Page 59 of Van Cort

EVERETT

It’s painful to me that I can’t just tell them both what they’re doing, and how they’re going to do it.

It won’t be long until the sun rises into the sky, signalling a new day.

Patience is not my forte. I suppose I should have expected long conversations, but it’s exasperating to watch emotional turmoil rule fact.

Sitting here in the dark, watching West quietly tell her what’s been happening, and who he is to her, while necessary, seems endless.

I don’t even think I’ve apologised.

None of it is something I want to apologise for, though.

Lifting my espresso, I keep quiet in the corner of the rooftop garden and listen to the soft lilt of both voices discussing a future none of us know yet.

I’d like to intrude on the conversation, but this isn’t about brotherly seniority or creating order anymore.

It’s about commitment and love and something that needs to settle in its own way.

It’s making me consider that West and I need to discuss the future in greater detail than we have.

Loving the same woman brings complications, let alone marrying one together, despite being twins.

We know that well already. We also haven’t resolved the Lara issue either; not fully.

I’m not going forward until that is dead and buried between us, just like her body is.

Their shadows shift as they begin walking back along the pathway to me.

“I need a better answer than that. I don’t even understand how you think this could work, but I need to understand what marriage looks like to you, West. I need it laid out so I can try and see this for what it is to you.”

“Can’t you see the differences between us already?”

“Yes, I can, but… I don’t know you, West. You’ve been pretending to be him and…” She goes quiet, as if there’s no other way of explaining the obvious.

“You should try to stop thinking about us as different people. Whilst we are, and there are parts of us that don’t really exist in Rhett in the same way anymore, he’s still me, and I’m still him.

He might have lost his fun, his happiness, his joy, but they’re still at the heart of me, and you’ve seen that.

Being with both of us will give you different parts of the same man.

For me, marriage is being together and enjoying each step, learning, evolving.

Finding new adventures together. For Rhett, it will be different. ”

“Different how?”

“He’s who he is. I’m not sure evolving is on his radar or frequency. But maybe, with your love, and this honesty, you might find that version of him that disappeared.”

“You think? I’m not so sure. I don’t even know if I’d like that version of him in the same way. Everett is who he is to me, which, of course, has been partly you. God, this is so confusing.”

“You should talk to him about that. I can leave both of you if you want.”

“Both?”

“Yes, he’s right here.”

“Where?” he points at me.

“There. He’s been out here all night. Can’t you feel him?

” She looks in my direction as the light from the rising sun suddenly breaks behind the building, shining a stream of varied colours over them.

“You will one day. If you agree to both of us. You’ll feel the air different around us, and understand the tension that seems to follow him everywhere compared to me. ”

“Funnily enough, I’d need to know there are two of you for that to make sense.” He laughs and looks at her, gently smiling like he used to, as she smiles a little beside him. I’ve missed that look on him. It isn’t hate-filled or lost, it’s home. “He hasn’t slept? At all?”

“He won’t sleep until this is resolved. He’s anxious. As am I. In fact, he might even be a little frightened.” My lips tip up. There’s only one person in the world that would ever know that about me. He’s it.

“Frightened? He doesn’t seem like the frightened kind. Is this something to do with your father?”

I sigh. If she doesn’t know that, we’re in trouble. “I’m frightened of losing you, River.” Her head moves sharply, and she peers back into the dark shadows I’m sitting in. “He is, too. Although my love is deeper, and so my fear is deeper. More volatile perhaps.”

“At least he’s honest,” West muses.

She looks between us, seeming confused again.

I’m not sure if it’s the statement or the look of us together.

“So you don’t love me as much as him?” she asks him.

“I do. I just don’t need to dramatise the situation as much as he does. I choose romance.” I snort.

“Dramatisation is romanticism. Choosing irresponsibility and amusement does not prove romance.”

“Why not? I have you for the mundane.”

She rubs at her shoulders and watches as we spar, still unsure, still confused.

It’s enough for me to finish the conversation and look at her instead.

Some part of me would like to pull her down into my lap now, to light a match for the fire pit and just sit out here forever, but that’s so far from the world we’re in now.

“Well, thank God you’re wearing different clothes,” she says. “You’d be impossible to tell apart if not. You even talk the same.”

“We’re very easy to tell apart. You just have to trust your feelings. Think more. Remember our time together so far. You’ll know exactly who’s who if you stop overthinking it.”

I stand and take an ornamental blanket off the back of the chair, wrapping it around her.

“More sleep, I think. We can talk later, over breakfast. Any questions you’ve got, we’ll answer.

” She doesn’t fight as I guide her back to the guest room she used, and West doesn’t follow me either because he knows, without me even saying anything, that we need to talk.

“I’m sorry,” comes out of me, as I open the bedroom door for her.

“I’m not sorry for where we are, but I am sorry that I kept it from you for as long as I have.

You deserved better.” She frowns and looks at her feet, searching for a comeback or answer.

“I don’t know how I would have told you, but I should have done it somehow.

” She looks up again, but keeps her mouth closed, so I nod and go to close the door.

“Everett?” I stop and turn back to her. “Is this a done deal? Both of you or neither of you?” My head rears back.

“You’d consider one of us after this?”

“I don’t know. But I need to know how you’d feel about that. Is it just me that you want, or me and West?” What a fucking question.

My hands find my pockets, mouth hovering around answers I don’t yet have.

“I do want you. And I’ll have you any way I can get you.

But he’s been missing from me for a long time.

He’s as much me as I am, in some ways. I don’t know how to explain that to you, but this - the three of us - completes something that I’ve been lost without, River.

It makes me whole. Which should be far easier for you to deal with, do you understand that? ”

“No, not really. And when West said the three of us together, did he mean, together as in sex? Because I don’t know if that’s something I could do or would want. I hadn’t really thought about that. I mean, do you two touch?”

For the first time tonight, a real smile emerges on my face. “How would you feel about it if we did?”

She scrunches her face up, unsure. “Meaning you do?”

“No, but it’s something for you to think about.” I chuckle and back away.

“I don’t know what to think about. Or believe.”

I walk back to her, scooping her chin up in my hand, and kiss her like my life depends on it because it does in some ways. She’s everything to me now. She’s brought me home somehow, given me a new version of life to need.

Slowly easing the kiss, I break from her and watch her eyes find mine.

“Believe that, River. It’s as true as it gets.

I love you. Nothing has changed on that front.

Everything is you. You’re my view.” I back away again.

This time intent on letting her rest. “Sleep for a few hours. If you wake with the same questions, I’ll answer them.

Nothing is a done deal until you tell me what you want. ”

She nods.

Smiling at her, I leave.

He’s at the bottom of the terrace when I get back to him with some fresh coffee, looking out over the sprawl of the city as it wakes up.

Headlights start dimming down there, and the rush of early morning traffic eases into life.

He’d look over at the island from the boathouse for hours some days, thinking. It’s the same look now.

“Missing home?” I ask.

“No, I like the city well enough, but the three of us makes me think of the three of us before. Memories.” I smile and hand him a cup.

He takes it and turns back to the view again.

“I don’t know how this is going to work, Rhett.

I don’t know how we share anymore if she does allow it.

And even if we do work that out, I don’t know if I trust you to not fuck it up again.

” He turns to me. “And also, while we’re talking, you did it, Rhett.

You killed Lara. You can’t blame me for that, and I don’t appreciate the fucking connotation, regardless of your reasoning.

Don’t ever try that crap with me again.”

“I wasn’t blaming you for anything, West. I did do it, you’re right, but I was explaining where my head was in those seconds.

Rightly or wrongly, in that moment, I couldn’t see sense because of everything I’d done for you.

I expected you to understand that.” I frown and lean on the rail.

“I expected you to know that I needed you to help me. You knew everything else about me, so of course you’d know that.

But you didn’t. You didn’t see it coming, did you?

And you didn’t understand that I wasn’t coping.

And after it was all done, when I needed to talk to you about that, you ignored me, and you left two days after the funeral.

Just gone.” He sneers and looks away from me, choosing to walk. “Leaving again?” He spins around.