Page 129 of Van Cort

Crossing the main room, I take steady steps, the darkness making it hard to navigate until I come to the front door. My hand reaches out, the urge to run chasing me, until I press the handle and… nothing. Locked.

So I’m a prisoner here.

Turning around, I take a steadying breath and go back through the formal lounge area until I see a set of double doors. Pushing them aside, I’m hit with a cool breeze as I step out into the night.

The enormity of the rooftop garden, and not just the terrace I’ve been on before, would undoubtedly catch my breath if I’d found this at any other time.Now, it just serves as another secret I didn’t know about.

Shadows and shapes of plants pull me closer, and I walk along the sleek pathway until I find the glass boundary, with nothing else beyond but the city of Seattle.

“It’s a beautiful night.”

His voice, in the dark, pulls my attention, and I see the murky shape… him, approaching from the gloom of the night.

“That’s a matter of perspective,” I answer, my heart suddenly racing with questions. The question at the top being, which twin is this?

“He blindsided you in the vault. I’m sorry he did that.”

“West?”

He continues to approach and finally emerges into the light I’m in to lean on the glass railing to my side. Tilting his head, he smiles. And just like earlier, it’s familiar in a way that calls to a part of me. I do know this man. Even if my head is still furious at the level of deception.

I stare out at the night and think over the last few months. My mind runs over the conversations, replaying the answers, the times I was utterly exasperated with frustration at how he could switch on me, one minute being one way, the next… and now, it makes sense.

In a horrific way.

In a gut-wrenching betrayal. But it makes sense.

“You know, there were so many things that didn’t quite add up. More, recently, but I never guessed it was because of this.” I scoff. “I put it down to his need for control and everything on his terms. And seeing as we started off as a one-night stand, I could see it, the different sides to him, the not wanting to open up. I loved the fact that he could surprise me and keep me guessing. But it wasn’t him, was it? It was only half.”

“I can only comment on what time we’ve spent together.”

I roll my eyes at that, the anger now fizzing back to life.

“Everett didn’t spend the night with me, did he? That was…”

“Me,” he finishes. “That was me.” There’s an edge of vulnerability, maybe, in his words, like he needs me to know it. I look at him, trying to see past the manipulation, he looks just like… Everett, the dull light isn’t helping me find any distinguishing features. And I scold myself for being so stupid, so trusting, because who in their right mind would assume all of the small, tiny inconsistencies would add up to this?

“Hey, stop it. Whatever is running through your mind, stop picking it apart. It’s not going to help.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. You can’t find a logical or reasonable answer to this because he, we, aren’t reasonable or logical in this.”

“You said you both want to marry me. And there’s a huge part of me that isn’t sure if I know you.”

“You do.”

“I didn’t even know you were called West until earlier tonight, and you want me to marry you?” My voice loses all sense of early morning quiet and screeches my response.

“You know me. Just close your eyes. Take a deep breath.”

My mind rails against the command, but I’m too tired, too emotional to fight. And as I let my eyes close, his hand brushes with mine on the rail, and he slowly lifts it until he’s running it through my hair. I don’t pull away.

“You know us, Andie.”

I force myself to keep my anger in check as I think back over the journey to here, and what I know about Everett. The real Everett. The dates, the trips, the conversations that didn’t quite add up. All of it is dissected and torn apart to find the two people who played me. And as I re-look at everything through a new lens, I can see the differences, if not in looks, then in personality. In what they shared.

“He was going to sleep with me and never see me again. That was his plan until you showed up, right? That was the first time. I was so stunned, but I didn’t know him well enough to question it, past the explanation you gave me.”