Page 15 of Liam (Preston Brothers #4)

Addie

My soul.

I’ve been thinking about Griffin’s words a lot, never more so than now, and so the absolute last thing I should be doing is picking up my phone and unlocking it.

The screen is exactly how I left it only seconds ago.

Exactly how it’s been for hours now. I’m fully aware that hitting play will only torture me more.

I do it anyway.

The entire recording is less than five minutes long, all shot from Lincoln’s point of view, and opens with a version of Liam I’m unfamiliar with.

According to the date of the upload, they would’ve been fifteen at the time.

Liam’s sitting on the couch of what I assume is their living room, and Lincoln zooms in on Liam’s bouncing knee, then closer again on his hands, his fingers tapping away on his leg.

The next clip is Liam outside, sitting in the grass while staring off into the distance, disassociating from reality. His breaths are short, sharp, as if he can never truly fill his lungs.

Then it cuts to him pacing—three steps one way, three steps back. These brief clips go on for a few minutes, all of Liam. Lincoln never speaks, never gives commentary to what’s being shown. Not until the last minute.

The room is black, bar the light from Liam’s phone as he lies in bed, his thumb swiping the screen.

“What does it feel like to be you?” Lincoln asks him.

Liam cracks, “Exactly the same as you.”

“But it’s not, is it?” Lincoln retorts, his tone solemn, serious.

Liam sighs, then switches off his phone, coating the room in complete darkness. It only lasts a few seconds before Lincoln turns on the flash. Liam rolls to his side, facing his twin brother. His nose scrunches, eyes squinted from the bright light aimed directly at him.

“So?” Lincoln urges.

“So what ?”

“What does it feel like to be you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… living inside your head. The constant anxiety and dread and panic attacks.”

Liam shakes his head. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because what if we upload it, and?—”

“We’re not uploading shit,” Liam says, adjusting his head on his pillow. “Now fuck off and go to sleep.”

Lincoln sighs. “Fine.” The flash flicks off, but he doesn’t stop recording, and for a long moment, there’s nothing but silence on a black screen.

Until…

“It feels like the only part of me that’s real is my bones.

Like, I’m constantly changing my flesh, my appearance—a different set of skin for different circumstances, different people.

But I’m the only one who can see the change.

And every time I do change, a layer of my bones goes with it.

One day, I won’t have any bones left, and the remaining parts of me will all be fake.

A facade. And I won’t even recognize myself… That’s what it feels like to be me.”