Page 5 of Our Shattered Pieces
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he greeted back. “Are you busy?”
“I was studying, but nothing major.”
Lorcan chuckled. “On a Friday night, my little sister is studying.”
His words brought on an immediate sense of unworthiness. My brother thought I was tucked away, studying, being a good girl, when that was far from the truth.
I was hiding.
But how could I tell him that?
Lorcan’s senior year of high school, he’d gotten caught up in a horrible scandal where his girlfriend of two years had been caught cheating with one of their high school teachers. He’d been married, and she’d gotten pregnant, and the entire thing had been a complete disaster.
With Lorcan and I only being one year a part, I’d been a junior while he’d been a senior, so I had gotten a front row seat to everything that had gone down. I had even been there when the cops had come to arrest Lorcan for assault.
Because our parents were wealthy and had the resources to hire the best, Lorcan had gotten off with probation, but the teacher’s predatory patterns had been exposed, and of course, that had helped his case. But after Vanessa letting Lorcan think the baby was his, and then getting an abortion to protect her lover, well…well, Lorcan didn’t have a high opinion of females. I was pretty sure me and Mom were the only two women on the planet he trusted.
So, naturally, I couldn’t tell him the truth of what was really going on. I mean, how could I? Lorcan and I were as close as two siblings could be. He was my most favorite person in the world, and I was his. Twins were probably the only siblings to have a stronger bond. I loved my brother, and because I knew the truth would probably gut him, I haven’t said a word when, normally, I told him everything. This was the first time I’ve ever been scared to tell him something.
“Well, what are you doing? Why are you calling me on a Friday night?” I returned the question. “Shouldn’t you be out…I don’t know, getting drunk and breaking hearts?” At six-foot-two and built like a machine with his black hair and grey eyes, I knew Lorcan was considered a prize. Girls have been trying to use me for years for a chance at my brother.
“While I don’t have any objections to getting drunk, you know I’m cool off breaking hearts,” he chuckled. “The only girls I hang out with these days are the ones who know the score.”
See?
“So, why aren’t you out getting drunk?”
“I was thinking of you,” he replied. “I miss you Molly Doll.”
My nose started to tickle, and I could feel pressure behind my eyes. “I miss you, too.”
“Well, I was thinking of taking a trip to go see you next weekend,” he said, surprising me.
“Oh, God,” I laughed. “I can only imagine.”
“What?”
“I can only imagine how many girls are going to hound me about you after you leave,” I told him truthfully. “Fresh meat.”
I could hear his smile over the phone. “Hardly,” he disagreed. “I’ll be there to seeyou.I’m not visiting for the scenery.”
I grinned. “But the California scenery is so beautiful.”
“All scenery is beautiful if you take the time to appreciate it, Molly Doll,” he said, proving further what a bitch Vanessa was. Before her bullshit, Lorcan appreciated women as a whole. He wasn’t big on what society dictated as good-looking. If Lorcan liked a girl, he liked her. Period.
Snapping myself out of my depressing thoughts, I said, “So, we have a date for next weekend?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’ll fly out Thursday evening and fly back out Sunday afternoon.”
“Does that give you enough time to recuperate before classes Monday?”
“Yeah, it’s only a three-hour flight,” he said. “Hell, I’ve been up past one in the morning and still made an eight o’clock class.”
“Yeah, been there, done that,” I sympathized. “So, I’ll see you next weekend.”
“See you next weekend,” he said. “Love you, Molly Doll.”
