She moved closer and rested a hand on my arm. “Then what is it?”
The concern on her face nearly killed me. How could I have done this to her? To us? I was such a fucking asshole.
When I didn’t respond, she continued. “Are you okay? You’re freaking me out a little here.”
I laughed humorlessly. “Nothing about me is okay.”
“What the hell is going on? Out with it, Corey.”
Corey. It was a name she’d barely used since that first night, and it let me know just how scared and frustrated she must be to use it after all this time. The lack of hearing it had made it easy to ignore the truth. But this was the reality I’d carved for us: one where I loved a woman who didn’t even know who I was.
My gaze fell to the counter in front of me. “I’m not Corey,” I said quietly. But she deserved better than that, so I lifted my head and owned the fraud I’d allowed myself to become—the lie I’d allowed her to believe. “I’m not Corey.” My voice was strong and clear, even though I didn’t feel either of those things.
She withdrew her hand from me and stepped back as if I’d electrocuted her. And maybe I had. I’d electrocuted our entire relationship in three words, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to revive it. We were DOA, and even though I’d known how this would end from the beginning, tears still pricked my eyes and my throat convulsed. But I wasn’t the one who had a right to be upset in this scenario, so I forced myself to remain strong.
For once, I’d face her as the man I was, not the one she thought I was.
ZARA
“What?” was the only word I could force out. My lungs felt like they were constricting, and I had an errant thought that I might be in the beginning stages of a panic attack.
“I’m so sorry” was all he said. He as in…Colton? How was this happening?
“You’re sorry? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I turned away and pushed my hands through my hair.
He rushed to explain. “You said you knew who I was, and by the time I realized you thought I was Corey, we’d already…you know.” He gestured with his hands, as if saying the words was somehow the most uncomfortable part of this conversation. “And then when I saw you the next time, I tried to tell you, but you kept saying we didn’t need to talk, and then—”
Rounding on him, I planted my hands on my hips. “So this is my fault?”
His hands shot out in front of him. “No, no, absolutely not. I one hundred percent know this is completely my fault. I had thousands of opportunities to tell you, but in the beginning, I wasn’t sure it even mattered because it was so casual. But then all these feelings started, and it got harder and harder to be honest.”
“It should never be hard to be honest. Not about something as fundamental as your goddamn name.”
His face contorted. “Never hard to be honest? Do you hear yourself right now?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. That… I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you don’t get to be a chickenshit right now. Tell me what you meant.”
“It’s just that… I mean, you’re not exactly a paragon of honesty. We lied to your entire family for a whole weekend.”
Pointing a finger at him, I noticed my hands were shaking. Whether it was from anger or sadness, I didn’t know. “You got us into that mess, just like you got us into this one.”
He sighed and seemed to deflate in front of me. “I’m just saying neither of us is a stranger to lying. And I get that mine was infinitely worse. I own every bit of that. But I didn’t intentionally mislead you. You said you could always tell us apart. Why would I doubt that?”
“You want to know why I thought you were Corey?”
He didn’t answer.
“Because you were a complete punk in high school. Conceited and arrogant. And the man I saw at the reunion didn’t exude any of that. But I see it now. You’ve just gotten better at hiding it over the years.”
“That’s not who I am. That’s not who I’ve ever been. You didn’t even know me in high school, but you made a whole host of judgments anyway.”
“So I deserve this?” I wanted to kill him. I’d never felt more capable of it.
“No. You don’t deserve any of this. But I didn’t let it go this far to hurt you. In my own stupid way, I was trying to keep you. I knew once I told you the truth, I’d lose you. And I let my fear of that override doing the right thing. And I’m so, so sorry for that. I’d do anything to take it back.”
So would I. I’d do anything to be able to go back and have us both make different choices. I hadn’t been sure I was talking to Corey that night. I’d taken a guess that I’d thought had ended up being a lucky one. But he’d made the choice to keep going with the lie. He’d made me fall in love with someone he wasn’t. And that…that was an egregious mistruth I couldn’t even wrap my brain around. “I don’t even know what to say.”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of the jacket he’d never even bothered to remove. “I get that. I wouldn’t have much to say to me either if I were you.”
We stood in my kitchen, studiously avoiding making eye contact for what felt like hours.
“I guess—” He cleared his throat before starting again. “I guess this is it.”
I guessed it was too, but I didn’t say the words. I didn’t say anything. I just watched the man I was falling in love with apologize one more time before walking out of my kitchen, out of my house, and out of my life.
It was surreal. That one minute something could be rock solid and the next it could be gone. That something I’d counted on never truly existed at all.
But the worst part was that the person who’d made me feel things I’d never felt before, who’d claimed to have felt those things too, could just…leave. I wasn’t sure I could’ve ever gotten past the lie, but that didn’t matter. Colton hadn’t even given me a chance to decide what I could live with and what I couldn’t. What I could forgive and what I couldn’t get past. He’d just fucking left.
He hadn’t fought for me. And that said more about the kind of man he was than anything else.
I looked around my kitchen, took in how empty it was, and let the tears that had been building fall. For all the things that would never be, and worse—for all the things that never really had been. When I was finally able to pull myself together, I grabbed my phone, deleted my entry for CJ, and told myself I’d be able to delete him from my heart just as quickly.
Colton had lied to me easily enough. What harm could there be in lying to myself?
Chapter Twenty
Zara
I wasn’t sure why I always cooked when I was stressed. Even though I enjoy cooking, it only created a mess I eventually had to clean up. And cleaning was not something I enjoyed. Which made the fact that my kitchen was speckled in homemade gravy and flour from handmade raviolis all the more depressing. I cooked to distract myself. I cooked because there was some kind of catharsis to it that I couldn’t describe. Or at least that was usually the case.
Though I couldn’t say I’d ever used it as a way to take my mind off a devastating breakup. Cooking clearly didn’t have the same effect on my mental state as it did when I used it as a way to procrastinate before studying for a test in college or after a fight with my sister in high school.
It’d been a few days since CJ—Colton—had told me the truth, and it hadn’t gotten any easier. Not that I felt like it really should have. Every day felt like I was mourning the loss of someone I’d never even known to begin with.
All I could hope was that time and distractions would make things better. But since I didn’t have a job that took up the majority of my time, all I had to take my mind off CJ/Corey/Colton was the restaurant venture, which now seemed more awkward than ever. Though I hoped it would be more awkward for him than for me.
My cell phone rang, and I could see it was Becca calling. We usually did a pretty good job of talking to each other at le
ast once a week, but I hadn’t spoken to her in a few weeks because she’d been away for work. She was no doubt calling in response to the text I’d sent her about CJ. I tapped the phone with my knuckle and told her to hold on a second while I washed my hands.
“Don’t tell me to hold on after you send a text like that!” I heard her say even though the phone wasn’t on speaker.
“Sorry. I was cooking,” I said, putting the phone to my ear. “How was Detroit?”
“Cold, and I didn’t see Eminem anywhere, so it’s not worth talking about. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“I already did.”
“No. I mean what’s happening now?”
“I’m avoiding him and all thoughts associated with him.” I grabbed some disinfectant wipes and began scrubbing the countertop like I was cleaning up after a murder. Come to think of it, I was surprised there hadn’t been one when he’d finally come clean.
“That seems healthy,” Becca said.
“Better than the alternative.”
“Which is what?”
I hadn’t really considered any specific answer to this question until Becca asked it. “I don’t know. Thinking about him. Talking to him. Which I’m definitely not about to do. It’s bad enough I’ll have to see him with this whole restaurant thing happening. You know how bad I am at awkward encounters.”
“Guess you’ll have to get better at it unless you want to retract your offer.”
There was absolutely no way I would let that happen. “That’s not even an option I’m willing to entertain. This isn’t my fault. He can be the one who feels like the asshole. Not me.”
“I’m sure he does feel like an asshole,” she said, her voice way too sympathetic for my liking.
“You’re not defending him, are you?”
“No. I’m not defending him. He impersonated someone he isn’t. It’s inexcusable, Zar. Even if you made the mistake initially, he had a million opportunities to tell you who he really was.”
“Yeah, well…I know who he really is now.”
COLTON
“Can you toss me the tape when you’re done with it?” asked Corey. “My roll just ran out.”
I finished dragging out the piece I had in my hand so the blue tape hit perfectly at the edge of the ceiling. “Here,” I said, not even waiting until he was ready before I chucked the tape in his direction across the room.
“What the hell’s your problem?”
“Nothing. I was just trying to balance on the ladder as I threw it.”
He lifted his left eyebrow in a way that I couldn’t and I’d secretly always been a little envious of. “You’ve been irritable for days.”
I climbed down off the ladder and went to grab a paintbrush so I could start cutting in the edges of the walls. “I’m PMSing.”
Corey barked out a laugh, but he didn’t actually sound amused. Truth was, I knew I’d been an asshole, but there wasn’t much I could do to change it. I felt like Bruce Banner stuck in perpetual Hulk form. “Whatever. You’ll tell me eventually.”
I actually wasn’t sure I would, because my fuckup was more epic than hurting Zara. Corey’d warned me that I might screw over our family in the process, and I wasn’t about to share that news, especially here in the restaurant when I was supposed to be helping Dad, not hurting him. “Who picked this paint color? Dad doesn’t strike me as a dark purple kind of guy.”
Corey groaned something unintelligible that probably meant he had no clue who’d picked it. “Maybe Zara.” He said it like it made all the sense in the world, because how would he know otherwise?
I laughed harshly. “I highly doubt that.”
I felt Corey walk toward me more than saw him. It was one of those telepathic twin connections that was impossible to explain unless you were a twin. “What did you do?”
When I turned toward him, he was standing directly in front of me, his arms crossed in a way that made me think he was more disappointed than angry. It only made me feel worse than I already did. “What do you think?”
His eyes bored into mine for a silent moment that was filled with more emotion than any words could convey. I stood to meet his stare, and to avoid the tears that would inevitably find their way behind my eyes if I looked at him long enough, I said, “I don’t need your shit too. I heard enough from her.”
“God, you’re such a moron.”
“Thanks, Cor. That’s exactly what I need.”
He pulled at his hair before letting his hands run down his face. “Did you ever think about what Dad needed?”
I felt my voice rising with my anger before I’d even spoken. “Are you fucking serious? How can you even ask me that? It’s the reason I didn’t tell her sooner. You made me keep this a secret, remember? I wanted to be honest, and maybe if I’d been honest earlier, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Or maybe she would’ve backed out of the deal sooner.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?” Suddenly, the atmosphere in the restaurant was thick, stifling even, and I found myself needing some fresh air. I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.
“Where are you going? You just gonna leave all this for me and Dad?” Corey called.
His question didn’t stop me. Nor did I respond to it. Once outside, I waited a minute before putting my jacket on and leaning against the brick exterior.
I found myself wishing I smoked because I would’ve felt less awkward hanging out on a city street. There was something purposeful about people who stood outside with cigarettes in their hands, like each drag gave them a reason for being there. No one looked at them with suspicious eyes as they walked past, assuming they must be up to no good because no one in their right mind would willingly stand outside on a fifteen-degree night.
But I wasn’t one of those people. A woman walked by, moving her bag to the arm closer to the street as her gaze darted to me and then quickly away again. I’m not that much of an asshole, I wanted to say.
I felt lost, like no matter where I was, I shouldn’t be there. I couldn’t go back inside and face Corey and my dad, who no doubt heard us arguing from the kitchen but chose not to intervene. And I couldn’t just go home, because, as Corey had so appropriately pointed out, I’d be leaving them on their own to do something I’d promised I’d help with. I was a better man than that.
Preparing to go back inside, I took a few more breaths, letting the frigid air fill my lungs before releasing it again. I wished I could release the stress of all of this just as easily. I was about to go back in when the door opened.
“I don’t wanna talk about it, Cor,” I said.
“Too bad” was the reply, but it wasn’t Corey. My dad put his hand on the back of my neck and massaged it roughly like he used to after we lost a baseball game. It occurred to me that he hadn’t done that in so long that this was probably the first time he had to reach up instead of down. “We’re gonna talk, or at least I am. As long as you’re listening, I don’t really give a shit whether you reply.”
He released my neck and positioned himself next to me against the wall. I was thankful we weren’t facing each other, because the idea of looking him in the eyes terrified me. Not in a way that instilled actual fear—I’d never had a reason to be scared my father—but in a way that made me scared of my own feelings when I saw the disappointment in his face. I knew that face. I’d seen it when I got caught drinking in high school and when I failed a class my first semester of college. I hadn’t seen it since, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Corey filled me in on what happened,” he said, confirming what I already assumed.
I didn’t reply because he’d told me I didn’t have to, and since I had nothing of value to say, I was more than content to stay silent.
He continued. “You really dug yourself a hole this time.”
I rubbed my toe on a crack in the sidewalk and shoved my hands into my pockets after pulling my collar up to block the wind. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “
If she doesn’t buy the restaurant…” I let my sentence remain unfinished because I didn’t know how to end it. There wasn’t anything I could do to make sure the deal went through, so there was really no point in bringing it up in the first place other than to let my dad know I was more upset about how my fuckup affected his life than how it affected my own.
“She’s not.”
“What?” I snapped my head up and brought my focus from the ground to meet my dad’s eyes, mine already stinging with the tears welling behind them.
“We decided a little while ago that it’d be best if she didn’t buy it. She was concerned about how the sale might affect you and…Colton,” he said, the beginning of a smirk on his lips, but he managed to control it.
“Wait, so you knew she had us mixed up?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t say anything? To either of us, I mean?”
“Why would I? It’s not my business.” I was tempted to tell him it absolutely was his business, but he continued before I could get my thoughts together. “Plus, I knew you’d tell her soon enough anyway.”
“You did?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t tell her earlier. You got way more involved with that poor girl than I’d ever expected you to.”
I tried to make sense of his words, but I couldn’t. “What does that mean?”
“It means you usually shut the engine off before the bike even has a chance to go anywhere.”
“Are you using motorcycle metaphors because you think I’m too stupid to understand it any other way?”
We both laughed, but it was clear neither of us found the situation funny.
“I’m using a motorcycle metaphor because it’s nicer than saying you’ve sabotaged every relationship that ever had a chance of becoming anything.”
His comment surprised me because it wasn’t true. At least I didn’t think it was. “I haven’t sabotaged anything. Nothing works out, that’s all.”
Misadventures with a Twin Page 13
