thousands of miles away.”
“He picked being over here,” I say weakly. “He chose to be away from us.”
“And why is that, Izzy? Have you ever asked him why? Or did you just shut him out the minute you found out he was staying over here and not let him in since?”
“I—”
“But let’s go back to that day he found out your mom’s cancer was terminal.”
I swallow down a gulp. I will not cry, I will not cry.
“I mean he knew it was bad when he went over there after the diagnosis. He knew she was sick and it would be a long road back to recovery, but he thought she’d get there. He was going to transfer back there when he first found out she was sick—did you know that?”
No.
He must see I’m clueless on my face. “He told your mom and she said no, and that was the end of the discussion. She wouldn’t hear anything else about it because she knew he was better off over here, knew he could be more himself here, and she promised him she would get better in no time and it would be pointless to make the move. Maybe he was naïve for thinking that. Maybe he was stupid for believing her and not trying harder to convince her, but he’s the one who has to live with that. He’s the one who has to live with the fact he could only fly back for a couple of visits in her final months.”
He did come back. He came back for three long weekends in those first months after we found out she was sick, and he was devastated. He didn’t even try to hide it…and I’ve only just remembered that because I’ve tried my best to block out everything about that time.
I blink rapidly and I swear my body is shaking. I can’t handle this. I can’t handle this at all.
“And then he found out it was terminal and he didn’t know what to do. He was completely lost, so we called my mom and she came over and made him some food. Then he decided he was going to fly home, even though your mom had told him not to come yet. Do you remember that, Izzy? Do you remember her insisting he not come back yet? Saying the doctors told her she had months left and she wanted him to stay and play in the championship?”
I do remember it. I was in the room when she was speaking to him. I could hear him on the other end of the call insisting that he was coming back immediately. I remember the panic in his voice and the stutter in his words. I’ve blocked out everything about that time, but now that Finn mentions it, I do remember it, and I remember how calm my mum was, how softly she spoke to him and how insistent she was that he stay another week and play in the big game. She told him she loved him and she knew how much he loved her and said she was so, so proud of him for getting to the finals. She said she couldn’t wait to see him as a champion and have the pictures of him at the game. She told him she didn’t want him just to come back and wait for her to die, said the best thing he could do for her would be to stay in the US for just a few more days and win the game for her. She meant it, too. I knew she meant it. She genuinely wanted him to play in the game he and his teammates had worked so hard to get to.
“The doctors got it wrong though, didn’t they? She deteriorated quicker than anyone thought she possibly could.”
I let out a shaky breath, remembering how she was fine just days before she died. The panic I felt when I realised the end was coming so quickly…I wasn’t ready for it, wasn’t prepared for it. “He shouldn’t have listened to her.”
Finn’s eyes turn hard. “You think he doesn’t know that? You think that hasn’t haunted him every day since she died and probably will for the rest of his life? He has to deal with that guilt, Izzy. He has to find a way to deal with that for the rest of his life, but I bet you haven’t thought about that, have you? You’re so busy blaming him for not being there that you probably haven’t given a second thought to how he feels about it.”
He takes a step closer to me, and I take another one farther away. This is too much. This is way too much for me. I can’t relive that time again. “Stop,” I tell him.
“So let’s talk about that day then, okay? Let’s talk about the day your twin led this school to its first state final win in over fifty years. The whole freaking town was talking about it for weeks, everyone was there, and there was so much pressure on him, but he barely noticed it. He was unbelievable that day, and I know you don’t care about football, know to you it’s just a pathetic sport full of people who have nothing else in their lives, but for the people around here? The people who do love the sport and all it represents? Your brother will be written into this town’s history for the way he played that day. He was on another level compared to everyone else on the field, and it was because he was doing it for your mom. That was something he could do. He couldn’t be with her and he couldn’t stop the cancer that was eating away at her, but he could win this football game, and he did. He threw touchdown after touchdown for your mom, and he never celebrated any of them. He didn’t even crack a smile when the guys were jumping on him in celebration, because he wasn’t happy. He was the furthest away from happy he could possibly be, but he was making her happy. That’s what he thought, and that’s why he did it. That’s why he played the game of his life—for your mom.”
A tear streaks down my face, and I quickly swipe it away. His eyes flit to my hand, and I know he registers it. I know he’s seen how his words are affecting me, but he doesn’t stop. He isn’t finished with me yet.
“So we won the game, but E didn’t want to stay and celebrate. We picked him up once, he cracked one smile, they snapped that picture of him that’s on all those banners, and then he got off the field. He didn’t even acknowledge your dad, who turned up at the last minute—not because he was proud of him or wanted to be close by with everything that was happening with your mom, but because he wanted to bask in Ethan’s glory and take whatever credit he could. The rest of the team didn’t stay out long either, because the thing is, those guys? Those guys on the team who you barely glance at? They love your brother, and it’s not because he’s popular or because he’s rich. It’s because he’s a good guy and he’d do anything for them. The whole team knew what was going on in his head, and they weren’t going to stay out on the field without their captain. We left everyone outside celebrating and we went back
to the locker room.” He pauses and looks at me, really takes me in. “Do you know what part comes next? Do you know what happened next, Iz?”
I wrap my arms around my body, trying to close myself off from him. What I really want to do is sink to the floor and hide from him and the words he’s raining down on me.
“Do you know what happens next?”
I’m shaking now, shaking reliving those moments, but I didn’t know what was happening over here. I never asked…never cared.
“He got back to the changing room, immediately went to his bag—which, by the way, he hadn’t had all day because our bags had been taken off us first thing in the morning and then had been delivered during practice. He didn’t ignore your calls, he just had shitty luck and didn’t have his phone, and when he did get it back, his face crumpled, Izzy. His face crumpled when he saw all those missed calls from you. I’ll never forget it, not for as long as I live. You don’t forget seeing your best friend’s heart break in front of you. He knew. He knew what it was right away. He knew the only reason you would be calling him was if it was urgent. He knew you wouldn’t stoop to call him otherwise. The whole locker room was silent, silent as a graveyard when he called you back, but you didn’t answer, did you? He was over here, miles from you guys, worried sick about your mom, and you didn’t answer. The one person in the world he wanted to talk to in that moment, the one person who would know what he was going through, and you didn’t answer.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I get it—I get that you must have been going through hell over there, but he was going through hell over here and you don’t seem to get that. You don’t seem to understand that.”
I blink back more tears, the memories of those moments rolling through my mind: the worst day of my life, the moments I’ve tried to bury, tried desperately to forget…the moment Finn’s not letting me forget, the one he’s laying bare in front of me.
“You know what happens next, right?”
I look away from him.
“Izzy, you know what happened next, don’t you?” I turn back to him. “Or maybe you don’t. I’m sure you weren’t thinking straight. I’m sure you’ve tried to block all that from your mind because that’s what you seem to do when something gets tough, but you’re about to hear what happened on Ethan’s end.”