Page 1 of New River Gorge(ous)
1
Brooke
Red paint splatters the floor of my apartment, and I can’t help but notice the way the liquid makes a pattern. It looks like blood. Like this place is a murder scene. It’s fitting, really. My tombstone will say, ‘Here lies Brooke Belle Bastion, beloved twin and serial killer of relationships.’
Dramatic much? Yes. But I don’t care. I’m allowing myself to not care for twenty-four hours. I’ll lose myself in ice cream topped with M&M’s and hot fudge. Matt will call tomorrow at eleven a.m. after his gym sessions, and I’ll tell him then. He’ll come over, and we’ll eat more junk together, and he’ll let me watchIs it Cake?until everything looks like cake and we’re crazed enough to think we could make hyperrealistic cakes ourselves. We’ll speak in the ‘twin’ language that no one else understands, and we’ll attempt to make a cake in the shape of a random household object.
Matt will text Mom a picture of the object and said cake (which will not look at all like the object because we’re both terrible bakers), and she’ll laugh, and then he’ll leave to getdinner and work on his business after asking three times in ‘twin’ if I’m ok. I’ll smile and shove a fistful of the cake in my mouth and assure him that I am. I’ll be lying, but I’ll also be ready to be alone by then.
Life will go on for everyone else, so why worry them? I’ve got it completely under control. I’ll be cheerful and in charge and not at all bothered by the fact that I had to break off yet another relationship because of … reasons.
I scrub a hand down my face and feel the sticky red paint adhere to my skin. Great, now I look bloody.
I stand up from the easel and retrieve the paintbrush I accidentally knocked to the floor as I let sobs shake my body.
The anxiety I muster through regularly rears its ugly head.
Totally alone, I can finally let things bother me. And I am bothered. Bothered that I can’t find a man to match my love for adventures, a man to challenge me, tolove me—the messy parts and all. Bothered that my personality has earned me the nickname ‘the general’ and that no man I’ve attempted a relationship with has been willing to match my zest for life and penchant for … directing situations because the alternative is not knowing what’s going to happen.
I’m good at being in charge. I know that. But wouldn’t it be nice if a man, romantically involved with me, could sometimes at leasttry? I’m the opposite of a pushover, but everyone I’ve ever dated cows to my personality, or assumes I’m a conquest.
I’m too big. Too bright. Too forceful. And I try to tone it down, but somehow I always choose the dates, the restaurants, the movies, the adventures. I get the sense that I make it too easy for other people to follow. I’m decisive, but not many people are, so it feels weird. I wish I knew what to do differently.
I stand and march to the painting supply drawer under my kitchen sink. I grab an old paint-splattered towel and return to clean up the mess. I’m crouched down on my heels, wiping upthe murder scene of Brooke and Stanford’s relationship, when my phone buzzes with an incoming call, startling me.
My elbow slips, and I crash into the leg of the easel. I grab the leg to stop it from tipping, but it’s not enough. The palette flies off its perch and whacks me on the forehead, and paint specks cover everything.
My phone flies off the ledge of the easel and miraculously lands face-up in the mess. I snarl at it, but it’s Matt, so I slide the video call on and bark out a ‘What!?’ in greeting.
Matt is unperturbed by my gruff greeting. “Hey, sis.” His eyes travel down my face, taking in my paint-covered state. He chuckles. “What happened?”
I launch into the whole story about how Stanford Jopman is not the man for me. How he picked me up for the date I asked him to plan and he waggled his eyebrows and said, ‘Oh, I planned it alright.’ Then he insinuated something extremely crude and not at all what I wanted to do with him, or what I meant when I asked him to plan our date.
Matt’s jaw clenches when I tell him about Stanford’s intentions. Matt’s no stranger to guys being jerks to me and implying I’m cheap goods. But at my own request, he’s never gotten violent with any of the guys who’ve treated me like I’m an ice cream sundae—something to consume, then move on to the next thing. I also have helped the situation by never dating any of his friends. That would have been way too weird.
“Are you ok?” he asks and glances off to the side.
“Who’s with you?” I peer at the screen, as if narrowing my eyes would magically make me see who else is in the room. “It’s not Mom, or Dad, or Joey, or Lizzy.”
Matt shifts a little, and I can no longer see his face. Instead, he has the phone camera pressed up against the gray of his t-shirt. Annoyance flickers in my chest.
The phone shakes and his face comes back into view. “That’s why I was calling, Brooke.” He swallows. “I wanted to tell you that I—” He rubs his jaw. “I met someone.”
My eyes widen, and my goopy paint hand flies to my open mouth without me telling it to do that. My brother, the perpetually single man who’s famous for his two-date ultimatum, is tellingmehe met someone?
World? What is happening?
The paint gets in my mouth, and I gag at the acrylic taste before running to the sink. I rinse my mouth out and wash my hands, taking my time. I break up with a man, Matt finds someone. Life isn’t fair.
Twins do thingstogether. It’s the whole point. Obviously we can’t do everything together, but I don’t like this. At all. The anxiety I corral into a neat pen in the far recesses of my mind escapes. I spend a moment forcing it back into its cage with deep breaths, but my fingers find my hair and start to tug on the roots, pulling out several of the long blonde strands. It’s only when I see the pink one in my hand that I stop.Get it together, Brooke.
I paste on a fake smile and return to the phone call. “Is she with you right now?” I ask.
Matt leans back and adjusts the camera so that now I can see him sitting on the couch in his apartment as he wraps his arm around a beautiful brunette woman with her dark hair in a messy bun. She wears a bright blue sleeveless shirt that puts her impressively sculpted arms on display.
“Hi, I’m Melanie,” she says, her voice soft and pleasant.
I do everything I can to push down the flare of jealousy that Matt is leaving me and finding love, and I’m not.
