Page 60 of That One Moment

When Rachel calls - which is most evenings - I reluctantly answer, giving her yet another excuse that I doubt she's buying. I know I need to end things with her but can’t bring myself to do it over the phone, nor can I bring myself to leave, so I keep pretending and hate myself for it every time. When she ends the calls with ‘love you’ and I reply with the same, I feel the betrayal like a knife to my heart. I’m not proud of my actions but I can’t stop them either. I’m the villain in her story and while I regret the hurt I'm causing her, I don't regret him.

Three years ago, Caiden Carrington was a thorn in my side - my boyfriend's needy twin who often needed helping out of one situation or another. I resented him for that, for how he could manipulate Cooper with a bat of his eyelashes. Yet, if I look back closely at that time, there was something else there too. Some other feeling that hid itself inside me. It was there the day I placed that bracelet on his arm, when I’d held his hand a little too long, and on New Year’s when he’d rubbed his lips against my palm. It was there in the tiny pitter patters of my heart that beat outside of my love for Cooper.

If I believed in such things, I’d think there was an invisible string connecting Caiden and I back then. And maybe there was, but I couldn’t see it because I was too in love with his twin. Even thinking this now sours my stomach though, because I love Cooper. Or IlovedCooper. My own feelings are no longer as sharp or clear as they used to be. Last week I could have sworn on my life that I was still in love with him. Now I wonder if my love has been so wrapped up in his memory, I’ve forgotten what it even looked or felt like.

Footsteps sound behind me just as warm arms wrap around my middle. “Why are you awake already? It’s Saturday, we get to sleep in.” Caiden kisses the back of my neck and a shiver races through me. Turning in his arms, I wrap mine around him, too.His face is soft and sleep wrinkled, his hair flat on one side and sticking up on the other.

“I was thirsty,” I hold up the can which he takes from me, and with his other hand, he leads me back to bed.

“Get some more sleep,” he says, his lips finding mine in the dark. His tongue swipes into my mouth and our kiss deepens until he’s climbing over me, his naked body rubbing against mine. It’s slow and languid and when he buries his head into my neck, my arms come to lay over his back. He’s asleep moments later and I stare at the ceiling while his heart beats in time with mine.

The sun is shining brightly through the window when Caiden finally rolls off of me, stretching like a cat and nuzzling into my armpit. “Hmmm, morning.”

“Hey, sunshine. Sleep well?” Rolling onto my side, I smile at his sleepy grin.

“Pretty good. Work has been so busy this week, think I needed the rest.” He yawns. “Give me another thirty and then I’ll get up. What do you want to do today?”

“Come home with me,” I blurt out, the thought having come to me sometime in the night. His eyes shoot open at the same time he pulls back. “Not for long. We can come back tomorrow night and we don’t even have to stay with our folks, I’ll find a hotel.”

He’s out of the bed and shaking his head before I can say anything more.

“No, I can’t do that.” He rubs his hands together anxiously.

“Why not?” I sit up, leaning against the headboard. “It’s been three years, Caiden.”

“Exactly!” he yells, then paces his room. “Cooper died because of me and then I left. You said it yourself, I left you to pick up the pieces, to take care of my dad. What kind of a son abandons his father at a time like that? Me, this fuck up.” He slaps his chest before pacing the room again.

Jumping out of bed, I grab his biceps to still his movements. “You did what you had to do to survive losing Cooper. Your dad will understand, he loves you.”

“You don’t get it, Jamie. Even before Cooper died, even before you came into our lives, I was awful to him. I don’t deserve his forgiveness and I don’t deserve….”

“Do not say you don’t deserve a family. Do not fucking say it. I know your mother made her love feel conditional, but Duncan is different. My mum is different. Maybe it’s time to stop running away.”

He shakes out of my hold. “That’s rich coming from you,” he scoffs. “When will you stop running? That’s what you’re doing here, isn't it? Running away from everything you’re afraid to face. You think I don’t hear you calling his name in your sleep, or telling your girlfriend you love her? I hear it all, Jamie. How many more times are you going to tell your mum you’re on a work trip because you can’t tell her you’re with me?”

My heart sinks as a slow puncture forms in our bubble.

“I will tell her about us, I will. I haven’t because I didn’t know if it’s what you wanted. We never talk about what we want, so how am I to know?”

“What I want,” Caiden says, while pulling on a pair of black jeans and my black hoodie, “is to not talk about this anymore.” He reaches his bedroom door and I stop him with a hand on his arm.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. I need….I just need a moment.”

“You’re running,” I say bitterly, dropping my hand from him so I can throw on my own clothing.

He doesn’t answer and it feels like the air is sucked from the room when he storms out and slams the door behind him. I know he’s scared, and pushing people away is how Caiden deals with his fear so, I don’t chase after him. I’ll give him the time heneeds to work through his fear. I’ll be ready to talk when he gets back.

Sinking onto the sofa, I stare at the black screen of the television until the ringing of my phone grabs my attention.

“Hey, Jay,” my mum’s voice sounds panicked. “It’s Sage, she’s gone into labour.”

Fear laces through me. “It’s too early,” I say, standing and making my way to Caiden’s bedroom.

“I know,” Mum replies. “We’re at the hospital now and she’s been admitted. She’s asking for you. I tried her mum but she’s not in the country right now and her sister had her baby last month and can’t get here.”

The plan was always for me to be there when the baby was born. With the father out of the picture, I’d promised Sage I would be with her, that she wouldn’t have to do this alone, and I have no intention of letting her down.

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