Chapter 40
Cole
SOME KIND OF MAGIC
Ariana looks like she’s going to pass out.
I thought she knew about Miles. Maybe not all the details, but at the very least aware of who he was.
I was wrong.
Our age difference never feels significant.
Probably because I’m not the maturest. But she would’ve been just a baby when the accident happened.
Enough time to pass for it to not be the most talked about topic in town.
Enough time for the story to have faded long before she was old enough to hear it through the town gossip mill.
All but erased from conversation, as though not speaking of him might somehow protect those of us he left behind.
And now the years separating us feel an ocean apart.
An entire life existed in the space between us—someone she never knew about. Someone she’ll never know.
“You’re a twin?” she says on a sob, her blue eyes welling with tears, the whites gone red. She’s clutching her chest like she can’t take in enough oxygen.
I can’t stand to see her this upset, it physically pains me.
And I’m not able to gauge whether she’s angry with me or not, but I don’t care. I have to hold her. I need to hold her.
The moment I tug her into my arms, she comes willingly, and my erratic heartbeat starts to steady.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my words muffled from my lips being pressed against her hair. “I don’t talk about him.” I suck in a wobbly breath, repressed emotions surfacing like a flash flood. “It’s too hard.”
“You’re apologizing to me?” She pulls back, tears streaking down her face. “How did I not know? His name is familiar to me now that I hear it, but I swear I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
I cradle her wet cheeks in my palms, locking my eyes with hers to stop her from descending further into panic.
“Ariana. Stop. I thought you knew, but I’m not upset that you don’t.
You would have no memory of that time and it’s not as if me or my family is big on advertising it.
We don’t talk about him a lot. It’s the worst thing that ever happened to us. ”
“Wh-What happened?” her voice trembles out. A moment later, she claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Hey.” I run my hands gently up and down her arms. “You can ask me anything. Always.” I pause, gathering myself. “I wasn’t intentionally keeping this from you. I just try not to think about him. About that day. But I should’ve told you a long time ago and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
She looks up at me, blinking hard, and I close my eyes and inhale slowly before I continue.
“It was an accident. He was riding his bike in the dark and got hit by a car.” I swallow, giving myself a second.
“He died on impact.” Pausing, I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
“The driver was a tourist passing through. Didn’t even see him in the dark.
He was devastated—came to the funeral, kept in touch with my parents for years after.
It was just a freak accident. No one to blame, which somehow makes it harder. ”
She releases a quiet gasp, barely a breath.
“It was the morning of our eleventh birthday.” A dry sound slips out of me—something between a humorless laugh and a disbelieving whoosh of air.
“He wanted to get to the card shop the second it opened. To get me a birthday present. A new release of baseball cards. We’d both spent the summer mowing lawns and had a little money saved up.
It was the first year we were each going to buy the other something.
” My lips tighten into a thin line. “He never made it. Barely got downtown before it happened.”
Ariana looks frozen, shocked by the information.
“So that’s why,” I say finally. “That’s why I don’t celebrate.
Every year I go to his grave instead, because I’ve always spent my birthday with him and I always will.
” I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, before sliding a finger down her jaw to tip her chin up.
“This year I wasn’t going to mention it.
But I had planned to spend it with you too.
” I exhale slowly. “It’s not my favorite day, and I don’t know that it ever will be.
But being with you makes the weight of his loss easier to carry.
You make the darkness of those memories easier to bear just by being here. Just by being mine.”
“How are you functioning?” she cries out. “I don’t even know who I would be without Layla. My biggest fear is existing without her, being a twinless twin. How do you smile and laugh and go on? I’m amazed by you.”
I can’t help the twitch of my lips, the small, strained smile about to break free.
“If you recall, I wasn’t functioning all that well.
Meaningless flings, actively avoiding connection.
Hell, I don’t even have close friends. Ethan is my closest friend besides Wyatt and Blake, and he doesn’t like me very much. ”
“But you do such a good job running Benton and you’re funny and charming and no one would ever know you had gone through something like that.”
She’s gaping at me like I’m someone to be admired, when the reality is far from it.
I’ve been a shell of a man for so long, I don’t know if I remember what it’s like to feel whole.
But I know I’m more complete when I’m with her.
Like she fills all the hollowness inside me.
She’s brought me to life, and I’m not sure it’s dawned on me until this very moment.
“I’m great at masking,” I explain. “And I try not to let it consume me. It’s not easy by any means, but it has gotten easier over time.
After I turned twenty-two, that hit me harder than any birthday before it.
Because that was the year I realized I had officially lived longer without him than I ever had with him. ”
She sniffles, her face overcome with a painful understanding I think only someone who’s a twin could resonate with. “Is that why you never wanted a future with someone? Because of Miles?”
I nod. “My parents took it really hard, obviously. But in their grief they forgot they still had children who were grieving too. I was just a kid, and it was the greatest loss of my life, but no one seemed to register how profound it was for me specifically. I’d never experienced death before, and he was my twin.
It was like losing a limb. But instead of being allowed to fall apart, I threw myself into taking care of my siblings because someone had to.
I was the oldest now—Miles had been older than me by a few minutes.
” I pause, trying to speak through the lump in my throat.
“It took my parents a long time to wake up and remember they still had kids to raise. By then the damage was done. Now my mother tries too hard, like she can parent her way back to the time she lost. And my dad—my dad doesn’t know how to talk to me at all.
Miles and I were identical. When he looks at me he sees a ghost. He sees everything Miles will never get to become.
” I swallow roughly. “I think it breaks him every single time. And I’ve spent most of my life trying to be enough but never coming close. ”
I move to sit on the edge of the bed, the weight of everything I just said suddenly draining me.
She comes with me, settling into my lap and curling into me, her arms slipping around my neck as her cheek rests against my temple. My arms tighten around her, holding her close.
“I didn’t want to ever hurt that way again,” I continue, “so I protected myself by pushing everyone away. I have no control over the love I feel for my family, but beyond that I could choose who I let in—and the truth is I didn’t want to let anyone in.
I treated people like they were disposable so I wouldn’t get invested.
So I wouldn’t care. And then you came along and scared the shit out of me, because for the first time I cared.
I cared too much. You’re the first person I’ve ever been afraid to lose. ”
“You’re not going to lose me,” she says quietly.
My hold on her strengthens. “Maybe not, but for once it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Neither of us says anything for a long while. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about what happened. It’s been even longer since I let myself get emotional about it, but that’s exactly what happens.
The moisture that had been building behind my eyes, held back by a barrier thicker than the wall of a dam, finally breaks loose and I feel a hot, wet streak slide down my cheek.
Ariana captures my face in her hands and brushes it away before trailing soft kisses over the damp line left behind.
I sweep my hand slowly up her back, tracing her spine.
I’ve never been this vulnerable with anyone in my life. Not my parents. Not my siblings. No one.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t—”
“Shh,” Ariana hushes soothingly. “It’s okay. You can let it all out and I won’t tell a soul. You’re safe with me.”
God, I don’t deserve her. Her kindness. Her compassion.
Her heart. Her mind. Her body. None of it.
There are better men out there. Saints and heroes, good men who make a difference.
And yet she’s mine, she chose me back and I’m more determined than ever to be deserving of her.
To be the kind of man worthy of her love, because she already has mine.
I’m so in love with Ariana. I think I fell in love with her that morning she hummed me awake, covered in flour, completely unaware of the broken man next door who couldn’t take his eyes off her.