37. Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Seven
Sara
Joe’s voice is exactly as I remember it. “What's wrong, Sara? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
What’s wrong Sara?
Too many things are wrong.
“You’re not real…You can’t be…” I whisper, more to myself to convince me I don’t need to check into a mental institute as I stand up carefully.
Help, I see dead people.
He laughs… he actually laughs. The sound gripping my organs and ripping them apart as the clouds darken above us.
I can’t move, barely breathe. I’m waiting for my breath to turn into an eerie cold mist as the cold air brushes through my hair, like in Sixth Sense, but nothing happens.
Joe appears before me, made of flesh and bone.
His blond hair loosely combed back, his tall frame.
He’s still impossibly handsome, as he holds his leather jacket in one hand.
He’s lost little weight, but it only accentuates his jawline and bone structure, and each of his defined muscles under his white T-shirt making him look carved by the angels like he’s stepping back from heaven to a GQ magazine photoshoot.
He points to the bouquet of flowers I’m still clutching onto, my grip desperate and trembling.
“Are these an apology for fucking my brother?” he asks, voice low and dangerous.
My mouth falls open, no sound coming out.
The tears I thought had finally dried start flowing again, hot and shameful down my already raw cheeks. Some of them drip off my chin, landing on the petals below.
My blood drains and my legs threaten to give out, but I lock my knees, refusing to crumble in front of him.
“How?” I manage to choke out, my voice a broken whisper. “Why? What is this, Joe?” I ask through gritted teeth, each word laced with pain, sorrow, absolute annihilation.
My fingers crush the delicate stems of the flowers, petals falling like tears to the ground, levitating around us as the weather promises a thunderstorm.
I knew I always hated flowers for the dead.
He takes a step closer, and I flinch.
“Don’t fucking come near me!” I step away back, raising my finger in caution.
The Joe I knew, the Joe I thought was gone forever… He wouldn't be looking at me with such bitter hatred. His eyes, once warm like summer skies, now pierce through me like shards of ice. Who are you?
“Surprised to see me breathing?” His mouth twists into something between a smile and a sneer. “I bet you are. You have an interesting way of grieving.” He chuckles.
“Don’t you dare!” I sob-scream at him, jolting from the lightning in the sky. “How dare you!” I stalk towards him and push his chest hard once, twice, and punch his chest with a sob.
He’s a wall of steel, unbending, and a sentiment I never imagined I'd ever feel for Joe is a blistering rage that creeps up my spine like poison ivy, spreading its tendrils through my ribs and burning a raw, gaping hole into my chest, leaving me vulnerable and waiting for the final thrust of a spear to finish me off completely.
“Wh — why?” I scream my voice screeching with pain, holding my heart slipping through my fingers to hit the pavement.
He steps into me with deliberate slowness, his hand gripping my waist. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. But I promise, I will explain.” His face buries into my neck.
I'm paralyzed, shaking. “J- Joe, I don’t u- understand,” I say, caught between the desperate need to run and the magnetic pull keeping me laced to the ground.
My body betrays me, trembling violently as he inhales me and droplets of rain peppers our skin.
His lavender cologne smacking me in the face with memories, painfully taunting me.
“I missed you, Sara… You have no fucking idea,” he murmurs in my ear, but it sounds like regret and a punishment forthcoming of the revelation.
“Joe, please—” I whisper, but he cuts me off with a sharp shake of his head.
“Let’s go home.” He nods his head towards the car, his voice dangerously calm.
The word home slices through me like a blade. What home?
“But you were—” I start.
“Dead?” His eyebrow arches. “Clearly not. Now, come on. It’s not safe.”
When his hand wraps around mine, I look down to our entangled fingers, the eerie and familiar warmth zaps across my body and I follow his steps, feeling as lost as I ever felt but I drop to my knees, scraping skin against the gravel as I claw at the scattered flowers.
“Let me leave something for my brother,” I choke out, my voice splintering like glass.
“My brother is actually under that dirt.” Joe's eyes flicker with sympathy for a fleeting moment, a kindness I used to adore, yet even a drought holds more water than the depths of his kind heart as he looks at me.
For a second our faces are inches apart, his breath scorching my skin, and I'm drowning in the familiar blue eyes I've cried myself to sleep over for months, months!
They're burning with something feral now, something that makes my blood freeze and I’m hit with a truth, that I loved a man I have never truly known and my heart splits in two with one half reaching toward the Joe I thought buried, and the other half recoiling from this stranger wearing his skin.
We walk to the car after I leave what was left of my pathetic bouquet of flowers on my brother’s grave, with Joe holding my hand tightly in case I was thinking of bolting.
My phone is blowing up, but Joe rips it out of my hands before I can answer Liam.
He’s most likely worrying, and so am I. Is Joe going to hurt me?
That question alone breaks my heart, and now I understand why people have deep trust issues.
“How did you do it?” I ask, as Joe opens the passenger’s door for me, the smell of wet pavement surrounding us as the rain falls harder, and I turn around to face him. He cages me in with one hand.
“Which part, beautiful?” He tilts his head, his thumb tracing my bottom lip, my breath catching.
“Have Liam’s security leaving me here alone?”
“Oh, that was easy. I called that loser Max, and mimicked Liam’s voice. He’s fired for sure.” He smiles, triumphant. “Twins, remember? And I bumped into you earlier, but your so-called bodyguard was a little overprotective.” He pinches his fingers together leaving a small gap.
“Joe… Why?” I take a breath, tears pooling at my eyes, “How could you do this to us?”
“I did what I had to do,” he says firmly, a muscle ticks in his jaw with perhaps an ounce of regret, which leaves me reassured, just a little.
“Get in.” He lifts an eyebrow and removes his arm.
As I spin around to get inside the car, we both hear a metallic click that slices through the air. I freeze instantly.
Joe whirls around with lightning speed, a gun materializing in his hand from somewhere beneath his jacket. My heart hammers against my chest as I see who's standing there, weapon raised.
Liam.
Our eyes lock for a split second, a consolation to see me alive flashes before his gaze shifts to Joe.
The transformation in Liam is immediate and devastating.
His face drains of all color, turning ghostly white and as gray as the clouds above us. His eyes bulge with disbelief, jaw slackening as though he's seeing something his mind simply cannot process.
“What the fuck?” Liam exhales in disbelief, the gun in his hand trembling slightly. “What the actual fuck?”
Joe's mouth curves into that familiar smirk I've seen a thousand times before. His arms open wide like a long-forgotten hug, and I’m quickly relieved he’s not still pointing a gun at Liam.
“Hey, brother. Long time no see,” he says.
Liam's gun wavers between us, his stance rigid, his eyes dart from Joe to me and back, confusion and betrayal warring on his face.
My emotions are getting the best of me as I watch the twins face each other like mirror images distorted by time and secrets.
“Put the gun down, Liam. We have to go, it’s not safe.” Joe lowers his gun with eerie calmness and humor in his throat, as if this is all just a big, massive misunderstanding.
A deafening crack of thunder rips through the sky, illuminating their matching faces in stark white light, and Liam's gun lowers slightly as disbelief overwhelms his training.
“You're supposed to be dead,” Liam hisses, his anger unleashing. “I buried you. We all did.”
Anxiety churns my stomach inside out, acid rising in my throat. “Please stop!” I cry out, my voice breaking. “Both of you, just stop!”
The screech of tires cuts through the rain as a car tear around the cemetery path.
Everything slows to a surreal crawl when the driver's window rolls down, and the glint of a gun appears.
I lunge forward as an overwhelming need to protect him and pure blinding fear electrifies me, but a shot fires, and Liam falls to the ground.
My scream echoes into each grave, waking up the dead, bouncing off marble headstones and shattering the air.
I may have died a thousand lives in one cruel second.
My soul leaves my body as I watch blood bloom across Liam's chest like a terrible, poisonous flower, his eyes wide with shock as he crumples.
“LIAM!” I run to him, but Joe catches me around the waist, his grip bruising.
“Stay back, Sara!” Joe hisses, dragging me toward the car as another shot rings out, missing us by inches and splintering a nearby headstone.
Rain pelts my face, mixing with tears as I thrash against Joe's hold.
“Let me go!” I scream, my voice breaking, raw and desperate.
I can't lose him. I can't. I dig my nails into Joe’s hands and run to Liam on the wet ground, his eyes burning into mine.
“No, no, Liam. You’re not dying on me do you hear me!” I sob, putting pressure on his wound as best I can. Panic so acute and blinding, I focus on acting as quickly as I can to keep him alive.
Liam’s hand reaches my face, his eyes written in fear. “I love you, Sara.”
“No, don’t you dare. Save it for later,” I choke through sobs, pressing my hands harder against the wet fabric covering his wound.
“You're not dying here. Not now. N-ot now L-Liam. Not n-n-now.” My voice breaks and stutters as I try to staunch the blood that's mixing with rainwater, turning it pink and spreading across the cemetery ground. I’m gutted, utterly destroyed at the sight of him.
Liam's eyes flutter, but he manages to focus on me. “Call... Damien,” he gasps.
Joe appears beside us, his face full of worry. For a moment, I think he might drag me away again, but instead, he shrugs off his leather jacket and kneels down, pressing it firmly against Liam's chest.
“I got him.” Joe reassures me, his blond hair soaked from the rain. His hands are steadier than mine and takes over the pressure on the wound. "Make the call.” And he throws his phone, lodged in his pocket, back at me.
With trembling fingers, I dial Damien and can barely extract a cohesive sentence as I tell him what happened. I hang up after he tells me he’s on his way.
“How long until Damien gets here?” Joe asks, his voice tight with something I can't quite place between worry and guilt.
“Three minutes,” I choke out. “He said three minutes.”
Liam’s eyes fight to stay open, the blue fading, growing distant like a receding tide.
“Sara...” Joe's voice cuts through my panic, firm but gentler than before. “We need to move him. That car could come back.”
“They can fucking shoot me too if they want— did you plan this?” I spit venom at him.
“This was not my plan, Sara. None of this shit ever was.” Joe watches me furiously and turns his gaze to Liam.
“I'm not burying you, Liam,” Joe says firmly, his voice cracking with emotion. “Don't you dare die on me. Not like this.” He bits his lips in agony. “Not like this. Fuck!” His voice booms and makes me jump, my emotions all over the place.
I lay across Liam's body, and Joe’s eyes are instantly on me.
His jaw tightening. I shelter Liam from the rain as best I can.
I press my forehead against his and will my strength into him.
His chest rises and falls beneath mine in shallow, uneven breaths.
I can feel his heartbeat against my own—weak but fighting.
“Cold,” he mumbles.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, my lips almost touching his. “Stay with me. I love you, Liam, so much.”
I have never been so scared in my life. I won’t let an irony as such of getting one brother back to lose the other.
Liam’s eyes squeeze from the pain, and he hisses trying to move, but I try to keep him as still as possible.
Focusing into his eyes, I caress his cheek and say, “Don’t move… I’m right here, my love. I’m here, baby. Right here. I'll go wherever you go, I promise.” And he smiles, in pain but the tiniest smile on his face gives me hope.
Joe’s gaze is on us, our closeness evident to him now.
I hear a car make a round abruptly, Damien jumping out of it as quickly as he can and coming to Liam’s side.
“What happened?” he says panting with anxious energy and seeing Damien scared, doesn’t calm my nerves at all.
There’s something about seeing someone else’s fear that you deem braver and stronger than you, that confirms your own.
It grips at your heart, all the way to your throat like dark fibered smoke capable of squeezing the air out of your lungs, and somehow, before I understand what takes a hold of me, the air squeezes out of me, and darkness is all that consumes me next.