Page 20 of Three Days of Holiday

Hale stepped back and Will sucked in a breath of air. Hale’s gaze searched Will up and down and then froze at the name badge wrapped around his neck. He’d worn it flipped over earlier, but now it had his name in big black letters scratched across the front.

William Causebay.

Hale charged back at Will, pushing him against the car again. “A fucking Causebay?”

Will’s head jerked back as Hale’s fist made contact with his lower jaw without warning.

“Hale!” I screamed and tugged on him again, throwing myself against his back to hold on to both hands so he couldn’t hit him again. He wrenched himself from my hold and hit Will in the face a second time.

Blood trickled from Will’s nose from the second strike.

Will wiped away the blood but never raised a fist to hit back. Hale stared at him, not sure what to do when he didn’t fight. Where in the hell did my brother learn to throw a punch? Normally, when the brothers argued, it didn’t come to actual blows.

I lunged at Hale, finally pushing him hard enough from the side that he slipped and righted himself so he didn’t fall over from the force. “You are such an asshole,” I said right in his face and then opened the passenger side door of Hope’s car and got in.

The stupid boys could act like morons if they wanted, but I wouldn’t take part in their shitty behavior. We were adults and needed to act like it. Violence never solved anything.

I stared straight ahead waiting for Hope but didn’t miss it when the car shook again from Will’s body hittingthe side. How fucking stupid was my twin? How did we share a uterus for nine months?

I wanted to kill him myself. Deciding that sounded like a great idea, I opened the car door, ready to get out and take a few swings. Hale didn’t get to go around punching people because they kissed me.

“You ever look at my sister again and I’ll kill you,” Hale said giving Will one last push against his shoulder.

“Good to meet you too,” Will called after him as Hale finally pulled away. He stalked somewhere further in the parking lot away from Hope’s car, and she jumped in, giving me a look before starting the vehicle and peeling out of the lot. Will stood alone, staring at us, as he jumped out of the way before Hope ran him over.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said before she could start.

She nodded. “Yeah, sure. We’ll pretend like I’m going to let that happen.”

Okay,so I admit my response to sharing the best kiss of my life with William Causebay and then watching my brother hit him twice wasn’t great. I probably shouldn’t have jumped in my sister’s car and run… drove away.

It took me a long time to come to that conclusion. I spent a silent drive home as Hope grilled me for answers about Will and I refused to answer.

Like I could have hidden him from anyone? She’s the one who told me to go out with him.

I mumbled a few weak words at her and then jumped out of the car as soon as we pulled into my parents’ driveway.Since then, I’d locked myself in my room pretending to work on details for the event, but I spent the time replaying the last hour and a half of my life. What the hell happened?

First learning that Will was William Causebay, that kiss, then watching him get a bloody nose.

After I got past my anger with his lies, deceits, and misdeeds, I spent a good twelve hours deciding I might not have handled the situation the best way possible.

At that point, I just wasn’t sure how to fix it. Or if I could fix it.

I hadn’t spoken to anyone about what happened, even when each of my three brothers pounded on my bedroom door demanding I answer their questions. My mother brought me food, and the only thing I saw in her eyes as she opened the door and passed me a tray with a tuna fish sandwich and a large piece of pie was pity.

That was almost worse than anything else.

At least for me. I didn’t get my nose broken.

Only my heart.

My finger hovered over the contact button on my phone until I allowed myself to press it and then pulled up Will’s name and read through the two texts we sent one another, confirming our meet-up before the truth of who he was emerged.

Spending a full day in my room agonizing over William gave me enough time to finalize my vision board on Pinterest and an opportunity to master Candy Crush—a game I downloaded six hours into my forced seclusion.

I entered the event with plans for the possible themes they might come up with, so all I needed to do was pulltogether the last elements of my ideas and make a list of what I still needed to buy. It was obvious they’d pick something wintery for the final competition. We lived in Maine and it was December.

I typed out a sentence on my phone, and then quickly deleted it.

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