Page 132 of Van Cort
“You’d consider one of us after this?”
“I don’t know. But I need to know how you’d feel about that. Is it just me that you want, or me and West?” What a fucking question.
My hands find my pockets, mouth hovering around answers I don’t yet have. “I do want you. And I’ll have you any way I can get you. But he’s been missing from me for a long time. He’s as much me as I am, in some ways. I don’t know how to explain that to you, but this - the three of us - completes something that I’ve been lost without, River. It makes me whole. Which should be far easier for you to deal with, do you understand that?”
“No, not really. And when West said the three of us together, did he mean, together as in sex? Because I don’t know if that’s something I could do or would want. I hadn’t really thought about that. I mean, do you two touch?”
For the first time tonight, a real smile emerges on my face. “How would you feel about it if we did?”
She scrunches her face up, unsure. “Meaning you do?”
“No, but it’s something for you to think about.” I chuckle and back away.
“I don’t know what to think about. Or believe.”
I walk back to her, scooping her chin up in my hand, and kiss her like my life depends on it because it does in some ways. She’s everything to me now. She’s brought me home somehow, given me a new version of life to need.
Slowly easing the kiss, I break from her and watch her eyes find mine. “Believe that, River. It’s as true as it gets. I love you. Nothing has changed on that front. Everything is you. You’re my view.” I back away again. This time intent on letting her rest. “Sleep for a few hours. If you wake with the same questions, I’llanswer them. Nothing is a done deal until you tell me what you want.”
She nods.
Smiling at her, I leave.
He’s at the bottom of the terrace when I get back to him with some fresh coffee, looking out over the sprawl of the city as it wakes up. Headlights start dimming down there, and the rush of early morning traffic eases into life. He’d look over at the island from the boathouse for hours some days, thinking. It’s the same look now.
“Missing home?” I ask.
“No, I like the city well enough, but the three of us makes me think of the three of us before. Memories.” I smile and hand him a cup.
He takes it and turns back to the view again. “I don’t know how this is going to work, Rhett. I don’t know how we share anymore if she does allow it. And even if we do work that out, I don’t know if I trust you to not fuck it up again.” He turns to me. “And also, while we’re talking, you did it, Rhett. You killed Lara. You can’t blame me for that, and I don’t appreciate the fucking connotation, regardless of your reasoning. Don’t ever try that crap with me again.”
“I wasn’t blaming you for anything, West. I did do it, you’re right, but I was explaining where my head was in those seconds. Rightly or wrongly, in that moment, I couldn’t see sense because of everything I’d done for you. I expected you to understand that.” I frown and lean on the rail. “I expected you to know that I needed you to help me. You knew everything else about me, so of course you’d know that. But you didn’t. You didn’t see it coming, did you? And you didn’t understand that I wasn’t coping. And after it was all done, when I needed to talk to you about that, you ignored me, and you left two days after the funeral. Just gone.”He sneers and looks away from me, choosing to walk. “Leaving again?” He spins around.
“Fuck you, Rhett. What do you want? Poor you?”
Part of me wants to laugh. “No. I learned that expecting pity from you was a pointless endeavour a long time ago.” He scowls, like that at least hit home in some way. “I just want my brother back. I want him to understand me, and I need to know that I can rely on him. Nothing works with River unless we make that happen. You know it as well as I do. We’d be better letting her go than putting her through that kind of hell.”
Silence floats between us, and other than the low hum of noise coming from the streets below, there’s an empty air of unfinished conversations we should have had a long time ago.
“I missed you, West. I missed the other part of me. And you were God knows where, and I was alone. I dealt with everything, and our father, and then our business, and I didn’t care about that, but you were the part of me that kept me fucking sane.”
“Could’ve called.” I look at him.
“I did. For nearly a year. You wouldn’t answer.” He turns away.
“Didn’t fucking like you much.” I laugh and lift myself up from the rail, sighing out the laughter as if it didn’t really sit well inside me. “In fact, I hated you for what you did to her.”
“Do you still hate me?” He sighs and turns to rest on the railing, facing me.
A long time passes with just us two looking at the mirror image looking back. Neither of us moves from it, or even blinks. I expect we’re both thinking the same things, both analysing the same feelings. I’ve wondered, sometimes, if that’s what makes twins almost useless without each other. No one else understands, but that reflection - the real live version of a double, gives credence to the other’s life somehow, helps it feel the ground beneath its feet.
He turns from the internal conversation first, breaking our monologue, and heads back to the chairs I was sitting in earlier without answering. I don’t know how long we both sit there for, but time seems to pass in the silence we both allow. I’m not sure when the last time we did this was - just sat and watched the world drift by around us. We used to. Although maybe our thoughts weren’t perfectly in sync back then. Maybe, because of what I went through compared to him, we thought differently, and he never knew how much he meant to me. I should talk about that long ago boat ride, the one where I tried to rescue him. It all started then. Everything that came after that came because of that runaway trip to the island. My failure. My fault.
“What time is it?” he asks. “I’m hungry.” I look at my watch.
“Seven-thirty. I should go to the office.”
“Really? She’s in there, still sleeping, and you’re thinking about work?”
