New River Gorge(ous) (National Parks RomCom #1)

1. Brooke

Brooke

Red paint splatters the floor of my apartment, and I can’t help but notice the way the liquid makes a pattern. It looks like blood. Like this place is a murder scene. It’s fitting, really. My tombstone will say, ‘Here lies Brooke Belle Bastion, beloved twin and serial killer of relationships.’

Dramatic much? Yes. But I don’t care. I’m allowing myself to not care for twenty-four hours.

I’ll lose myself in ice cream topped with M&M’s and hot fudge.

Matt will call tomorrow at eleven a.m. after his gym sessions, and I’ll tell him then.

He’ll come over, and we’ll eat more junk together, and he’ll let me watch Is it Cake?

until everything looks like cake and we’re crazed enough to think we could make hyperrealistic cakes ourselves.

We’ll speak in the ‘twin’ language that no one else understands, and we’ll attempt to make a cake in the shape of a random household object.

Matt will text Mom a picture of the object and said cake (which will not look at all like the object because we’re both terrible bakers), and she’ll laugh, and then he’ll leave to get dinner and work on his business after asking three times in ‘twin’ if I’m ok.

I’ll smile and shove a fistful of the cake in my mouth and assure him that I am.

I’ll be lying, but I’ll also be ready to be alone by then.

Life will go on for everyone else, so why worry them? I’ve got it completely under control. I’ll be cheerful and in charge and not at all bothered by the fact that I had to break off yet another relationship because of … reasons.

I scrub a hand down my face and feel the sticky red paint adhere to my skin. Great, now I look bloody.

I stand up from the easel and retrieve the paintbrush I accidentally knocked to the floor as I let sobs shake my body.

The anxiety I muster through regularly rears its ugly head.

Totally alone, I can finally let things bother me.

And I am bothered. Bothered that I can’t find a man to match my love for adventures, a man to challenge me, to love me —the messy parts and all.

Bothered that my personality has earned me the nickname ‘the general’ and that no man I’ve attempted a relationship with has been willing to match my zest for life and penchant for …

directing situations because the alternative is not knowing what’s going to happen.

I’m good at being in charge. I know that. But wouldn’t it be nice if a man, romantically involved with me, could sometimes at least try ? I’m the opposite of a pushover, but everyone I’ve ever dated cows to my personality, or assumes I’m a conquest.

I’m too big. Too bright. Too forceful. And I try to tone it down, but somehow I always choose the dates, the restaurants, the movies, the adventures.

I get the sense that I make it too easy for other people to follow.

I’m decisive, but not many people are, so it feels weird. I wish I knew what to do differently.

I stand and march to the painting supply drawer under my kitchen sink. I grab an old paint-splattered towel and return to clean up the mess. I’m crouched down on my heels, wiping up the murder scene of Brooke and Stanford’s relationship, when my phone buzzes with an incoming call, startling me.

My elbow slips, and I crash into the leg of the easel. I grab the leg to stop it from tipping, but it’s not enough. The palette flies off its perch and whacks me on the forehead, and paint specks cover everything.

My phone flies off the ledge of the easel and miraculously lands face-up in the mess. I snarl at it, but it’s Matt, so I slide the video call on and bark out a ‘What!?’ in greeting.

Matt is unperturbed by my gruff greeting. “Hey, sis.” His eyes travel down my face, taking in my paint-covered state. He chuckles. “What happened?”

I launch into the whole story about how Stanford Jopman is not the man for me.

How he picked me up for the date I asked him to plan and he waggled his eyebrows and said, ‘Oh, I planned it alright.’ Then he insinuated something extremely crude and not at all what I wanted to do with him, or what I meant when I asked him to plan our date.

Matt’s jaw clenches when I tell him about Stanford’s intentions.

Matt’s no stranger to guys being jerks to me and implying I’m cheap goods.

But at my own request, he’s never gotten violent with any of the guys who’ve treated me like I’m an ice cream sundae—something to consume, then move on to the next thing.

I also have helped the situation by never dating any of his friends. That would have been way too weird.

“Are you ok?” he asks and glances off to the side.

“Who’s with you?” I peer at the screen, as if narrowing my eyes would magically make me see who else is in the room. “It’s not Mom, or Dad, or Joey, or Lizzy.”

Matt shifts a little, and I can no longer see his face. Instead, he has the phone camera pressed up against the gray of his t-shirt. Annoyance flickers in my chest.

The phone shakes and his face comes back into view. “That’s why I was calling, Brooke.” He swallows. “I wanted to tell you that I—” He rubs his jaw. “I met someone.”

My eyes widen, and my goopy paint hand flies to my open mouth without me telling it to do that. My brother, the perpetually single man who’s famous for his two-date ultimatum, is telling me he met someone?

World? What is happening?

The paint gets in my mouth, and I gag at the acrylic taste before running to the sink. I rinse my mouth out and wash my hands, taking my time. I break up with a man, Matt finds someone. Life isn’t fair.

Twins do things together . It’s the whole point.

Obviously we can’t do everything together, but I don’t like this.

At all. The anxiety I corral into a neat pen in the far recesses of my mind escapes.

I spend a moment forcing it back into its cage with deep breaths, but my fingers find my hair and start to tug on the roots, pulling out several of the long blonde strands.

It’s only when I see the pink one in my hand that I stop. Get it together, Brooke .

I paste on a fake smile and return to the phone call. “Is she with you right now?” I ask.

Matt leans back and adjusts the camera so that now I can see him sitting on the couch in his apartment as he wraps his arm around a beautiful brunette woman with her dark hair in a messy bun. She wears a bright blue sleeveless shirt that puts her impressively sculpted arms on display.

“Hi, I’m Melanie,” she says, her voice soft and pleasant.

I do everything I can to push down the flare of jealousy that Matt is leaving me and finding love, and I’m not.

“Hi,” is the only reply I can muster. I know I’m being unreasonable, but I’m still reeling from Stanford.

“Uh. Good talk, then,” Matt interjects, teasing.

“Shut it,” I snap in the unique twin language Matt and I created when we were toddlers. Not even our parents understand it, but we communicate perfectly in ‘twin’.

“Are you guys, like, bilingual?” Melanie asks.

Matt gives me the doom eyes . He told her he had a twin, but he didn’t tell her about our language. Oops, but also, what does he expect by dropping this bomb on me? There has never been a woman he wanted me to meet, let alone a woman snuggled up with him on his couch.

“Sorry, but I have to go. I have paint to mess up. Or wait, mess to paint up, or … I have to go. Bye.”

I hang up the phone before I can say anything else stupid in front of Matt’s girlfriend with the really great arms and really good hair.

I frown at the mess before setting my phone on the counter. Matt was supposed to be my support right now, and he’s gone. I think for a moment about what to do, and I’m kneeling in the smears of paint when my phone rings again.

I throw my hands up, muttering, “I give up! Security deposit, you clearly don’t want to come back to my bank account!”

I stomp to my phone, because I’m allowed dramatics at a time like this, and when I see it’s Mom, I answer.

“Hi, honey,” she says before tilting her head slightly and asking with serious blue eyes, “What’s wrong?”

And at those words, I begin to cry, and cry, and cry. The anxiety escapes again, and I can’t pen it by myself.

Mom says something to someone off the screen, and then I hear her say, “Hold on, I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

My parents live twenty minutes away from my apartment with my two younger siblings, Joey and Lizzy. Joey and Lizzy are not official twins, but they are of the Irish variety—both born in the same calendar year.

Apparently, my parents love having two babies at a time. Twins do that to you. Everything is better doubled. Except when one twin does something without the other. Like falling in love.

I’m slumped on the barstool at the kitchen counter when my mom knocks on my door before letting herself in with the emergency spare key she and my dad have.

“Honey,” she says quietly, opening her arms, and I launch into them. My mother’s hugs are the most powerful force in the world.

Words bubble out as I sink into her safety. “No one ever wants to try for me. Everyone I date just wants one thing, and I don’t do that, and I just asked him to plan a date, and his plans were … not ok with me.”

She rubs soothing circles on my back, and my breathing slows. Eventually the tears subside to quiet sniffles. She leads me to the couch, and I let her.

When she sits down next to me and angles her body so she’s looking into my eyes, my heart is chafed and raw, but also loved. I’m grateful I have a relationship with my mom where I feel safe enough to be myself.

“Brookie. I think it might be a good time for you to go help Meemaw. You’re done with college now, and I know you’re working hard, but you can step away from your waitressing job.

And I actually called earlier to ask if you would consider leaving the cafe, but now I think it’s definitely a good idea. ”

I love my grandmother. I don’t get to see her very often since she lives in West Virginia and I live in Marquette, Michigan.

“Meemaw?” I frown. “Is she ok?”

Mom sighs. “She broke her ankle and she’ll be at a rehab facility after having surgery, but the truth is, she’s getting older in age and values her independence.

The problem is, we can’t tell if she’s losing her faculties and needs to be moved to a care home, or if she’s just becoming more eccentric with her age. ”

“ Even more eccentric?” I ask, visions of Meemaw doing ridiculous things over the years flipping through my mind. Mom nods, and her copper-colored hair shakes in the light. “What does she need?”

“Honestly, she needs someone to live with her. She’s still very independent. You could work around there, just be there as her point of contact in case of emergencies. I think a change of scenery would do you some good.”

I bite my lip. “Ok. But did you know Matt has a girlfriend?”

She nods.

“You knew!” I shriek. “You knew and you didn’t tell me!”

“Matt called to tell me he met the one as soon as he saw her at the gym. He was worried about you taking the news poorly. He knows you haven’t had the best luck with dating.”

That’s one way to put it .

“Ugh. Mom,” I whine. Usually I don’t whine, but I’m allowed to be dramatic right now. “Why does no one want to date me, like date date me?”

“It’s because you haven’t met the right one yet, sweetie.” She stands and looks at the picture I was painting, perched on a three legged easel. It’s a landscape of Lake Superior with a dark red sunset on the horizon. “You could sell these, you know.”

I shrug. “It’s just for me, Mom.” Painting and crocheting keep my hands and mind busy, and that has always helped keep the trichotillomania at bay. The pink hair helps too. I don’t want to pull out a strand that I spent money dyeing.

“That’s fine, sweetie, but you have so much talent.” She stoops down and picks up the supplies I left on the ground after the Leaning Tower of Easel incident. “Would you consider it?” she asks as she arranges the supplies neatly on my counter.

I know she isn’t talking about selling my paintings.

I close my eyes, and as I do, I see a vision of Matt and Melanie getting married and realize that Matt thinks this is the one .

And I have nothing. As my mom kindly pointed out, I don’t have anything that’s really keeping me here.

I mean, I have my family, but I’m a grown twenty-four-year-old woman.

A change of scenery, a way out of the abysmal dating pool I’ve found myself drowning in … I’ll do it.

When I open my eyes and nod at her, she claps her hands. “I’m so glad, Brooke. It will be good for you and Meemaw.”