Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
I arrived home from North Dakota a week ago and haven’t gone much of anywhere since, other than my bed and my couch. When Pamela texted me to come into work, I replied that I was sick. I’m still working, though. Doing the bare minimum needed to keep the company from collapsing in on itself.
If I had trained someone on my job, I could take time off to mourn.
The mocking thought fills my stomach with sickening guilt. What is wrong with me? I’m more seriously considering a break from work due to Dom and me imploding than I did when my brother passed away.
I’m a mess. A wreck. And I still haven’t cried.
With all the aimless drifting my mind and body take part in, I might as well be a ghost living in Vulture City.
A pounding knock on my door jerks me from a half-sleep state. I unearth myself from the mound of blankets I entombed myself in sometime after finishing my last work task. Submitting data reports drains me in a way it didn’t used to.
All I want is to sleep and not dream.
The knock comes again, and I glance at the oven clock, which tells me it’s just past seven. I slept for two hours. This has become a habit lately. Spending my evenings either asleep or in a groggy half-conscious state. Waking up just enough to go eat something, go through my nightly routine, then tuck myself into my bed and attempt to sleep some more.
Another knock.
“Coming,” I shout, my voice croaky.
Jeremy is going to want fancy cheese. As I push to my feet, I try to remember the last time I went to the store. I’m not sure I even have a basic cheddar.
I’ll need to distract him before he asks. He’ll know something is wrong if he finds out I don’t have cheese. Then he’ll pry. Jeremy will find a way to make me admit what I did. That I blew up at the guy I kept secret from my friends. That I tore into the man I was falling in love with—again—the minute he messed up.
I’ll have to say it all out loud.
Have to face what I knew from the start but tried to forget: Dom and I will never work.
Maybe I can convince Jeremy we’re better off ordering takeout.
“I don’t…” I start speaking the moment I pull open the door, but my words trail off when I realize the person on the other side isn’t my dairy-mooching friend.
Adam Perry stares at me, concern creasing his forehead as his eyes take me in. “Hell, Maddie. You look like—”
A sharp cough cuts him off, and I realize both twins are on my doorstep. Carter slips around Adam and offers a soft smile. “Hey, Maddie. You look tired. Did we wake you up?”
“Uh…yeah.” Dazed, I flick my eyes between the two Perry boys and wonder if I’m still dreaming. “You’re here. In Seattle.” Look at me, stating the obvious. But a part of me wonders if I did fall asleep in my blanket pile and I’m living out an odd dream.
“We wanted to see you,” Adam explains.
“Can we come in?” Carter asks. “Or take you out for food?”
As much as I don’t want to leave my condo, or do much of anything really, I also can’t stand the idea of these two men poking around my place when I haven’t even run my robot vacuum in days. Plus, I can’t feed them here.
“Food sounds good.” I glance down at myself and realize I’m wearing the same shirt I fell asleep in last night. “Let me change.”
Carter, who I always thought was the more perceptive of the two, slaps a hand onto his brother’s shoulder, guiding Adam toward the elevator. “We’ll sit in the car. Green Honda parked half a block to the right of the front door.”
I nod, shut my door, and suck in a shaky breath that barely fills my lungs.
“Get changed. Get food. Thank them for coming. Send them home.” Having the simple list of tasks helps me focus and get my feet moving. In my closet, I realize I’ve neglected laundry along with everything else. I pull on a sweatshirt with no shirt and no bra underneath, and a neon pink pair of athletic leggings I bought for my gym training with Jeremy.
Not runway ready, but at least both items smell clean.
I find the car easily and reach for the door to the back seat, only for the passenger side to open.
“Come on, Maddie!” Adam calls from behind the wheel. “You’re riding shotgun.”
I smooth away a grimace. So much for my hope to quietly fade into the background while the twins talk to each other. This will put me right in the middle of the group.
Surprisingly, once I’m settled and strapped in, Adam doesn’t immediately start with jokes or probing questions. Instead, he pulls on to the road and types in a familiar business into his GPS.
Taco Bell
I almost smile. Almost.
But the expression feels like a muscle movement I don’t know how to accomplish. Like I’ve forgotten.
We drive to the food chain in silence. Adam orders for us at the drive-through, getting the same selections we’d always choose all those years ago.
It’s strange how I can feel so empty, yet also have this uncomfortable pressure in my chest.
I got dressed. We got food. Now I just thank them for coming and send them home.
My throat clearing sounds overly loud in the small car.
“Thank you for visiting, but—”
“You stopped answering my texts.” Adam speaks over me, cutting off my attempt to create distance.
A guilty blush infuses my face. In my defense, I stopped answering most everyone’s texts. Communicating about anything not related to work just seemed so…insurmountable.
Especially with Dom’s name continuing to appear on my phone.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” Will I, though?
“Maddie.” Adam taps his thumb on the steering wheel. “This isn’t the first time you’ve ghosted me.”
At this rate, I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat anything, guilt twisting my insides into an indigestible tangle. I never let myself think about the effect my permanent departure had on the twins, I was so focused on my own heartache.
“I know. That was a shitty thing to do.” But apparently on brand. Because I’m a shitty person who blows up at a man I care about and drops her brother’s ashes in the dirt and can’t cry even though the most important person in her life is dead.
“I think it was self-preservation,” he says.
I blink at Adam, not sure I heard him properly.
“What?”
But I don’t get my answer right away, because he takes a large bite of his burrito and chews slowly. Only once the guy swallows does he clarify.
“I panicked,” he says. “After that summer, when you stopped answering our texts. I thought something happened to you. I begged Dom to drive me out to Seattle when I found out you moved there, so I could check on you.”
“You did?” My throat tightens, and I palm my inhaler in my sweatshirt pocket. I don’t trust my lungs to function in emotional situations.
He throws me a rueful smile. “In case it wasn’t obvious, I used to be slightly obsessed with you, Maddie Sanderson.” He grimaces. “A Perry trait, turns out.” Before I can think of a response to that, Adam shakes his head and continues. “But when Dom realized how serious I was, he sat me down and told me it was his fault you left. That he pissed you off and did something unforgivable, and you didn’t want to be around him.” Adam rubs his thumb over his bottom lip in an agitated gesture. “I was livid. I didn’t speak to him for a month. But I never blamed you.”
My whole body aches at his admission. “You should have. Even if I was mad at Dom, I shouldn’t have cut you both out, too. I shouldn’t have left…” I trip over the realization as I say it but keep speaking anyway. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
Fucking hell. I left.
I did to Adam and Carter what everyone in my life had always done to me.
Adam reaches over to take my hand, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. “Dom never told us what he did to piss you off, but I can guess. And he did it again, didn’t he?”
He chose Rosaline over me.
At least, that’s how it felt when I was standing in the peacock bedroom all alone and he said her name. Said he wasn’t coming, and it was because Rosaline needed him at their house.
“I’ll answer your calls,” I say instead of answering Adam’s question. “And your texts. I swear. And I’ll visit you. I want to come see your workshop.” He told me about the studio space he’s renting, and I bet it’s full of amazing creations and smells like freshly cut wood.
Adam squeezes my hand again. “Cool. I’d like that. And you can come with me to cheer on his slow ass at his next swim competition.” Adam throws a thumb toward his twin in the back seat. “But we’re talking about you.”
I flick my eyes to the rearview mirror and meet Carter’s gaze. Sometimes he’s so quiet I could forget he’s back there.
But I never do.
“How’s life, Carter?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle in a knowing smile. My attempted subject change was kind of obvious.
“Okay. Trying to figure out if Adam and I need to Saran Wrap Dom’s car.”
I groan and let my head drop to the dashboard, bombarded with bittersweet memories of the Perry prank antics.
“Don’t do that. Dom technically didn’t do anything wrong. Not this time anyway. I just…” I suck in a shuddering sigh. “We were starting something. And I realized it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?” Adam asks, the question slightly garbled because the temptation of Taco Bell was too much, and he’s taken another bite of his burrito.
I shrug. “We don’t work. For a lot of reasons.” Mainly mine. I’m the problem.
“Does being with Dom make you happy?” Adam asks, like that’s the simplest question to answer.
“Being with Dom makes me…” So many different things.
Happy. Aggravated. Exhilarated. Angry. Giddy.
But mostly…terrified.
“Spending time with Dom made it clear we won’t work,” I finally land on. “And that’s okay.” Please let me be okay. Let me survive this. “But that’s between your brother and me. It doesn’t affect how I feel about you two. It shouldn’t have back then. And I won’t let it now.”
I make sure to meet both their eyes in turn. “Thank you for coming. Really. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Adam reaches over to squeeze my knee. Carter does the same to my shoulder, then leans forward, shoving his shoulders between our seats and pressing buttons on the screen until he connects his phone to the car Bluetooth.
“Since Adam picked the food, we pick the music.”
It’s an old refrain that has my heart clenching in nostalgic joy. A moment later, the Wicked soundtrack starts up and Carter cranks the volume. Adam groans at first, but it’s not long before he’s belting out about defying gravity along with us.
As we eat greasy food and pretend we’re Broadway stars, the pressure in my chest eases, and the emptiness…Well, it doesn’t disappear.
But the gaping hole of sadness lessens. Just a touch.
Because in this moment, I’m not alone. Not only did the twins not abandon me, but they also both sought me out when I left them. They held on to me.
And in this moment, they feel a lot like brothers.