Lane
Landing at the smaller regional airport by charter plane put me at least an hour closer to Bess. I jumped out of my seat, grabbed my bag, and ran to a car my assistant had ordered to be waiting for me and instructed the driver to “Haul ass all the way to the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania.”
I hated not being in control, let alone stuck in the backseat of a ridiculously posh car, but this was the only way I was going to make it alive to the mountains. It was still black as night out, to say nothing of my ratcheted nerves, pulsing through my entire system.
As soon as I sat down, I called Jake.
“Lane, what the fuck?”
This is how he answered the phone for me.
“What the fuck to you?”
“I sped all the way up to Buttfuck, Pennsylvania, to check on your piece of ass in distress, and at first I thought maybe I slept with her years ago. She looked so damn familiar, I couldn’t stop staring. That country doc probably thought I was mental.”
“Jake, don’t go there now,” I warned him. I knew where he was heading and I wasn’t in the mood.
“Oh, I will,” he shot back.
Fuck.
My hair felt damp from sweat. I pulled my leather jacket and sweater off, leaving me in just a plain white T-shirt.
“Lane, do you want to tell me what you’re doing messing around with the girl who almost died in my gym years ago? I may not have showed up until you destroyed my chance at pussy for the night and she was being loaded into an ambulance, but her face hasn’t changed. Jesus Christ, can’t you get laid in Miami?”
“She doesn’t remember that night.”
“What? You’re bullshitting me.”
“No.” I cracked the window open, still feeling incredibly hot.
“And you haven’t told her?”
I began to wonder if I could ever tell her, let her in on the fact I was there to witness that piece of her personal history. Especially now, it felt beyond the statute of limitations. She probably didn’t even want to remember that night. I’d tried to forget it so many times myself.
Yet, it still haunted my thoughts. No longer in the limo, my thoughts were back in the gym.
After I’d realized the whole place assumed I was Jake—he’d been copying my longer hairstyle since he finished playing college ball—I’d decided to play the role. I hadn’t been happy about it, but I’d done it.
With Bess out cold on my mat, I’d pretended to be busy taking vitals when her eyes opened and looked straight into mine, dazed and confused.
“Bess, come on, we got to get out of here. Get you home,” the friend said, trying to lift Bess up.
“All right, everyone, stay focused with Lexie while I take care of this,” I said out loud over the DJ, playing the part of Jake, and began to help Bess over to the side of the room. She’d barely come awake, her palms sweaty, face pale, eyes out of focus. The other girl and I semi-carried her out of the yoga room and to a bench, where she slumped over once again, becoming unresponsive.
I grabbed the friend and demanded, “What the hell did she take?” She looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Don’t fucking clam up on me now. Your friend needs help,” I said, shaking her shoulder a bit.
“I don’t know for sure, she parties pretty hard,” was all she said, turning her own glassy brown eyes the other way while Jimmy or Timmy or whatever the fuck his name was stood nearby and called 911.
“Why the hell would she come to yoga like this? Unless she’s so addicted she can’t go anywhere without being like this? And what kind of friend are you to bring her like this?” I crowded the other girl while I berated her, who I’d learned was named Camper.
Pacing the floor, my bare feet sinking into the plastic bullshit material, I waited for Camper to answer me.
Quietly she said, “Well, she’s always like this, but I didn’t ever think it was a problem.” Then she ran out of there, not even bothering to grab her shoes, flying by the paramedics running in.
The EMTs were annoyed. You could tell they thought Bess was another college girl who couldn’t handle her alcohol or whatever. They started taking her vitals, placing a neck brace on her small form, and sliding her on to a portable gurney. One was on the phone, calling ahead, “Yeah, gonna need a stomach pump, charcoal. Out cold, slowing pulse, but did come to for a minute or so. Dumb friends moved her from her original place.”
I was just trying to do what I thought was right, but I wasn’t Jake, and I didn’t have the credentials to run a gym.
“Hey, you, do you know her name? Or what she took?” the guy yelled at me.
I shook my head. “Bess. That’s all I know. That was her friend hightailing it out of here when you showed up.”
We were causing a scene by now, a few patrons coming over to check out who was passed out.
“A lot of help you are,” the EMT said to me before going back to his call.
And then they were wheeling her out as fast as they ran in when Jake showed up. Apparently, the guy who called 911 called him afterward—we couldn’t fool that smart dude.
We ran after the paramedics, following them outside, my bare feet pounding the cold concrete.
“Goddamn, Lane. What the fuck?” he scolded me, stopping to watch Bess being lifted into the back of the ambulance.
“Me? What the fuck?”
“Yeah, you!” he yelled back.
We hadn’t even noticed the ambulance turn its lights on until the siren alerted us to it leaving.
“Fuck! Fuck you! You just let them go without even riding with that girl,” I berated Jake. “She’s in there all alone and you’re mad at me?” I went on, stomping back to the gym to get my shoes and shit.
As the two of us walked back inside, Lexie peeked her head out of the yoga room and looked like she was seeing double. Because she was. Apparently she didn’t know Jake was a twin. An identical one.
And I’d become so consumed with exacting revenge on Jake for a lifetime of fixing shit that I didn’t go to the hospital. Instead I’d fucked Lexie.
My trip down memory lane was interrupted by Jake yelling at me.
“Lane! While you’re at it, explain to me how she doesn’t know you have a twin brother. That’s my fucking play, if you recall.”
Yeah, I know.
“Well, you also know I’m very good at keeping secrets, bro. Now, can you fucking tell me if she’s okay?”
“The girl is fine, and a fine piece of raw meat too, if you ask me. But she’s fine. Had some sort of panic attack and was making a big deal about a necklace and a letter you sent being missing.”
“What? Missing?”
It’s worth a small fortune.
“Gone. Some dude was harassing her and pitched a fit, causing her to black out from stress, and I guess he left with the necklace.”
I rubbed my chest. My heart hurt. My head ached.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Where the fuck are you now?”
“On my way home, brother. I can’t stay around all day and clean up your mess while you screw some chick who nearly croaked on drugs during yoga, and you’re pledging your undying love or some shit to her by snail mail.”
“Jake! You owe me and you know it.”
“Well, when you want to come clean to the little lady, let me know.”
“Yeah, come clean. Is that what you really want?” I put the window back up, the vibration of the wind making my already pounding head worse.
“Do whatever the fuck you need to do, Lane. ’Bye.”
I slammed my phone on the seat next to me and looked out the window. As pastures lined with white fences zipped past, I prayed I could keep all my emotions contained on this trip. I didn’t have the time or patience for nightmares right now.
The car turned around and descended the driveway in the darkness, I watched the red brake lights pulling away, steadying myself before I entered Bess’s little house. The last time I’d been there hadn’t exactly ended spectacularly.
As I turned toward the door, it opened, flooding the porch with light, and I made out the silhouette of a man walking out carrying a medical bag.
He looked at me in the haze of the floodlight and made his way over. “Hi, I’m Doc Riley. You must be Lane. We met your brother, Jake, earlier,” he said while extending his hand.
I shook his hand and said, “I am. Thanks for everything. I’m anxious to see Bess, but what do you think happened?”
“Panic attack. Stress. An old friend got her worked up. She can tell you the rest herself. She’s laying down inside.”
“Thanks,” I said and walked to the door, holding my breath.
Slowly peeking in the door, unsure of what was behind it, I whispered, “Bess,” in case she was sleeping.
A middle-aged woman greeted me. “Hello, Mr. Wrigley. I’m May. I also work at the WildFlower, so I’ve seen you there,” she said with a soft and sweet smile.
“Hi, May,” I said before turning toward the couch. Bess was curled up in the fetal position, Brooks at her feet.
“Hi,” I barely croaked out.
“Hey,” she said back to me, her voice thin and worn.
I approached with caution, unsure of what to say. Behind me, I heard May doing something in the kitchen.
“You didn’t have to come,” Bess said when I got close and slid down on the floor by where her head rested on the end of the couch.
“I shouldn’t have ever left.”
She didn’t know the double meaning behind those words, but I felt my regret deep in my bones, a familiar but unwelcome ache.
“I was worried about you,” she answered, not moving a muscle.
“Well, I was worried about you.”
Both times.
With an unsteady hand, I reached out and rubbed her cheek, smoothing her hair back as I took in her pale skin and dark eyes. Even disheveled in a robe, she looked beautiful.
“I’m okay. I guess I passed out. That’s what Doc said.”
Not moving my hand from the side of her neck, my thumb caressing her neck where her pulse fluttered. “What happened, Bess?”
She looked toward the floor. “It was nothing.”
Using my thumb, I tilted her chin so we were face-to-face. “It wasn’t nothing. I heard screaming and you passed out. That’s something. Now, tell me what happened.”
She cradled her face into my hand and spoke in a low voice. “Well, it was AJ. Anthony. The man I told you about in Florida. He’s gone a bit crazy for me, except it’s all my fault. I was with him. With him before you. It never should have happened because he’s my sponsor.” A tear fell down, splashing my fingers.
“People make mistakes, Bess.”
She shook her head. “No, this is one I shouldn’t have made. We crossed all these invisible lines and broke the rules, and I ended up taking advantage of his affection for me. It’s what gave me a little spark of life back, but it wasn’t enough because I had met you.”
I kissed her cheek, my lips grazing her soft skin, desperately wanting to move over to her even softer lips. But I didn’t. It wasn’t that kind of moment.
“Bess, you may not realize this, but you gave me my spark back.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m a good person, Lane. I never even knew you had a twin, an identical one. When I came to and saw him, I believed it was you with short hair.” Her brow furrowed as she added, “And I see something deep in your soul that I want to dig out and take away, but I haven’t even attempted.” Her voice was scratchy and broken, matching my mood.
What does she see?
“Bess, let’s not worry about me. Let’s take care of you. Okay?”
She didn’t answer, just lay there.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Tired.”
“Why don’t you take a rest?”
“I can’t. I’m worried about AJ. He ran off. My friend from AA chased after him. No matter what, he’s still a person and now he’s drinking again. I can’t stop thinking about how I could have done something differently.” She stopped for a breath before she went on. “And I can’t stop thinking about your note and the necklace—it was so breathtaking, both of them were—and now they’re gone.”
Bess’s whole body shook as she dissolved into tears, trying to speak but unable to for her sobbing. Tears slid down her face, dropping to fall on Brooks’s fur where he curled up beside her.
“Bess, it’s fine. It’s insured,” I said into her ear, trying to steal this moment for the two of us. May was still busy clinking some glass in the kitchen, picking it out of the garbage. I was too busy to ask what the hell that was about.
“But the letter wasn’t insured.”
I grabbed her hand and brought it to my heart. “It doesn’t matter, it’s imprinted right here,” I told her.
Brooks stood and circled in place, interrupting the moment.
“I don’t know when he was last out,” Bess said.
“I’ll take care of him if you promise to close your eyes and try to rest. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
I stepped out onto the porch, gently closing the door behind me. Dawn was coming and the air was moist.
“Take your time, buddy,” I told Brooks as he ran to a tree.
I sure as hell needed a few minutes to figure out what the fuck just happened.
I’m not going anywhere?
Well, I couldn’t stay here forever, even if I wanted to.
Imprinted right here . . . in my heart?
It might very well be, but my heart was only half the heart she deserved. There was a black cavern of lies deep within it.
And now my brother was involved with Bess, and he had a habit of killing everything.