Page 19 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

Being essentially an only child, albeit one with a much older sibling, was hard, and it’s a weird thing to explain to people, but the one time I was grateful for it was when he went to college and I got that room – and a modicum of privacy.

It was all I could do to keep myself from moving my stuff in there while he was packing up the family car. But you can believe I helped him pack.

I still remember waving at him from the curb, and the second the car disappeared around the corner, running back inside to begin the process of moving into his room.

I didn’t feel the crushing blow of loneliness, of not having him there, not hearing him snore through the paper thin walls, until later that night.

I wept quietly into my pillow until my mom came into my room and slid into bed with me to hug me tight and stroke my hair.

It’s a painful memory and one I wish she hadn’t reminded me of, however accidentally.

I look at my mom, at all the love in her green eyes, and I shake my head. “No, I don’t mind,” I lie.

Chapter Eight

Christopher

“—I think she’s going to need surgery. She called me and said the physical therapy she’s doing with you is making it worse. I don’t know, is there any chance her form is wrong and she’s irritating it?

“Chris?…“Chris!”

I snap out of a haze of sweaty bewilderment as Tyler shouts my name a foot away from me and I turn to look at him.

The freckles on his face stand out in the sun on the café patio, and it brings me back momentarily to the caramel freckles across Hannah’s jaw line, the ones that distracted me into becoming lost in the question mark curve of her neck.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Ellen, the patient I referred to you last month, called to say her shoulder still hurts. She says it hurts worse after she has physical therapy. She wants you to write her a referral back to me so her insurance will cover it, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Red tape is the worst.”

“OK, sure, I can do that.” I shift in my seat and straighten my shorts out.”

“What are you staring at, dude? That woman? That’s creepy, bro. I thought you had game.”

Tyler takes a swig of coffee out of the ceramic mug. It’s green with gold swirls across it that eventually meld into the words ‘Make Your Own Destiny.’

It’s cheesy in the worst way, and Tyler says he comes here all the time on the weekends.

So here we are on a Sunday, enjoying our coffee in the corny mugs, and I’m already starting to feel jittery.

I once asked him why he doesn’t work weekends; don’t most doctors work weekends?

He told me that since he’s an orthopedic surgeon, he usually schedules all but the most urgent cases during the week.

I shrug nonchalantly and run my hand over my left pec.

“Doesn’t that woman across the street look a lot like Julie?”

Tyler’s amicable face morphs into one of pity, and I flinch away from the sincerity of it.

I hear the clink of his cup hitting the wrought iron of the table. I feel him shifting, leaning toward me.

I keep my eyes on the woman. She’s too far away to clearly make out her features, but from a distance, she looks just like Julie.

“It’s been five years, man. And you haven’t really had a serious relationship since. We gotta get you off the Julie train.”

I shade my eyes with the hand that isn’t cupping my coffee.

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