~ Nick
“Guys?” comes a strange voice, muffled through the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Tony really could use a hand out here.”
I pull back, glancing at the door as though I’ll magically be able to see through it to who’s on the other side, before looking back at Emma. To be honest, I’m grateful for the interruption. Grateful that I’m not going to have to explain why I reacted like I did.
Overreacted, maybe.
And I know she wants to ask me about it. It’s written all over her face.
“Emma?” comes the voice again, this time followed by a knock.
“You know who that is?” I ask, easing her back as I get up from the desk.
“I do,” she nods, stepping back. “She’s um…she’s the reason I’m so late.”
I look at her questioningly as I shrug off my jacket and throw it on the couch. Emma’s eyes follow the movement, looking back at me as she asks, “Where were you going?”
I exhale hard, grabbing her hand as I walk to the door and open it. A vaguely familiar woman stands on the other side. She stares at me, before glancing down at Emma’s hand in mine and smiling.
“Hi,” she says, grinning at us.
“Hi,” I say back, wondering where it is I know her from.
“I’m Sarah,” she says, hand out.
The light bulb goes off, an instant understanding of what’s happened tonight and why Emma was so late getting here. As much as I was freaking out before, knowing the reason now only makes me feel like an even bigger arsehole than I already do. Fuck, I’m the one who wanted her to sort things out.
“Nick,” I say, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she responds, her smile widening as she steps aside and lets us out of my office.
We walk back into the bar where I can see, despite the late hour, crowds of people waiting for drinks. Tony is doing his best to keep up with all the orders, but even with Dana helping him out, it’s still a mess.
I get Emma and Sarah drinks and a seat at the end of the bar before moving off to serve some customers, not giving Emma a chance to ask me what that was about in my office just now. I definitely don’t need to hash out all the reasons I was an overbearing arsehole.
So on the odd occasion when I do make it back down to talk to them, I focus my attention on Sarah, asking her about her friendship with Emma and all the stories she has on her that I know Emma will never admit to.
Sarah’s nice in return, asking me a bunch of questions that mirror a lot of the ones Emma asked me that day we hung out together. Questions that aren’t too prying or personal but are enough to tell me that she’s working out whether she thinks I’m good enough for her friend.
Emma doesn’t say much during this, but when the questions eventually turn to family, I do notice her body language change. When Sarah asks if I have any siblings and I tell her no, I don’t look in Emma’s direction, not wanting to see the questioning look I know she’ll give me about why I’ve chosen to pretend my twin sister doesn’t exist.
After a couple of hours Sarah leaves, and as the rest of the bar starts to empty, it’s just Emma and me again. When Tony calls it a night, I know questions are going to be asked and answers expected.
I move around the bar, cleaning up as I try to stall the inevitable. I feel Emma’s eyes on me the whole time, even as she helps me out. Eventually though, there is nothing left to do except lock up and go home.
“I promised you I wouldn’t run away from this,” Emma says, when I slide the bolts on the door.
I turn and find her standing in front of me, her fingers twisting together as she watches me. I hear a new song start up on the jukebox, the same one we were dancing to the last time she was in here with me like this. I bite my lip to stop the smile as I take a step towards her, realising what she’s done.
“I know you did,” I say, as I pull her into my arms, our bodies pressing together. “And I know I asked you to call Sarah too,” I add, my lips pressing a kiss to her forehead in a silent acknowledgement that she did that too.
“Well to be fair, that I didn’t do,” she adds, a hand sliding beneath my shirt and pressing against my back. My eyes close at the touch, at the realisation I’ve missed her these past few days.
“No?” I murmur as we slowly move, our feet barely shuffling on the floor.
“No,” she whispers, her lips against my neck. “She actually came to see me.”
My fingers tighten against her back, pulling her even closer as she breathes against me, her lips still on my skin. “Well I’m glad you sorted things out anyway,” I say. “She seems really nice.”
“She is,” she whispers, kissing along my jaw.
“How long have you known each other?” I ask, tilting my head so her lips brush across mine.
She kisses me once. “Since we were ten,” she says, before deepening the kiss and sliding her other hand beneath my shirt.
As her fingers dig into my skin it occurs to me that I was wrong to ever think she didn’t want this. As scared as she might be, it feels like it’s impossible to deny this connection between us. A connection I know we both feel and are powerless to ignore. It’s probably the only reason we are both here right now. The only reason both of us is giving in to something we are both so clearly trying to fight.
“Come upstairs?” I whisper against her mouth.
I take the moan I get in response as a yes, forcing myself to pull back so I can switch off the lights and grab the keys. We walk up the stairs to my apartment in silence, her hand in mine as she follows me.
Inside, the place is dark, the only light coming from a lamp beside my bed. Oscar is curled up in a chair in the bedroom and barely raises his head as we walk in. I turn to Emma and her mouth is against mine again, hungrier now as she slides her hands back under my shirt, pulling it up and over my head.
I pull her against me, kicking my shoes off as my own hands slide up her back. We undress each other slowly, neither of us in a rush despite the obvious tension that’s building between us.
This isn’t going to be make-up sex because it already feels like we’re past that. Somehow this feels like something more, something deeper and more intense and it makes me realise that even though we still barely know each other, I’ve already fallen hard for her. Much harder than I ever expected or wanted.
“Nick,” she murmurs, breaking the silence as she gently pushes me towards the bed.
I fall back and watch as she follows me, crawling over me until she’s straddling my hips. For a second I tense, the memory returning from out of nowhere, but then she smiles at me, leaning forward slightly so her long hair hangs around her shoulders. I feel myself relax as push it back, cupping her neck as her fingers gently brush across the word on my chest, her eyes following their path even as her fingers trace the lines up and over my shoulder, around my bicep and all the way down to the other words.
I expect questions but she doesn’t say anything, just leans forward and kisses me. I pull her body so it’s flush against me, our warm skin touching everywhere. I can feel the rapid beat of her heart as it lies against mine, which pounds back its own rhythm against hers.
My fingers slide into her hair, holding her head to mine even though she hasn’t stopped kissing me. Eventually I roll her beneath me, needing more. She moves to accommodate me; her hips rising even as mine push against hers, an urgency to our movements now.
I slide inside her and we both let out low moans, but I don’t move, just needing the closeness that this brings for a second. Emma’s hands slide up my back until they are cupping my face. I open my eyes and find her watching me, a tiny smile on her mouth.
The way she looks at me makes me feel exposed and raw, like she can see right inside my head and everything that I’m thinking, everything that I’m feeling. It scares me that she might be able to, so I lower my mouth to hers and take everything further.
Eventually we lie spent in each other’s arms, my heart rate finally slowing so the only noise is the soft sound of the rain hitting the windows and roof. A distant roll of thunder sounds and Emma curls into me, her mouth against my ribs.
“Will you tell me about her?” she whispers, the first words either of us has spoken in what feels like forever.
The knot of tension that always follows every enquiry about Amy starts up in my stomach. But almost as though she can sense it, Emma slides a hand across my skin until her fingers are wrapped around my hip and holding me against her.
“What do you want to know?” I eventually ask, knowing there’s only ever one question people want the answer to, which despite everything, it’s still a question I don’t fully know how to answer.
“What is she like?” Emma asks, surprising me. “Are you guys alike?”
An unexpected smile curves at my mouth, at both the question and Emma’s use of the present tense. “Yes and no,” I say. She doesn’t ask what I mean and it somehow lets me continue. “She was very funny, very outgoing and always the life of the party,” I say. “Everybody loved her.”
I feel a kiss against my side, the long low breath she exhales against my skin. “You’re pretty funny and outgoing too, you know.”
I chuckle. “Not like she was though.”
Her thumb brushes against my hipbone. “You’re close though?”
I nod. “We were very close. She was my best friend, we did almost everything together, travelled the world, hung out, opened the bar.”
“It must be awful to lose that,” she whispers, sliding a leg over mine.
“It was,” I choke out, my eyes closing at the nightmare of how it all happened, at the powerlessness I felt watching her go through it.
It’s still there, all the guilt I feel. The anger and hurt at how it all played out. Sometimes I think I’ve managed to deal with it, bury it deep enough that I can pretend I’m okay with the fact that half of me is gone. But then suddenly, it rears its ugly head, smacking me in the face as though to remind me that it was never going to be that easy.
We’re twins, so her suffering is always going to be my suffering and just because hers is over now, it doesn’t mean that mine is. Or that it ever will be. Because I know now that’s the price I have to pay for my actions.
Pain; it’s the cost of living.
But somehow, it feels like I deserve it. Because no matter what anyone says, there is never a goodbye in death, only heartache for those left behind…for so many reasons.
“Nick,” Emma murmurs, as though reminding me she’s still here.
“Mmm?”
“How did she die?”
My body stiffens at the question, a reflex I have no control over as a sudden urge to escape comes over me. It’s only now though, that I realise I’m trapped, caged in by Emma’s body which has somehow wrapped itself around mine.
Her fingers tighten at my hip, as though she senses I don’t want to do this, while her lips press against my skin as though to comfort me, as if she’s telling me I can.
I say nothing for what feels like an eternity, wondering if I can possibly get away with never answering her question. Eventually though, she lifts her head, hovering over me as she waits for an answer.
Her hand slides up my side, her fingers brushing across my jaw as she turns me so I’m looking at her. She leans in and kisses me softly before pulling back.
I swallow hard, forcing myself to stay calm. “She…” I start, swallowing again. “She killed herself.”
Emma lets out a shocked breath, my name falling from her lips as she leans in to kiss me again. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers and I almost don’t know if she’s apologising for my loss or apologising for ever asking me. “God, that must have been awful?”
I nod, because of course it was, how could it not be.
“And this happened a year ago?” she asks, her thumb sweeping slowly across my cheek as she continues to watch me.
I nod again. “Yep,” I say, the word barely audible.
Emma stares down at me, not saying anything more. I almost think she’s asked all she’s going to, and that as hard as it was, at least it’s out in the open now. But then she bites her bottom lip and says, “You found her, didn’t you?”
This time I can only nod as I pull her mouth against mine, knowing that despite what’s been said, I can’t talk about this anymore, no matter how much she might want me to.
But it’s like Emma knows I’ve reached my limit, her fingers sliding under my neck as though to hold me against her. I pull her on top of me, desperate to feel something good, something real. She reads my mind and our bodies twist together until they are as close as we can possibly be.
I know that for everything in my heart that hurts, there is this that doesn’t.
And it’s this that I need to hang on to.