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He gave me love.
He gave me filthy nights that I never could have imagined.
He gave mehope.
Regardless of my arranged marriage. Regardless of the bet I didn’t know about then. And in spite of the barriers between us.
I actually believed for just a few seconds that it might be possible for him to somehow change what my future looked like. I wanted to believe in him, if only for a few hours.
And I did. For a week, in fact, my feet practically walking on air while I deluded myself into believing that fate might not be written before you’re born. That, maybe, it’s possible to change direction and take life into your own hands.
A week later Ezra gave me something else I never thought possible.
He gave me a broken heart.
Not that it was his fault. Circumstances had been the cause of it.
Circumstances...and Damon.
“I need to talk to you about something...”
We were at school when he approached me that day, his eyes bright and his mouth a crooked line.
Something was nagging at him that wasn’t normal, but I didn’t think much about it at first.
Life was so chaotic at that time. We had less than two weeks left of school. Final exams were starting. Everybody was preparing for graduation and packing their things for the colleges they would go to.
Meanwhile, I was trying to decide how I wouldn’t lose my mind when Ezra left for Yale and I began my journey across the world.
I didn’t want to leave. Couldn’t stand the thought of that much distance between us, but I knew it was the only choice I had.
“Come with me. We’ll find somewhere private...”
Damon dragged me off, which wasn’t unusual for us. Not when I was sleeping with both twins, together and separate.
That was the rules of those six weeks.
I was allowed to experience anything I wanted.
Strings were meant to be entirely absent, too, but they’d somehow wrapped around my heart anyway, mostly tying me to the colder twin, the one who took my virginity, the one who was my first kiss, the one that somehow managed to pull me out of the endless fog overshadowing my life and showed me that, at least for a few years, I could have fun.
The one who fell in love with me, too, and made me believe in changing my fate.
At least, until all of it went to hell in an empty classroom, tucked away in a dark closet, with the mirror image of the boy I had given my heart to.
I don’t want this to end. And I know this is probably dumb to admit, but I think it’s also dumb not to say anything.
Damon had been so flustered, so nervous. His hair was a disheveled mess from running his hands through it, that big heart of his practically worn on his sleeve.
I love you, Red. And I can’t believe I’m even admitting this, but I’m panicking, you know? I feel like I’m losing you when school ends and I can’t stand it.
While he was pouring his heart out, most likely thinking I would be on board with how he felt, my heart was tearing apart and dropping to my feet.
Ezra and I both thought Damon was only in this to have fun. Neither of us had the first clue it meant more to him.
I almost told him the truth about what I’d promised Ezra. It was right there on the tip of my tongue. But then I saw the fading bruises on his skin. I remembered they were only days away from another bad weekend. I knew that telling Damon the truth would only drive a wedge between two brothers who needed each other to endure whatever was being done to them.
Don’t tell Ezra. He’d kick my ass for this. I don’t want him to feel like he’s being pushed out, and I need to decide how we can do this. But maybe after a few months of college, he’ll move on, and then it can just be us.