One moment, you think you know what your life is going to look like for the next thirty or fifty years. The next moment, you’re moving halfway across the country to get away from your flesh and blood.

Three years ago, I thought I’d finish my third tour and come home to marry my fiancée. We’d pop out a few kids and settle down in a suburb not far from where I grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota. Not that popping out a few kids was an option anymore. And I sure as fuck never expected to come home from Afghanistan and find my twin brother had gotten my fiancée pregnant. I sure as hell didn’t expect Dane to commit suicide over the guilt of betraying me. But never in a million fucking years did I expect to find happiness in the humbled gaze of a beautifully broken married woman.

The joy and sadness in Laurel’s brown eyes didn’t belong to me, but it sure as hell felt like it did. Something felt different today. The reticence in her eyes was gone, replaced by contrition. It reminded me of one of my favorite sayings: It’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

I smiled at this thought, and her eyes lit up. “Have a seat,” I said, motioning to the chair next to my bed.

She flashed me a warm smile as she took a seat. “I wanted to see you to apologize for… your leg,” she began, her eyes focused on her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

“No need to apologize. Unless you’re the one who shot me. Did you shoot me?”

She finally looked up and narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you really not remember any of it?”

I bit my lip as I took in the feisty look in her eyes. “Not a single bit of it,” I replied. “Though, it seems like we must have had some fun.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

I laughed at the look of pure terror on her face. “I mean that it must have been a helluva wild time if I ended up in the hospital.”

She clutched her chest as she let out a sigh of relief.

“Wait a minute,” I continued. “Are you telling me you don’t remember anything that happened, either?”

She focused her gaze downward again, almost as if she were ashamed, then she shook her head. “I just remember seeing… seeing them trying to hold you down and then I just… blacked out and woke up in the hospital. But…”

I waited a moment for her to continue. “But what?” I finally asked.

She looked up again. “Dylan sort of filled me in on the rest, and he told me…” Her eyes were locked on mine, as if she was waiting for me to interrupt her and finish her sentence, but I had no clue what she was going to say. She opened her mouth again, pausing for a moment before she said, “Dylan told me you said something to me when they put you in the ambulance. You said… I love you.”

The mild amusement I’d been feeling, the joy at seeing Laurel’s glowing face, vanished in an instant. But not because I was embarrassed by this information or worried that my ill-timed confession might cause problems between Laurel and her husband. I was afraid Laurel was here to clarify that she would never feel the same way.

“I don’t remember that,” I replied.

My next instinct was to apologize for any trouble I may have caused. But that would be disingenuous.

I didn’t want to cause Laurel any pain, especially after everything she’d been through. But what little I’d learned about her over the past two months told me that she might be better off without Jack. Though, I conceded I probably didn’t know either of them well enough to make that sort of judgment.

Maybe it was selfish, but I didn’t want Laurel to end up like me. I sure as hell wished someone had warned me about Nicole before I planned a future with her. I wished someone had the guts to tell me about her betrayal before I walked right smack into the center of it.

“I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble with… with your husband,” I began, forcing the word husband out carefully. “I hope I didn’t make things worse for—”

I stopped mid-sentence when a silhouette appeared in the doorway. Speak of the fucking devil.

Laurel opened her mouth to say something, but she quickly noticed my gaze fixed on something behind her. As she turned her head, I savored the look of surprise on Nicole’s face.

Did she know what had happened at Laurel’s house last night? Did she know I’d told another woman I loved her? Did she know that woman was sitting at my bedside?

I hoped to God the answer to all those questions was a resounding yes.

“I’ll come back,” Nicole said, her voice breaking on the last syllable.

Laurel stood up quickly. “Oh, no. You don’t have to go. I was just about to leave. Please come in.”

Nicole took a few careful steps inside as my nephew, Ethan, slowly lifted his head from her shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie. You can go back to sleep.”

“I’m thirsty, Mommy,” Ethan said in his tired toddler voice.

My eyes flitted toward Laurel’s face to see her reaction to this intrusion. I’d told her enough about Nicole for her to guess who this visitor was. The painfully forced smile on her face as she watched Nicole straightening the front of Ethan’s striped T-shirt broke my heart.

“He’s beautiful,” she whispered to Nicole as she made her way to the door.

“Laurel, wait,” I called out as she stepped out into the corridor, but she didn’t stop.

“Damn,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry,” Nicole began. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I—”

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault. It’s…” I sighed as I realized I couldn’t tell Nicole about how Laurel had lost her little boy. It wasn’t my story to tell. “It’s fine. Why are you here?”

She looked offended by my blunt delivery, but she quickly checked herself. “Look, this is not easy for me either.”

She paused for a moment as she pried Ethan’s hand off the pendant hanging from the necklace around her neck. The necklace I gave her when I apologized for cheating on her after my second tour. I didn’t think she’d worn it on purpose, as an attempt to manipulate my emotions by reminding me of my own indiscretion. In every photo of Ethan my mother had sent me over the last two and a half years — through Emily’s text messages — Nicole was always wearing the necklace.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?” I said, desperate for her to get to the point.

She took a few steps until she was standing at my bedside. “I wanted you to meet your nephew,” she said, shifting Ethan so he was balancing on her hip as she turned him to face my bed. “Ethan do you know who that is?” She turned back to me. “He’s seen lots of pictures of you.”

“Daddy!” Ethan exclaimed.

Nicole shook her head adamantly. “No, sweetie. This is your Uncle Isaac.”

Ethan stuck his hand out toward me and turned it from side to side in a clumsy wave. “Hi, Daddy.”

I pressed my mouth into a hard line to try to keep from laughing, but it was no use. I covered my face and squeezed my eyes shut so Ethan wouldn’t see me holding in my laughter.

“I’m sorry,” Nicole said, and I could hear the nervous laughter in her voice. “I don’t know what I expected. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head and opened my eyes as I let out a short burst of laughter. “It’s fine. You can’t expect a two-year-old to understand the concept of identical twins. It’s just…”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. Maybe it was whatever pain meds they were pumping into me through this IV drip, but I was suddenly beginning to realize how soap opera-ish this whole situation with Nicole and my twin brother Dane was. And it was tragic, but also strangely surreal, that my brother’s son was now mistaking me for his dead father.

I took a moment to compose myself and take a few deep breaths. “Sorry. I think they’ve got me hooked up to some happy drugs. I shouldn’t have laughed at that.”

She smiled and shook her head. “It’s okay. I totally get it. It’s kind of funny and weird. But that doesn’t make what I did right. I’ll never stop regretting how I hurt you.”

I let out a deep sigh. “I was gone a lot and Lord knows I made my own mistakes. I wasn’t exactly the easiest person to love. I know that.”

She nodded. “I’d better go get him something to drink. Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Her full lips stretched into a tight smile. “Your parents are going to stay at your house with your dog, but I’ll be staying at a hotel. I know you probably don’t want me there.”

I shook my head. “That’s nonsense. Don’t waste your money on a hotel. Just stay at the house with Mom and Dad. I’m going to be here at least another three or four days, according to the doctor who came in to prod my nut sack an hour ago.”

“Are… Are you sure?”

“Positive. I don’t want my nephew staying anywhere else.”

She flashed me a genuine smile this time. “I hope you get better soon,” she said, readjusting Ethan in her arms. “And if that girl who was here is the one you want, I hope she knows how lucky she is.” She grabbed Ethan’s hand and waved it at me. “Say bye, sweetie.”

“Bye, sweetie!” Ethan said.

I laughed as I waved back and watched them disappear into the corridor.