Chapter Thirty Mary
Chapter Thirty
Mary
Three years ago
My mother had been right. The epic fall she predicted came about seven months after their unannounced visit—and it arrived in a very biblical sense.
Walter McFurrypants needed a walk. Over the months that Brad and I had been seeing each other, I’d often step in as the de facto human in his schnauzer’s life, wearing the hats of dog walker, feeder, cuddler.
That night I was already in the lobby, just getting home from yoga, when I heard the ping of a text.
Brad was stuck in a late meeting; would I please stop by his place to tend to the pup?
Easy enough. I just hopped off the elevator two floors earlier than usual and let myself into his apartment with the key I had for exactly this reason.
My four-legged bestie was all over me the second I walked through the door with tail wags and kisses.
“Who’s the good boy?” I cooed. “Were you a good boy today while Daddy was at work? Good boys get cook-keys!” I drawled, breaking up the word cookies into two as I made a show of reaching into the jar that housed his treats.
That was when I heard voices coming from the bedroom, where Walter often napped during the day—and often rolled onto the TV remote if it happened to be on the bed.
I put my hands on my hips and looked down at him. “Were you watching Jeopardy! again?”
His nails clicked on the hardwood floors as he followed me out of the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hall to the bedroom, where I pushed open the unlatched door.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
For a moment, I genuinely thought I was looking at a reflection—some trick of angles or mirrors or fluorescent glare.
Brad was sitting on the edge of the bed.
A woman was standing between his knees.
Her hands were in his hair.
His were on her hips.
Her face was tilted toward his.
Her mouth was pressed to his.
And she could’ve been my twin.
Because she was my twin.
Sam jerked back when she heard the sound I made—some awful little animal noise in the back of my throat. Brad blinked up, dazed, lips still parted from the kiss he hadn’t stopped.
Then the recognition hit him, hard and ugly.
“Mary?” he choked out, scrambling to stand. “Mary—wait—I didn’t—she—”
Sam swiped her thumb over the corner of her mouth, like brushing away proof.
“Relax,” she muttered. “It was just a kiss. I was proving a point.”
Brad rounded on her. “A point? Sam, what the hell—she’s your—”
“My sister,” Sam cut in sharply, not at all ashamed. “Exactly. Which is why it took you way too long to figure out who you were kissing.”
He paled, looking between the two of us. “I thought it was you—she said she was you!”
“Really?” I asked. “What about that text?”
He looked perplexed. “Text? What text?”
I saw then how it must have happened. My twin knew exactly when I’d be home from yoga. She was probably tracking my phone, waiting for the right moment to text me. Or, rather, to pretend to be Brad texting me.
“What’d you do—wait till he went to the bathroom and take his phone?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Whenever he comes to our place from work, he heads straight to the kitchen for a beer. He didn’t disappoint.”
“And the code to his phone?”
Sam scoffed. “Please. Pathetically easy. Your birthday. Our birthday, actually,” she corrected.
Brad stared at her, horrified. “Christ, Sam, you’re out of your mind.”
Her expression flickered—something hurt and furious and fragile all at once.
I didn’t give either of them a chance to say more. Walter was barking somewhere behind me, picking up on my panic. I scooped him up, turned, and left.
It was the only way to keep from screaming every hurt I’d swallowed since the day she showed up.
Walter and I took a long, slow walk around the neighborhood so I could untangle and process what had happened.
More than an hour later I was able to return home—my home, not his.
The apartment was dark except for a single lamp in the living room.
Sam sat curled on the couch, socked feet tucked under her, twisting a tissue between her fingers.
Her eyes were red.
Mine probably weren’t much better.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
I bypassed her, went straight to the kitchen, and poured myself a shot of rum. Then another. Then a third.
Only when I felt something like steadiness return did I sit across from her, Walter crawling into my lap.
“I’m done,” I said softly.
Sam’s face tightened. “Done with what?”
“This,” I said, motioning between us. “Us. Whatever this is.”
“I didn’t sleep with him,” she blurted. “I didn’t—Mary, I wouldn’t—”
“You kissed him,” I said. Calm. Too calm. “You put on my clothes. You acted like me. And you kissed him.”
“That’s all it was,” she insisted, voice cracking. “One kiss. One! I pulled away first! I only wanted you to see—”
“What?” I asked. “That he’s human? That he’s flawed? That he can make a stupid split-second mistake when a beautiful girl throws herself at him?”
Her chin trembled. “I wanted you to see that he didn’t deserve you.”
I stared at her for a long, heavy beat.
“And what if I’d married him?” I asked quietly. “What if he’d been part of my future?”
Her mouth opened and closed.
And then I saw it—all of it:
The fear of being left.
The fear of not mattering.
The fear of losing the only bond she’d ever had.
Her tears spilled over. “Where am I in that life, Mary? You only just found me. We only just—God, I thought maybe we were finally—” She swallowed. “I don’t want to lose you.”
And damn it, that almost broke me.
But I couldn’t save her at the cost of myself.
“I’m going home,” I said. “To Florida. To my life.”
“This is your home!” she shot back, but her voice wobbled. “With me. We’re supposed to—”
“No,” I whispered. “Not anymore.”
Her face crumpled for half a second before she rebuilt it brick by brick.
“Fine,” she said, too bright, too brittle. “Good luck with everything, then.”
But her voice betrayed her. It wasn’t anger.
It was devastation.
I clipped Walter’s leash on.
She stood, fists tight at her sides. “Where are you going?”
I didn’t turn around.
“To say goodbye to the love of my life,” I muttered, walking out before she shattered completely—and took me with her.