Mister Wrong

by Nicole Williams

I’d been so focused on saying the right thing to calm them both down just enough to keep a fight from ensuing, I didn’t realize what I’d actually said.

  Or how it would be taken.

  Matt’s eyes narrowed as he started putting everything back in his bag. He wouldn’t look at me. “You wouldn’t be with him,” he said slowly, repeating my words. “That’s not the type of person you want to spend your life with.”

  His hands braced against the desk after he’d packed up the last of his things. A sharp exhale popped out of his mouth as he shook his head. When he did finally look at me, it wasn’t the same Matt I’d spent the past few days with. It was someone else. A shell of that person.

  “Thanks for the reminder. I needed it. I’ll leave you two alone.” He threw his bag across his shoulder, leaving the bottle of pain relievers on the desk in front of me.

  As he started for the door, his name was rising from my throat.

  Jacob stepped in front of him. “I need to know.” Jacob didn’t look as wild as before, but he still looked dangerous.

  Matt’s entire back went rigid. “You want to know what happened?” I didn’t recognize his voice. From the look on Jacob’s face, neither did he. “I stepped in and took care of her for you. Again. And just like always, I do all the work and you reap the damn reward.” Matt’s arm thrust back at where I was still sitting in the chair, stitched up and frozen in place.

  I was waiting for him to look at me. I was waiting for him to notice the look in my eyes. The one that would tell him everything he needed to know. The truth I was starting to accept had been a part of me for years, but one I’d chosen to keep hidden from view.

  “What are you talking about?” Jacob crossed his arms, stepping in front of Matt again when he tried to go around him. “When have you ever done that?”

  Matt was quiet, staring at Jacob like they were having a silent conversation. Growing up with them, I knew that, as twins, they were well-versed with those silent conversations.

  “You know when,” Matt said, his voice just barely trembling. “You know it. And I know it. And Cora’s about to find out if you keep pushing me. You’re losing points, so you might want to hang on to the few you still have. Now get out of my way.” Matt shoved Jacob aside, hard enough he stumbled back into the wall. “I’m tired of you standing in my way.”

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, there I was holding a bag of ice to my temple, where I’d earned thirteen stitches, sitting in an empty hotel bed and staring at a blank television screen after chasing off one brother by hurting him and the other by shoving him out of my room.

  Jacob hadn’t been eager to leave. He’d wanted to talk, but I knew what he wanted to talk about and that was still not a conversation I was ready to have. Not until I knew for sure. Not until I’d considered the consequences and was prepared for the fallout.

  Matt had taken off, and while I guessed he was back in his cabin, I knew he didn’t want to see me. Not after what I’d said. I might not have meant it in the way he’d taken it, but I hadn’t said or, more importantly, done anything to show him otherwise.

  I needed to know exactly how I felt and get good and comfortable with it before I approached either of them. All three of our lives had been changed when Matt stepped up to that altar. Or going back a little further, our lives had been changed when Jacob didn’t show up. Or going farther back still, our lives had been changed the first day we’d all met, three lives weaving together, somehow tangling into an unwieldy knot over the course of twenty years.

  My head was still throbbing, a few bruises starting to splotch my skin from the fall, as I stared at that blank television screen and saw what felt like my whole life story play before me. Seeing their life stories unfold along with mine. Matt and Jacob were such a part of my life, they were woven into the very person I was today. They were both a part of me and they always would be, but I could only pick one to spend my life with. One to share a life with, and the other to sever ties with.

  I knew that was inevitable. It was the only way it could be after everything. I couldn’t choose one and still be friends with the other. That might have worked for the past decade, but it wouldn’t work after this. I also knew that might have been due to the brother my conscience had already silently chosen. He might have been okay with a friendship while his brother got more, but it wouldn’t work the other way around.

  When the knock sounded at my door, I instantly checked the time on my phone. I’d kept it in my lap all evening, hoping it would ring or Matt would send me a message or something to know he hadn’t walked through the last door in my life.

  It was after nine. Jacob had said he was going to hit the gym and grab dinner after. He’d said he’d swing me up something if I wanted, but I knew what that dinner would come with a side of—more questions. He’d told me to call him if I needed anything, that he’d be five minutes or less away, but he’d promised to give me space.

  Sliding out of bed, I grabbed my bathrobe and tied it on. After Jacob finally left, I’d pulled the towel off my shoulder and stood in front of the mirror for a long time, staring at the mark resting above my breast. It looked like a flower just starting to blossom. I stared at it until I could almost feel Matt’s mouth on me again, pulling at my skin, taking a part of me and leaving a part of him behind.

  Doing a quick check in the mirror, I made sure the bathrobe was covering the mark before I checked the peephole. The person standing on the other side of the door was not who I was expecting. Kind of the last person I was expecting, given her allegiance to the brother I’d just hurt in a way I’d never intended.

  My fingers froze on the door handle. I could just pretend I wasn’t here. She’d go away eventually. Maggie Stevenson and I had never been friends by any stretch of the word. We’d been more like silent adversaries through high school, then avoided each other as much as possible ever since. She was Matt’s friend. I was Matt’s friend. By transitive means, that should have made us friends, instead of the opposite.

  “I came here to say something to you. So if you don’t want to open the door, that’s cool. I have no problem saying what I need to right here in the hallway.” Maggie’s volume was growing with every word. “For everyone to hear.”

  Sighing, I resigned myself to this conversation. When I opened the door, I found her standing there, brows peaked, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and a couple of paper cups in another.

  “Surprise. It’s nice to see you too.” She smirked at me and what I guessed was my expression at the moment. Then she slid past me into the room.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, cutting to the chase.

  She was here for a reason, not to shoot the shit, and the sooner we hashed it out, the sooner I could get back to hashing everything else out. Plus, Maggie didn’t do bullshit. She told it like it was. It was one of the things I respected about her. It was also what intimidated me about her.

  “I’m here to have a little woman-to-woman talk with you.” She waved the bottle in the air before setting it on the desk and giving the bandage covering my temple a curious look. “And I brought my little friend, Dom Perignon, because if this chat goes according to plan, I’m going to be drinking the shit out of this stuff while I celebrate.”

  Closing the door, I stayed where I was. “Celebrate what?”

  “A good friend’s happily ever after. Finally,” she added, looking at me standing there in my bathrobe, my hair a limp, tangled mess, like she was trying to figure me out.

  “Does Matt know you’re here?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “No. Matt definitely does not know I’m here.” Maggie kicked off her sandals and plopped down onto the end of the mattress, tucking her leg beneath her. “He wouldn’t approve if he did, and I can tell from your warm smile that you don’t approve, but I’m tired of this evasive shit going on between you two. I’m saying what I need to, once and for all.”

  “It’s never seemed like you had a problem saying
what you needed to.” I moved into the room and paused at the desk.

  Maggie had never pulled her words when she’d been firing them at me or anyone else. Whenever she’d had occasion to go at me, it had always had something to do with Matt. She’d always accused me of doing things to hurt him or lead him on, like I spent my whole existence plotting ways to bring Matt Adams to his knees. What I’d never told her was that I felt the same, but the other way around. It seemed like Matt was coursing his life from one hurting-me moment to the next leading-me-on moment.

  “I didn’t say half of what I wanted to say to you back then. But I’m about to say it all now, no matter what you or Matt think about it.”

  “He doesn’t want you here because he doesn’t want you to say what you came here to tell me, right?” I dropped into the same desk chair Matt had set me in to fix me up. It didn’t feel the same without him crouching in front of me though.

  “You don’t have a clue what I’m here to tell you. Neither does he.” Maggie’s voice was muffled from the hair tie she’d stuck into her mouth as she remade her ponytail.

  I had a guess. One I’d been going back and forth between, but what had to be the only possibility after everything. “Matt. You’re here to tell me that he doesn’t want me. Not like, beyond this week.”

  I swallowed, my gaze diverting out the dark windows. Matt might have harbored some feelings for me, some deep-seated desires, but he’d fulfilled them all that night he’d taken me into his bed. Whatever fascination he’d had with me had been realized, and while his friendship would be there for me whenever I needed it, there was nothing hiding behind that designation. Nothing that ran deeper.

  “He doesn’t like me, does he?” I asked.

  Maggie made a face like my words were insulting her. “He doesn’t like you?”

  My eyes connected with hers for a brief moment. “Not in the way you know I’m talking about.”

  She shook her head, blinking a few times like she was waking up. “Hi, welcome to planet Earth,” she said in a mock cheery voice, waving in my direction. “The place where brains and sound-thinking make the planet go round.”

  My eyes lifted. “What? I know he has feelings for me, just not the same kind or to the same degree as mine.”

  “Okay, back up. That, right there.” Maggie’s finger stabbed in my direction. “That’s what I want to delve deeper into. Your feelings for him. We’ll get to his feelings for you in a minute. First, spill. Your guts. Your feelings. Your heart. I want it, right here, scattered on the floor in front of me for my viewing pleasure.” Maggie motioned at the floor with a grand flourish, waiting.

  I didn’t know what to say. Where to start, or how to even start. How did a person sum up a lifetime of emotions in a handful of words? How could I define it to someone else when I had yet to explain it to myself?

  “Come on. What’s going through that pretty little head of yours? Right this very moment.” Maggie scooted forward on the bed, circling her hand like she was trying to encourage me on.

  “A lot,” was the only way to answer that question.

  “I bet. Thought you were marrying one brother only to find out you married the other, who you’re starting to finally realize you love too.” She paused, giving me a chance to challenge her. I didn’t. She smiled. “The upside to this whole cluster of fuck is that either way, you’ll wind up Mrs. Cora Adams.”

  I threw my head back over the headrest, grumbling, “I’m so confused. I’ve been confused about how I felt about them for years, but now. . .” I came up short, searching for the right word. I wasn’t sure there was a right word in the human language for what I was feeling.

  “That’s not confusion you’re warring with when it comes to Matt.” Maggie’s voice was the gentlest I’d ever heard it as she leaned toward me. “It’s knowing how you feel, but believing you shouldn’t feel that way. That’s different. Being afraid to admit the truth isn’t the same as not knowing it.”

  My breath came out all at once. “I know.”

  “So you like him?” she asked, adding, “In the way you know I’m talking about?”

  My eyes met hers. I nodded.

  Her hand compacted into a fist as she drove her elbow back like she was celebrating. “Do you love him?”

  I hadn’t expected her to ask that. I hadn’t been bracing for that word. It was a big one, possibly the biggest one on the planet.

  “Hey, I spilled my guts.” I waved at the floor between us. “Now it’s time to get to the part about how he feels about me.” I wasn’t saying anything else until she gave something up. I guessed she knew, or had some idea, how Matt felt about me. They’d spent god only knows how many hours at that beach bar talking about whatever they had been. She knew if Matt wanted more from me or if he’d taken all he wanted.

  A minute went by, the slowest minute of my life.

  Then her eyes found mine. “You know how he feels about you.” Her head tipped. “Deep down, somewhere inside, you’ve always known.”

  “But—”

  “You know,” she interrupted, her words slow and strong. “Don’t fool me. Don’t fool yourself. You know. Your heart knows. It just hasn’t gotten around to convincing the rest of you.”

  Everything started to close in around me until life seemed impossibly clear because I could see everything making it up. It wasn’t the big picture I’d been waiting for; it was the microscopic details. It wasn’t thinking about the past two decades I’d known Matt; it was remembering every day, all of the moments that had made up those nearly twenty years.

  “Why didn’t he . . . ?” I started, failing to finish my thought. “He never said anything. Never gave me any indication that he might —”

  “Feel the same way as you?”

  My hands wrung in my lap. “Yeah. I wasn’t pretending with Jacob. I did care for him. I do care for him. Just with Matt . . . he was a gamble.”

  “You were with Jacob. Matt thought that’s what you wanted.” She stood up from the bed and wandered into the bathroom. When she came out, she was carrying a few tissues. I didn’t know I’d started crying until she placed them in my lap. “He put what he wanted aside so you could have what you wanted. Or what you seemed to want.”

  “Yeah?” I dabbed at my face, wondering if there was any end to the mess I’d made in these brothers’ lives. I was starting to doubt if there was.

  “If you find me someone who’s willing to play second-string for years, being the friend while his brother takes all the credit, then swoops in to save the day when I’ve never needed a hero more, I will auction off all of my non-essential internal organs to the highest bidder.”

  She was trying to make me smile or laugh or lighten up, but I felt buried under the avalanche of realizations still tumbling down on me. “But Jacob . . . we’ve been together for years. We were supposed to get married. I’m still wearing the engagement ring he gave me . . . attached to the wedding ring his brother put on my finger.” My head shook as I stared at the rings on my finger. “How messed up is that?”

  I guessed Maggie would have loved to answer that question for me. She would have accompanied it with a detailed outline and PowerPoint presentation with proven research as to how perfectly and thoroughly messed up I was. For whatever reason, she was staying quiet though.

  “Why do you love Jacob?” she finally asked, her face giving nothing away.

  My forehead creased. “Because I do.”

  “Yeah”—she fired me a mock smile—“gonna need to give me more than that, sunshine. Let’s try something else. What has he done for you that’s made you think, Damn, that’s why I love that man. The big stuff. What really stands out? He’s done something to earn your love, right?” From the note of doubt in her voice, I guessed she wasn’t totally convinced.

  But I was. Jacob had done things to earn my love. I wouldn’t have been with him if he hadn’t, especially with the way the past few years had tested every level of our foundation.

  “My birthd
ay always fell the week before school started, and Jacob, Matt, and their dad always took that week to vacation in Cabo. I never got to go because it was some guys’ trip where they fished and smoked cigars and did whatever else guys do.” Maggie and I wrinkled our noses at the same time, imagining it. “But every year, flowers always arrived at the front door, every hour on the hour, nine o’clock in the morning to nine at night. I think it was his way of showing me he wished he could be there when he couldn’t be. His way of making me feel special.” I thought about my last birthday, how the flowers had shown up at work for me instead since I’d been working a long shift.

  Across from me, Maggie was quiet. Too quiet. “Anything else?”

  I shifted. “There was the time I had my appendix out and had to miss a ton of school. Jacob collected my homework from each of my classes everyday, completed it for me, and turned it all in. I didn’t know about it until I returned and got back all of these assignments I hadn’t completed. He never said anything—he wasn’t looking for any credit. He just did it for me.”

  Still quiet, Maggie cleared her throat. “Dare I ask if there’s anything else?”

  My mind flitted to a certain night years ago, the year we’d all been sophomores and gone to the first party of the year at one of Jacob’s lacrosse friends’ houses. It was a night I didn’t think about often. It was also the same night I knew I could, or that maybe I already did, love Jacob Adams.

  “Nothing?” Maggie prompted.

  There were other things I could have mentioned, but they paled in comparison to what Jacob had done for me that night. Everything in my life could have changed during a handful of moments if it hadn’t been for him. Stepping in when he had. Carrying me away from that place how he had.

  My whole life could have taken an abrupt detour from that one moment, but it didn’t.

  “There was a party one night. Our sophomore year.” I tried to recount the night without reliving it. I’d never shared the story with anyone, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to right now, but she’d asked me why I loved Jacob. This was the catalyst for why.