3. Hiding
Hiding
Zade
Z ephyr looks at me with mild panic in his eyes. My eyes slide down his bare chest and I quickly look away. I wonder if the reason he doesn’t have any tattoos is because he wanted us to be as distinguishable as possible. The chasm between us widens.
I’m sorry .
I don’t know how I got here or where here is exactly. I thought I ran blindly from the house, but it appears my twin switched to my true north and I wound up running toward his place.
My lips twist into a scowl. I haven’t visited his apartment since Mom roped me into helping with the move. It’s a place I avoid just as he avoids coming home outside of holidays.
We’re like two damn ships passing in the night, pretending the other doesn’t exist. Until now. Fuck.
Can you not tell Mom about this ? I sign in a hurry, a flush crawling across my face. I don’t want to explain this to her or have her pressure me into asking my doctor to increase my meds. That’s the one downside to living at home.
Yes, she can talk me down, but it’s harder to hide lapses from her and she has a hard time turning off her clinical brain. I don’t want to increase my meds and feel like a damn robot.
“Whatever,” Zephyr says in a flat tone. And we’re back to familiar ground. Experiencing empathy or comfort from him is too weird, something outside of our norm. I don’t like it and it’s clear it made him uncomfortable, too.
Something shiny catches my eyes, and I look beyond him to the discarded knife. One of my brows raises.
Planning my murder, brother? I joke, a half-smile curling my lips. A full smirk spreads across his face, a twinkle dancing in his eyes.
“If I were, you’d never know it. Or see it coming,” he deadpans, and the hairs on my nape stir. He sounded a little too serious for my liking. My head tilts, eyes racing across familiar features.
Is there more to my brother? Is he more like the Lashers after all?
The moment passes when his eyes shift away, a hand waving toward the door.
“Do you mind? You interrupted my shower, and it looks like you’re in need of one.
” Blue eyes dart back toward me, staring at my black hoodie meaningfully.
My core body temperature might be running a little high, and I hadn’t noticed.
Maybe it was more than my hallucinations that made my skin clammy.
I’d forgotten about the heat wave we’re in the middle of.
I walk toward the door wordlessly. There really aren’t any words I could say, even if I were capable. Zephyr and I share zero interests.
“He’s hiding something.”
Halting, I jerk my head back to him, raising my hands to sign and cursing myself for listening to the damn voice.
I saw a woman on my way in. That’s how I knew your door was still open. Is she your girlfriend?
I don’t know why I asked. It’s not like I care. The oddity of it struck me is all. In our high school years, I saw how people flocked to him and the charisma he oozed, none of which he directed my way. Apparently, his twin was undeserving of anything beyond bare minimum civility.
But despite his popularity, he never had friends over. Not that I complained. It was a relief not having to socialize or entertain his friends since we shared a room.
So, a girlfriend appeared out of the norm for him.
The longer I think on it, the more I realize my twin never brought a girl home or even took one to a dance.
We both went solo to prom—Mom made it mandatory—and he’d danced and flirted with any female that paid him attention.
But he didn’t appear particularly attached to any of them.
Before my mind can analyze any more of my brother’s social life or lack thereof, he corrects my assumption.
“She’s not my girlfriend. I don’t date.” My brows furrow, and I bring my hands up, but he talks over me, striding toward the door, unabashed in his nudeness.
“I don’t expect a virgin to understand what she was doing here if she’s not my girlfriend,” he says in a snide tone, pulling the door open and gesturing more emphatically for me to leave.
How did you —he cuts me off again.
“You’re running through the streets in one hundred degree weather while wrapped in a hoodie. It doesn’t exactly scream, ‘I know what a clitoris is and how to find it,’” he says, tone flat and eyes emotionless. The longer I stare into them, the more I feel like I’m staring into a wormhole.
Blinking, I break our stare, an unsettling intuition tugging at me. I might’ve been wrong, but this was the longest time we willingly spent in each other’s company without other people around, allowing me to focus on my twin and the things that didn’t add up about him.
There’s a higher possibility now than before that he might not be as normal as I thought. I walk out of the door without glancing back or rising to his bait, feeling his eyes boring into me the entire time.
The sensation is like icy fingers trailing down my spine, like I was turning my back on a killer instead of my brother.
Soriah
Well, dinner’s quieter than normal. If I didn’t know any better, my upcoming departure has depressed everyone. Mom doesn’t say much, slowly sipping from a glass of wine, and Dad’s eyes bounce around the room, but I don’t think it’s because he’s hallucinating .
My eyes land on Zade, sitting across from me, who’s also not talking. Not that he can talk.
God. That sounded mean-spirited, and it wasn’t. He just appears more brooding than usual, glaring down at the helping of mashed potatoes on his plate like it threatened to kill our entire family. Tattooed fingers clutch a butter knife and spoon in each hand.
I force my eyes away from his hands and back down to my own plate of food that hasn’t disappeared much.
Zade’s... handsome. A sister can admit that. He’s got an even, sharp jawline and long dark lashes that’d make any woman jealous. Those startling green eyes of his cause my skin to flush at times. There’s an intensity to them I can’t quite put my finger on.
But lately, I feel as if he’s avoiding me, quickly disappearing when he spots me in a room or shutting himself in his own room and only coming down for “family dinner.” My eyes drift to the empty seat next to him.
Zephyr hardly ever comes over for dinner, and isn’t he family?
But no one complains, and I wonder if they get the same unnerving feeling as I do whenever he’s around, like a bomb ticking silently or a lion casually looking over its prey.
He and Zade are my brothers, and they couldn’t be more different than night and day.
They may share some features, but that’s about it.
Heat blooms in my cheeks as I think about the photos of Zephyr that my friend Tanya showed me.
It’s clearly not an exaggeration to say my brothers are hot enough to be models. Zephyr’s making a career of it.
But no lighting or makeup can hide that dead look in his eyes. He’d never hurt me or said mean things like I’d expect an older brother to do, but he wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming either, despite knowing me my entire life.
When Zade’s not brooding like tonight, he’s usually the brother I’d go to each and every time I needed something without wanting to ask our parents. Or he’d let me climb into his twin bed when we were younger if I had a bad dream and didn’t want to crawl into our parents’ bed.
His gentle hands would stroke my back, holding me close, and oddly, his silence was comforting, too. Not that he could ask me what was wrong without the use of his hands, but I guess he’s well-versed in needing comfort when something’s haunting you.
His and Dad’s diagnosis isn’t a secret in our family, but it is something my mom tries to shield me from. Even Zade doesn’t come near me in the days following an episode.
Maybe that’s why he’s avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes at the table. Maybe it could be my turn to comfort him. I make a promise to myself to knock on his bedroom door after dinner to check on him. I suspect if I ask him now in front of Mom and Dad, he’d lie and sign “nothing.”
To say we prize mental health in this family, we sure can be fucking closed off at times.