Chapter 18
Gia
“Aren’t you freezing?”
My sister’s question makes me blink back into reality. “Sorry, what?”
Ginny is standing at her back door with her arms pinned tightly across her chest. Her blue sweatshirt matches her joggers. She looks perfectly put together, even though she’s wearing comfy clothes.
Then there’s me. With my ratty T-shirt and baggy sweatpants, I look like I haven’t showered in three days. Well…now that I think about it, I’m not sure I have showered in days. Gross.
“I asked if you were cold. It’s like forty-five degrees out here.”
I shrug. “Colorado gave me a whole new perspective on cold.” I’ve got a fuzzy blanket wrapped around me, so it’s not like I’m out in the elements without something warm.
“Come back inside. Nina’s down for her afternoon nap.”
“I don’t want to talk, Gin.”
“I understand. Come inside anyway. I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”
“Such a mother hen now,” I tease as I get up to follow her inside. In the warm air, I realize that I was starting to get cold. I was just too caught up in my thoughts to notice.
Ginny waves me at the big sectional in her living room while she pads into her kitchen.
I can’t see her, but the clanking of pans tells me she actually is going to make hot chocolate.
I hope she’s using Mom’s recipe. She always made me and Ginny hot chocolate when we were having a bad day.
I have no doubt Ginny is channeling her with this move.
It’s not an unwelcome gesture. I haven’t been myself since I came back to Sonoma a few days ago.
I knew leaving would be hard. I just didn’t think I would be this upset over it.
“Here, G.” Ginny hands me a warm mug and then sits next to me with her own mug tucked into her chest. The nickname has a pang of sadness bolting through me. I miss Lauren and Leah even more than I could express.
The heat from the mug seeps into my body like a hug. I take a careful sip, knowing Ginny hasn’t always been the best at cooking. I can’t hide the surprise on my face. “This is perfect. Thank you.”
“Carson’s been teaching me how to cook. I told him this was the one thing I wanted to be really good at making.”
“Well, you’ve officially nailed it. It tastes just like Mom’s.”
Ginny gets a proud grin on her face that makes me smile back at her. We sit in an easy silence, drinking our chocolate and likely both remembering all the times Mom did this for us when we needed a little boost.
“Remember that time—”
“Do you remember when—”
We burst out laughing. Ginny speaks first. “Were you going to ask about that time you, Mom, and I were drinking hot chocolate on the couch, and the three of us started bawling at the ASPCA commercial?”
I start giggling. “Yes. Our cycles had synced, and Dad was horrified.”
“He disappeared for hours. I thought we’d scared him off, but when he came back, he had a million supplies, all of which were our favorites.”
“I’ve never loved him more than after that week. He was such a trooper, staying in the line of fire until we were through it.” He took a lot of hits that week, yet he never wavered in his support for us.
“He set the bar pretty high, didn’t he?”
“And you managed to find a man who has set it even higher for your daughter.” She married our best friend, Carson, this past Christmas. They had a small ceremony with just our family. It was beautiful. I was so proud of Ginny for overcoming her trauma and finally getting everything she deserved.
Ginny’s smile goes gooey. “Yeah, I think I did.”
I set my mug on the end table and scoot over for a cuddle. Ginny sets her cup down and holds her arms open, pulling me in tight against her side.
She doesn’t ask any questions or push me to talk. She just holds me, and to my utter mortification, tears begin to fall without my permission. For the first time since I was a kid, I fall apart in my sister’s arms.
“Oh, G.” Ginny holds me tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. It’s not until my tears have slowed and I’ve cleaned up my nose with the proffered tissue in Ginny’s hand that she says anything else. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say miserably.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you’d actually come home. When we’d talk, I could hear it in your voice that your feelings for Holt were a whole lot bigger than you were saying out loud. I figured you’d make some excuse to stay there longer.”
“I thought about it. My friend Gwen even offered me a place to stay.”
Ginny’s eyebrows raise. “And you still came home?”
I sit up. “Of course I came home. My life is here. Our family, our friends, everything. It’s idiotic to stay in a town I don’t actually live in just because I caught feelings for a guy.”
“And yet you’ve been staying at my house since you got home instead of going back to yours.”
“Well, yeah. I was gone for a month. I missed you, and I wanted to get my fill of baby cuddles.”
Ginny snorts. “Nina doesn’t sit still long enough to cuddle anymore.”
“Okay, that’s true, but I still missed you.”
“And I missed you too, but I think you’re purposefully ignoring the real reason you’re here.”
“And that is?”
“That your heart is broken, and you need me to make you feel better.”
I scoff. “Oh, please. I do not have a broken heart. I might’ve liked Holt a little more than any other guy I’ve ever slept with, but to say my heart is broken is a bit of a stretch.
All we had was sex. Nothing more. And if I came here for you to make me feel better, you’re doing a terrible job of it. ”
As the words come out, I know they aren’t true.
It was more than sex between Holt and me.
My feelings had been steadily growing from the first night I spent at his house.
I’ve been shoving the emotions into the far recesses of my mind to try to protect myself, but Ginny’s right.
My heart cracked the second I got on that airplane.
I just haven’t allowed myself to accept it.
I’ve avoided dating for this very reason.
Why would I willingly put myself into a situation where I’d likely get hurt? It was beyond stupid of me. I’m crying in my sister’s arms over a goddamn man when I swore I’d never do this to myself. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
There’s a kernel of dread in the pit of my stomach that won’t go away, no matter what I do to rationalize my decision. I know I made the right choice in coming home. And yet, a growing part of me isn’t so sure this is my home anymore.
Ginny’s tone loses the soft edge it had. “You know I will always be here for you, but I refuse to keep my mouth shut when you’re self-sabotaging. You came home because you’re terrified of letting yourself fall for Holt.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I move away from Ginny, my insides crawling with how close she’s getting to the truth.
She follows, kneeling on the floor in front of me and grabbing my hands in a tight grip.
“Gia, I’m your twin sister. I probably know you better than you know yourself.
Being identical has sucked for you since my career took off.
I watched you withdraw from the world, day by day, as I got more popular, and it killed me that I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“I know you’re constantly mistaken for me, no matter what you do, so you created a spiky armor to protect yourself from all the douchebags who try to use you.
I don’t blame you in the slightest. I’d have done the same thing, but the problem is, you never learned how to take it off—even when it’s safe to. ”
I bite my lip when it starts to tremble.
I’ve cried enough for one day. More tears aren’t going to make anything better.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Ginny’s seen right through me all this time.
I’d hoped that I’d been keeping my struggles to myself because I never wanted her to think I wasn’t genuinely happy she’d become a successful singer.
I’m so fucking proud of her for living out her dreams. I had no desire to make my problem hers.
Now, she’s telling me she’s seen straight through me all this time. She’s right in that there wasn’t anything she could have done about it. Telling people to stop being assholes is about as effective as a boat with a hole in the bottom.
“I wasn’t trying to push everyone out. It just…
became easier. If I didn’t let anyone get close, I never had to see their disappointment when I wasn’t what they wanted.
I loved that you and I were polar opposites.
It gave us space to be our own people growing up, but when I went to college, everyone expected me to be just like you.
They wanted the experience of being with ‘Virginia Miller’ since they never stood a chance of actually being with you. ”
“People suck.”
I huff out a laugh. “Agreed.”
“You told me the people in Pine Creek Falls never made you feel like they wanted you to be me.”
“That’s true. They didn’t want all the gossip about me because they thought it would give them insight into you. In fact, I think Holt’s girls were the only ones who even made the connection. Everyone else either didn’t notice or didn’t care.”
“That’s pretty major, G.”
“Yeah.” Silence stretches between us as Ginny patiently waits for me to get my thoughts in order. “I was scared that if I stayed, he’d get tired of me. What if it doesn’t work out and I uproot my whole life for nothing?”
“Would you truly be moving solely for Holt?”
“Well…no, actually. I really like Gwen. And Charlie has become a good friend too. The crochet club invited me to join them. They’re a hilarious group of women who mostly gossip while they pretend to do crafts at the coffee shop.”
“So the only thing keeping you here is that we live here?”
“I mean, this is our hometown. It’s home.”
“Gia. You have never once considered joining a social club here. Yet you only spent four weeks in Pine Creek Falls and you’re thinking about joining a crafting club?”
“I just said they offered, not that I was going to join.”
Ginny looks at me like I’m being purposefully obtuse. She’s right. I had entertained the thought of going to a few of their gatherings.
“But what about you and Nina and our friends and the babies they’re going to have? I’ll miss all of it.”
“So…here’s a crazy concept. They invented these things called planes. You can travel really far, really fast. It’s incredible.”
I roll my eyes. “Smartass.”
Ginny laughs. “I also should disclose the fact that I’m stupidly rich, just in case you didn’t know. I’ll fly you home any time you want to come.”
“I can pay for my own flights.”
“You can, but I don’t want you to use that as a reason why you can’t see if Pine Creek Falls is supposed to be your new hometown.”
“Do you really think this is something I should do?”
She shrugs. “I think you’ll regret it if you don’t.”