He glances at her, complains as I extract several more. All falls on my deaf ears, but she’s had enough of his whining, deciding to leave him in my capable hands.
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice goes soft, a whisper when she finally leaves. Snapping the curtain closed behind her. “You came.”
I press the tweezers a little deeper than I need to. He yelps.
“Yes, Nene. I heard you the first time. You scared the shit out of me, and you got what you wanted.”
I glance at him. His hand is starting to feel warm to the touch, and I think he’s developing a fever. I’ll tell them when they grab him for the tests. Otherwise, he’s a mandatory admission for observation at the very least.
His mouth wobbles, but he keeps trying to act slick.
“What I wanted was you and Mas in the same room again. Mission accomplished. I’m basically Cupid. You can thank me on Valentine’s Day with that fat ass in the tiniest g-string they make. Like fucking dental floss string so I can go cave diving to find it.”
I breathe out through my nose so I don’t laugh. He doesn’t deserve it. But the corners of my mouth twitch anyway. He spills the most random, crude, and useless stuff, but it usually brings a smile to my face. To be like him and take nothing seriously, even another accident that he didn’t intend to cause, but did intentionally to bring us all together again. It’s a terrible decision, even if he’s celebrating it like it’s not.
“But you weren’t gonna come back, huh?” he whispers, finally realizing that the curtain isn’t soundproof for his overly loud voice. The tweezers pause between splinters. My shoulders tighten. Guilt floods my body, and I know I can be honest with him. Emilio couldn’t lie his way out of a hospital bed on an incline.
“I don’t know,” I admit, voice low because anything louder might crack. “I tried. Every day. Every night. But every time I picked up my phone, I?—”
He interrupts with a gasp so dramatic it echoes off the curtain.
“SO YOU DID GET OUR MESSAGES?”
I almost choke. “Shh, Nene. That’s not?—”
“You loved my dick pics, didn’t you? Masturbated to them, huh? I yanked my chubby to you every time. Those DSLs sucking my chubby, stuffing everything in you on the bathroom counter.”
I take one out harder than necessary. He howls in pain. But it works in shutting him up. His loud voice carries more than he thinks.
“Hush!”
He points at me with his splintered hand, winces, then keeps pointing anyway because apparently, pain is optional when he’s being nosy.
“You missed Mas and me. Admit it. And don’t lie because I’ll know, Sof. Don’t you dare lie to my injured face.”
My eyes sting, and I turn away. Pour some chlorhexidine onto a swab and dab it onto the torn skin. He sucks in, cusses a lot, and tries to yank his hand back. My grip tightens, and I resume working.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t NOT say it. So, it has to be true.”
I rub my forehead with the back of my wrist.
“Emilio—”
“And you didn’t block us,” he adds, softer now in a serious way that’s not like him and more like his sensitive twin. “If you really wanted space, you would’ve blocked us. But you didn’t. You ghosted. Ghosting is different. Ghosting means you’re scared of how much you like us.”
My stomach tightens because he’s wrong about what ghosting means, but not wrong about that I didn’t block them. I sink lower on the stool beside the bed. His head lulls closer to me.
“I wasn’t scared of you,” I admit after lying in bed, scared of my ex coming back, scared of how I feel about them, but not scared of them, far from it. “I was worried about how fast everything felt. How big you both felt. How suddenly I have two of you in my life. Doing things for me and wanting things from me. Last time I fell that fast, I ended up rebuilding my whole life from scratch.”
He watches me, unusually quiet for him. It makes me a bit nervous. I’m not comfortable with introspective Em. I hope this calm side doesn’t stay around because I’m not sure how to handle it.
“And I didn’t want to make another mistake,” I add, weakly. If we are both showing different sides of us, might as well show this one that rarely comes out.
He snorts. Loudly. Then cackles, back to his usual self. I’m thrown off guard by how fast he changes.
“We’re not mistakes, my angel. We’re PREMIUM CHOICES!”
