Page 36 of One More Round

Simon lets out a deep rumble of laughter and I look at him unable to stop my own. Link is sulking in the kitchen now.

“Dude, what are you looking for?” Simon finally asks.

“Sweets. I need something sweet. Like chocolate,” he replies.

“Check the back of the fridge. There are probably M&M’s back there.”

I gawk at Simon. How did he remember that’s one of my M&M hiding spots?

He bumps his shoulder to mine and says, “I didn’t forget. M&M’s are the key to your heart.” He smiles at me and, suddenly, I’m in serious danger of melting right here on the couch.

“Score,” Link chants. I’m assuming he found them.

“Speaking of scoring, is your hot sports guy on?” Morgan asks as she enters the living room with Dex right behind her.

“Jesus,” Link mutters and shovels some M&M’s in his mouth.

Ruby looks all too pleased with Link’s reaction when she tells us he’ll be on soon. We spend the next few minutes trying to figure out where we are going out tonight. Finally, we decide on The Bar. Soon enough the local sports report comes on, and I have to admit that Ruby’s sports guy is pretty hot. The guys start to comment on the quality of the sports report when Link excuses himself to the bathroom, all while muttering words like “bullshit” and “sports are overrated.”

Laughing, I stand to get my own handful of candies when I hear the female newscaster break in.

“Thank you, Mason, for that great sports report, but we have breaking news out of Indianapolis. We’ve just learned that a man has been shot by police after an altercation at an IU Health medical facility. The twenty-five-year-old man, Todd Newman of Indianapolis, wrecked his car into the side of the hospital and then entered the ER. A hospital security guard used his taser, but Newman was described as ‘a madman who just wouldn’t go down.’ We don’t have a clear reason or timeline as to when Newman was shot or where. This story is still developing so we will provide more details as they become available.”

The sounds around me are drowned out as I stand in the middle of the room staring at my brother’s picture on the screen. From the looks of it, it’s a very recent photo. I haven’t seen Todd in a while, so I find it a little unsettling how much we look alike. Even when you don’t see your twin often, it can come as a bit of a shock when you see your face in theirs. An out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing.

The picture of Todd leaves the screen and it's then that I suck in a breath and realize that my breaths are becoming more and more labored. The bitter acid in my stomach that is reserved solely for matters dealing with Todd swells in my gut.

I tear my eyes away from the TV and slide them over to the group of people staring at me with a mix of concern, horror, and hurt. The group of people who have no idea I have a mentally unstable twin who just made the regional news.

Distantly, I hear the bathroom door open and, “Whoa, what the hell did I miss?” Link asks.

I open my mouth to explain but nothing comes out. Looking right at Morgan, her eyes wide and neck stretched forward, my own eyes start to water. It’s starting to get really hot in here and the room is beginning to tilt. My gaze falls on the vacant space where Simon was and the panic building inside me starts to ease just a touch when I feel his arm slide around me and his lips at my ear.

“Breathe, G. You gotta breathe.”

I struggle for the breath I’ve been trying to take and gulp in air.

“Gia?” Morgan questions. “Who was that man?”

Again, I try to explain but only a choked sob breaks free and my hand flies up to cover my mouth. Simon pulls me in tighter to him as he tells my closest friends what I’ve been hiding from them for all these years. The thing that I’m positive my best friend won't understand why I hid.

“That was Gia’s twin, Todd. He's suffers from extreme mental instability,” he tells the room.

“What?” Morgan squeaks. “I didn’t know she had a … Gia?”

“Well, most likely, she didn’t tell you because they don’t have a good relationship,” he replies correctly.

“And you know this?” I hear Dex ask. I can’t look over at Morgan, so I assume Dex is starting to go into protective mode.

“Yeah. I know. I know everything,” Simon answers him.

Well, not everything.

Chapter Eighteen

Simon

Standing there with Gia wrapped tightly in my arms, I try my best to face down her demons by explaining who Todd is. I won’t touch on why she hid that part of herself from her best friends, mostly because I can’t fathom how she’d be able to hide such a big secret. But I share what I do know, that Todd is her twin and he is mentally unstable. I don’t know what his current diagnosis is, as it seemed to change regularly when we were younger.

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