Chapter 4
Being back at group felt weird. I hadn’t been to a single meeting in years, so walking through the doors of the local community center for my first meeting in the better part of a decade was overwhelming, but also incredibly cathartic.
Talking about what had been throwing me for a mental acrobatic routine I never asked to participate in was just what I’d needed.
Having Bas by my side through it all only helped encourage me to purge my feelings.
I was ecstatic to notice a handful of familiar faces from group, the same people I’d been here with over the past ten years were still here, still talking about their problems because we’d all bonded over the things going awry in our lives.
I talked about it all. How Troian’s resurgence back into my life made me feel worried that he was going let me down again, that he was going to hurt me even more than he had the last time.
How Bas moving out was making me feel equally elated that he was happy and moving in with the love of his life and saddened over my lack of direction, as well as enduring the emptiness that now resided in his place within the apartment.
How work was going great, but I wasn’t used to being more of a center of attention and known for anything specific.
Everyone in group hadn’t known my line of work since the last time I’d been here, so telling them that I was an exotic dancer was a little awkward, but again it felt good to speak the truth so openly.
I left out the parts about the private dance with Qwill.
I only mentioned that I’d been requested personally now and how that was making me feel.
While I didn’t know what exactly my feelings had been during the private dance, or after, I sure as hell wasn’t ready to explain it to a room full of strangers when I still didn’t understand it myself.
Of course, I’d gotten the advice I’d been expecting: I needed to talk things out with Troian, to set my boundaries at work if I wasn’t comfortable, and find someone to fill Bas’ vacancy if I didn’t want to pay for the entire apartment by myself.
I wasn’t sure I was interested in looking for a roommate, but I could for sure take the time required to mull things over and figure out what it was I wanted, in all avenues that I’d discussed.
More than anything, it just felt good to talk and have people listen. Bas and I always only had each other, and sometimes it felt like too much of an echo chamber when we talked to one another, knowing that the other would ultimately agree in the end.
After group ended for the night, the long goodbye started.
Some people stuck around to chat and catch up.
And since Bas and I hadn’t been around in a while, people that we recognized from before wanted to talk to us.
I had just escaped another update session, trotting over to the table in the back of the room to grab a cup of coffee and a powdered doughnut, grateful for the second alone.
Bas was a trooper for still conversing with everyone, and I was inclined to leave him to it while I snacked.
Since I’d purged my feelings, or at least most of them that I felt had been holding me back, my soul felt lighter. Lighter than it had since I could remember, but definitely since Bas had declared that he was moving out and my twin brother had decided to be the dark cloud in my life again.
“Thayer.”
The uttering of my name in a happy tone caught me off guard, and I turned away from the refreshments table to see the smile of an older gentleman with smooth dark skin. Wiping the powder that I was sure on my face with the back of my hand, I swallowed my food before giving him a smile.
“Claude,” I noticed his outstretched hand and I shook it quickly to ease the familiar connection from growing awkward. “It’s good to see you.”
Claude was in charge of leading group. He’d been with the community center for way longer than when Bas and I had first shown up to be a part of the group.
There was something nurturing about Claude’s energy, warm and positive.
He was a driving force around why I’d stuck around with group even after Bas had decided to leave before me, and why I’d felt so guilty about leaving myself when I had.
He was such a positive force and everyone here was lucky to have a man like him guiding them to the better versions of themselves if they were open to meeting them.
“You as well,” Claude said with a wide beam of a smile, clapping a hand on my shoulder comfortingly. “I was surprised to see you and Bas this morning.”
“Yeah, Bas just came as my emotional support.” I laughed nervously. “This was really for me.”
“Well, I’m glad you both came and that, hopefully, you were able to get some things off your chest.”
“Definitely.” I nodded back, meaning it with every fiber of my being. “Thanks for letting us come back without any sort of complication.”
“You both are always welcome here, you know that.” Claude tilted his head, squaring his black eyes so that he could peer into mine.
“At least, I would hope you know that.” His curly mop of dark hair wavered as he scoffed while running a hand through it.
It was something I tended to do myself, so I was acutely aware that he was nervous about what he was about to say next.
“Actually, I wanted to tell you something, now that we’re alone. ”
Panic throbbed in my skull like burning ends of magma attached to the inner workings of my bone marrow.
I couldn’t think of a single thing that Claude could have to talk to me about, so I just gave him a nod.
Hopefully after today, after this meeting, I’d stop being so goddamn jumpy around topic changes.
“Your brother stopped by the other day.”
My brow quirked as my brain itched with impossibility.
How the fuck had Troian found this group?
This specific group? The group that I’d come to speak with during our parents’ death, the group that had heard about how my own twin had swindled me out of my cut of the life insurance money our parents had left us?
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, actually, I suppose he could have been a long-lost relative or some type of eerily accusative doppelg?nger,” Claude laughed at his own attempt to ease the tension. “But he had your face, save for the longer hair.”
“Yeah, that’s Troian.” I affirmed, my eyes staring back at him so sharply that if they were able to, they’d easily cut the glass put before them. “What did he want?”
“I don’t think he knew you even came here, not by the conversation.”
“Then how the hell did he happen to find this exact group?”
“I’m assuming the same way you did?” Claude huffed with a smile. “A quick search for a local grief group and we’re going to pop up.”
I suppose that made more sense than the plot I was concocting in my head, the one where Troian was so obsessed with making things okay between us again that he was hunting down every fucking place I’d ever been and trying to infiltrate it as a way to either irritate me into submission to hear him out or to make his way into my life by any means necessary.
Claude was right, that’s how I’d found the group, just by searching for local help that I was desperate to find, desperate to have heal the dark spots on my soul.
Luckily, it’d worked. I just wasn’t sure that it could do the same for my brother and I’s relationship.
As I’d explained during my turn talking in the group, Troian had betrayed me in the worst way.
And I’d resigned to the fact that there was nothing I could do to help him get through his substance abuse.
I’d tried and tried repeatedly, and I’d been repeatedly scorned, the mental burns still relevant on my psyche.
I wanted to accept that he had changed, that he was different now.
But I was scared as fuck that I’d be scorched again and I’d have to start all over.
“Do you…know why he was looking for a place like this?”
“The reason everyone does,” Claude said with a sympathetic smile, releasing his hold on my shoulder.
“He is looking for someone to talk to, to listen to his story and to find a way to move on from it. I truly don’t think he knew you even came here, Thayer.
He didn’t mention you at all, just that he was hoping the group was open to new faces, which I told him we were.
Luckily, this was right when the center opened, so no one saw him and thought he was you. ”
“Well that’s a relief, I guess.” I scoffed, running a hand through my black hair.
“What I’m trying to say, is that clearly both of you need to talk about what’s happened between you over the years. You’re both yearning to speak about the other but for reasons that are very valid to both of you, you haven’t been able to break down the barrier to make it happen.”
Fuck, I hated how good Claude was at reading people’s problems back to them.
While I felt lighter having spoken my truth and my fears to the group, I couldn’t deny his words.
I needed to speak to Troian about everything and I needed to be open and willing to hear Troian’s side of things just as badly.
It was finally time for me to learn about what my twin had been through in the five years we’d gone no contact.