He reached a hand behind him to pull out the gun I knew was in his waistband. Even as he pulled it out and I saw the dull gleam of the metal, I couldn’t quite believe it. So this was how it would end. My own brother would shoot me right here, in front of a police station.
I didn’t cringe or try to cower. I didn’t rush him. A strange calm descended over me, because I knew that Lena was safe, and that was really all that mattered. Holden raised his arm, but right as he did so, I heard commotion behind me, heard someone shouting to drop the gun. I turned my head and saw several police officers rush out, their own guns raised.
“Drop the gun and put your hands up!”
“Both of you! Hands up! Down on your knees!”
I raised my hands and put them behind my head, slowly sank to my knees. Holden had a look of utter disbelief on his face, but he didn’t drop the gun.
“Can you believe this shit?” he yelled. “This is my brother right here! The guy on his knees. Isn’t he good? Doing just like you asked. He was always the good brother. We’re twins. Always did things together. Until he decided he was too good for that sort of thing. So he tried to move on. But, see, if I’m going to go down, then I am taking him with me—it’s the right thing to do.”
He lowered his arm a little, because I wasn’t standing anymore, and though I was far enough away that I couldn’t quite see what he was doing, it was as if I could feel him put pressure on the trigger. A shot rang out, maybe two shots. Maybe three. There was no pain. It took me a second to realize that I hadn’t been shot at all; Holden might not have ever gotten a shot off. He was on the ground, motionless, the police swarming him, and me, too, pulling me up. I half-expected them to put me in handcuffs, but then Lena was right there, and they ushered both of us inside.
Chapter 23
Lena
When I was twenty-one, my father died, unexpectedly. It was the first time someone close to me had died, and one of my most vivid recollections was how surprised I was to realize that the rest of the world carried on despite the immense grief I was dealing with.
I experienced something similar after escaping from the Parkingtons. I had been trapped in a windowless room for days, yet life had gone on for everyone else. Except maybe Shep, who had really saved me. The events were on constant replay in my head, the timing of it all. Holden had been on his way back; if Shep hadn’t arrived when he did, Holden certainly would have found me.
Holden was dead now. He hadn’t died immediately; he had succumbed to his injuries a few hours after he was taken to the hospital. Shep and I spent several hours at the police station, each of us relaying important information. All of mine had to do with being abducted; Shep’s had to do with that, but also with providing the police officers everything they needed to know about what his family was doing on the property.
The DEA raided the Parkington compound, seizing over one hundred pounds of meth and dozens of illegal firearms. Shep had called his mom and told her she needed to leave, but she had refused. The only person not arrested was his uncle Devin, who had killed himself before he could be apprehended.
For days, it was like both Shep and I were in a weird, dreamlike world where everything was happening yet we couldn’t quite make sense of it. I wanted Shep to be around, yet at night, I would sometimes wake from a dream where Holden was chasing me, talking just like Shep, and even though nothing felt wrong with me in the dream, I couldn’t move my legs, couldn’t get away. I’d wake up with a start, sometimes with tears running down my face, my heart racing.
I would feel Shep reach for me, but then pull his arm back, like he was afraid he was going to hurt me. Or that he was scared of me, almost. I wanted to ask him about it, wanted to ask why he had that expression on his face whenever he was around me, but I couldn’t find the words. Did it matter? Wasn’t it just enough that I had gotten away, that I hadn’t been badly hurt—or really hurt at all? That no one else—aside from Holden—had really been hurt either?
I tried to give Shep his space. I didn’t know exactly how he felt about all this, or even if he knew how he felt about all of it. There was a lot for me to process with what had happened, but possibly more so for him. I could only begin to imagine all the emotions he was feeling, the uncertainty over what was going to happen to the rest of his family. Even though they had been doing illegal things, they were still his family.
Whenever I attempted to ask how he was feeling about all of this, he waved me off. He wasn’t interested in talking about his thoughts on it, as if doing so would somehow take something away from me. But it wasn’t like that at all, I wanted to tell him. This was something that had happened to both of us. I knew he didn’t see it that way, though. I knew he blamed himself for all of it.
***
“Your sister’s coming over?” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve talked to her a couple of times, but I haven’t seen her yet, so she wants to stop over.”
“I should go, then. Give you two some time together.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to meet you, actually.”
He looked skeptical. “I don’t know about that. I think it’d be better if I left for now. I’ve got some stuff that I need to take care of, anyway, and it’ll be good for the two of you to have some alone time.”
“Sure,” I said, even though I would have preferred him to stay. He hadn’t even met Jenn yet. But I also didn’t want to smother him. “I’ll give you a call later.”
He smiled faintly and came over and dropped a kiss on my forehead. “I love you,” I said.
The expression on his face was pained. “I love you, too,” he said.
***
As it would turn out, though, Jenn was only the first of many visitors that day. She came by herself, as if she was afraid of what sort of state I might be in and didn’t want to expose the children to that. I wouldn’t have minded seeing them, actually.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” she said, squeezing me tightly. “I can’t believe that happened to you! How are you doing?”
She came bearing a bouquet of flowers and a casserole, like it was a funeral, or meeting a new baby for the first time.
“You didn’t need to bring all that,” I said.
She held me at arm’s length, studied my face, as if the whole ordeal I had just been through would somehow be apparent there. Maybe it was—maybe I looked older, or more stressed out, or like I had been through something. I didn’t know. But then she smiled, and hugged me again.
“I’m just glad everything is okay,” she said.
We went into the living room and sat down, and she asked me if I had talked to Shep at all about this.
“Of course I have,” I said. “He stayed over here the past few nights. He left a little before you got here.”
She nodded solemnly. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be seeing him or not after all of this.”
The idea had honestly never occurred to me, and I was a little surprised that she had even brought it up, being the romantic that she was. I mean, didn’t most girls have some fantasy about being rescued by their dream man? And Shep had done exactly that—he had saved me.
“I honestly think I can say I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for him,” I said.
My sister did not look convinced. “Maybe, but you also wouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with, if you hadn’t met him. I mean, that’s really messed up, Lena. That a family member of his would do that to you.”
“I know. But it wasn’t Shep. He can’t be held accountable for things that his family did. Things that he was totally against.” I tilted my head and looked at her. “I’m surprised to hear you saying that. I thought you were the champion of romance and true love.”
“I am, of course,” she said. “But… this is different. Ever since you told me what happened, I’ve just been thinking how things could’ve played out differently, how awful that would’ve been. It’s really scary. It’s like
I can’t stop going over all the what-ifs. It’s all I can think about. And how I wasn’t there for you.”
“Stop,” I said. “Please don’t feel guilty about any of this; there was nothing you could’ve done. It’s the sort of situation that no one ever really expects to find themselves in. The whole thing kind of seems like a dream.”
“I’ll bet it does.”
“I just want things to go back to normal. I’ll be glad once my boring life resumes.”
Jenn stayed a while longer, but then had to leave to go pick up the kids. I told her to tell them I said hi, and that I wanted to see them soon. I watched as she drove off, and then I went to get my phone to text Shep. Before I could, though, I got a message from Cole, saying that everyone from the office was going to stop over.
We won’t stay long, he wrote, but we all definitely need to see you and make sure you’re really okay.
It would be good to see them. I had talked to Drew, but only on the phone, and it did feel weird to have gone so long without seeing anyone from the office. They were my co-workers, sure, but we were also like a family of sorts.
And it did feel like something of a reunion when they all showed up. There were hugs and tears, and just seeing them in person made me realize how much I had missed them, how awful it would have been to never see them again.
“I don’t want you to come back until you feel absolutely ready,” Drew said. “Don’t get me wrong—we all want you back—but there’s nothing so pressing there that we can’t handle it.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “But I would like to come back soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly the day after that.”
“That’d be great,” Cole said.
Ben nodded. “Yeah, we’ve definitely missed you. Just not the same without you around, Lena.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Cole said with a grin, “but I like the office much better when you’re there to give me shit all the time!”
We all laughed, which felt really good. They stayed for a little while longer, but then departed, after another round of hugs. “I’ll see you guys the day after tomorrow,” I told them on the way out.
Now that I had the house back to myself, I called Shep. It was past seven o’clock, and I was a little surprised that he hadn’t called or texted, but he might’ve been busy doing whatever it was he needed to do. Maybe he was at the gym, getting ready for that big fight. He hadn’t brought it up at all, but I hoped that he was still planning on doing it. I didn’t want him not to go through with it because of me.
The phone rang several times before his voicemail picked up. I debated whether or not I should leave a message, but then I decided I would, a brief one:
“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “I ended up having quite a few visitors today, so I’m a little tired, but just wanted to give you a call and see how you were doing. If you want to come by tonight that’s totally fine; I don’t have any plans to go out, so I’ll be here. Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.”
I tossed the phone down on the coffee table and sat back on the couch. I still didn’t totally feel like myself, and I wondered how long it would be until that happened. Maybe never. I turned the TV on and surfed Netflix for a little while, waiting for Shep to call me back. It got later and later and I didn’t hear anything, so when my eyelids felt heavy and I couldn’t stop yawning, I sent him a quick text saying goodnight, and that I’d catch up with him tomorrow.
***
The next day I decided I would take care of a few things around the house, domestic chores that made me feel as if life really was back on track. Hard to feel like anything was really that amiss when you were doing laundry, washing dishes, and vacuuming the floor.
I still hadn’t heard anything from Shep, so when my phone rang around eleven and I saw that it was him, I eagerly picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday; time just sort of got away from me. How did your visit go?”
“It was good. And then after my sister left, the guys from work ended up coming by, and it was good to see them, too. I think I’m going to go back into work tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s great.”
“I think it will be good. I feel fine, and I’m ready to get back into that routine.”
“Are you at home right now?”
“I am. Just doing a little picking up.”
“Mind if I stop by?”
“Not at all. You don’t even have to ask.” With everything that had happened, I never did have the chance to talk to Shep about moving in. It was something that I still wanted to happen, probably even more so now.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be over in about half an hour.”
After we got off the phone, I went and changed out of the T-shirt and boxer shorts I was wearing, into a slightly more form-fitting T-shirt and a pair of jeans. I splashed water on my face and brushed my hair. The bruises and cuts were fading or mostly gone. The dark circles that had been under my eyes had all but vanished, too. I look normal, I thought, as I stared at my reflection. I had been through a terrible experience, but I had survived. I had come out on the other side okay, and now I was going to get on with my life. Part of that, I decided, would be asking Shep if he wanted to move in. If anything, the situation with Holden had made me realize how tenuous life was, how things could change in the blink of an eye, so maybe waiting wasn’t always the best option. Maybe asking Shep to move in now was the right thing to do—and who cares if we hadn’t known each other for years? I knew how I felt about him, and I was fairly certain I knew how he felt about me. There was no reason not to bring it up.
I tried to busy myself until he arrived, though knowing that I was going to talk to him about moving in filled me with a sort of nervous, excited energy. I wiped down counters that had already been wiped clean; I reorganized the books on the shelf in the living room even though they weren’t out of order.
When I saw his car pull up, I hurried to meet him at the front door.
He looked tired as he climbed the steps, though he did smile when he saw me. I stepped back to let him in and then gave him a hug and a quick kiss.
“So,” I said, as we went into the living room, “there was something that I wanted to talk to you about.”
We sat on the couch. Would it be better to begin with some sort of prelude? Something about how I normally wouldn’t bring something like this up so soon but I felt that things were different with our relationship? Really, when it came down to it, I felt like if he moved in, he would never move out. In other words: this was it. We would stay together for the rest of our lives. We could get married, or not—I didn’t really care about that. All that I really wanted was to be with him.
“I need to talk to you about something, too,” he said. He rubbed his eyes. “But why don’t you go first.”
There was something in his tone that made me pause, made me think that it would actually be better if I heard what he had to say first.
“No, you can go first,” I said. “It looks like maybe what you have to say might be a little more pressing than what I was going to bring up. Is everything okay?”
But the longer I looked at him, the more convinced I became that everything was, in fact, not okay. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, cupped his face with his hands for a moment before looking at me.
“Lena,” he said. “First, and most importantly, I want you to know how thankful I am that you are okay. That truly is the most important thing to me.”
“I am okay,” I said. “Really. I’m not just saying that. I feel good about going back to work tomorrow. I’m glad that you’re here. If anything, I feel like I have more of an appreciation for my life now, all parts of it, the mundane things too. I actually enjoyed vacuuming the floor before you got here.”
Shep smiled, a small one. “The place looks great.”
That could potentially be a good segue into the moving-in part of the conversation, but I waited, kno
wing that there was something more he had to say.
“But I’ve been thinking about things. It really broke my heart when you called me,” he said. “I felt like such shit after. I didn’t think there could be any worse feeling than that. But there actually is.” He had tears in his eyes, which he didn’t bother to try to hide, didn’t try to wipe away. “I am the reason all this happened to you. I should’ve done more to protect you. They’re my family. And I had no idea.”
“But you did,” I said. “You were right there when I needed you. If you hadn’t shown up like that, I might not have been able to get away. I wouldn’t have been able to get away, because Holden would have gotten home. Who knows what he would’ve done.” I stopped what I was saying, though. I didn’t want to dwell on it, and I also wanted to be mindful of the fact that Shep had lost his brother. Regardless of the awful things he had done, Holden was Shep’s brother, his twin, no less, and I knew he had good memories of him, there amongst all the bad ones, too.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he said. “I don’t think I could ever put into words how guilty I feel about all of this. It feels like it’s eating me alive.”
“But you don’t have to let it,” I said. “It happened and it’s over with. We can move on. We have to move on—that’s what people do.”
“I know. And maybe it would be different if it hadn’t been my family, my own goddamn identical twin brother. How can you not think of him when you look at me? We look exactly alike, for Christ’s sake!”
I started to go to him, but he flinched and stepped back. “Shep,” I said. “Please. I don’t think about him at all. Because you’re not him. You are two very different people. What he did was awful, yes. But that’s like saying if my sister did something to you, then you would hold me accountable? I know you wouldn’t do that, because you’re not that sort of person.”
“Are you and your sister identical twins?”
“No, but… some people might say we look alike.”
“It’s mostly that, Lena. It’s the fact that I can’t help but think, whenever you look at me, that you’re going to think of him, and what he did to you—and you don’t deserve that. You deserve to be with someone whose face isn’t going to make you think back to the most traumatic time of your life.” A muscle twinged in his jaw. I wished he would let me touch him, but I knew if I tried again he would just withdraw. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how I could communicate to him that the last thing I wanted was for him to feel this way.
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