Emotion welled in his eyes, which might have been more shocking than the revelation that Troian was queer. Ever since I’d been trying to figure him out, Troian gave me the impression that emotions were not something he handled well. Truly the Anti-Thayer.
“I showed up on Thayer’s doorstep and begged him to help me out with some money. When he refused…I took it.” Confusion spread over my face, and he nodded and added, “I knew he had a lot of his inheritance left. And since I’d blown all mine on any mind-numbing substance I could find, my ex convinced me that I needed this money to get better. So, I did some digging, found the bank that Thayer used, and pretended to be him to withdraw every single cent.”
“Oh my God.” My hand went to my mouth. It was the first thing I’d said to him during his explanation. I remembered a few years back when Thayer had said he needed a better paying job. He’d been working at a school as a janitor, and next thing I knew, he was working at the club over in the Orb-centric part of town.
“And my piece of shit ex-boyfriend stole the money fromme. I didn’t even get out of the state before he robbed me and took everything I’d taken from Thayer. I was lost,” Troian sniffled, and he shook his head to keep the dam of emotions from bursting in front of me. “I fucked up the last relationship I had with the last person who gave a shit. Thayer cut me out of his life after that and I struggled to become the man I am today.” He unfurled his arms to gesture to himself. “Five years sober.”
“Congratulations,” And I meant it. I wasn’t going to pretend to understand his struggle or his journey, but being able to walk away from it was a feat. “But what the hell does all of this have to do with why Thayer didn’t tell me about you?”
“I may not know the exact reason,” Troian admitted. “But would you want to tell your, I’m assuming, new friend that you had a twin brother that was letting anyone and everyone fuck him for drug money?”
I winced. Troian certainly had a way with words. If Thayer was sunshine and comforting cotton, Troian was a thunderstorm and barbed wire. They might have looked uncannily alike, but they’re opposing forces were obvious. They were like two spirits that shared the same face.
And he was right about how soon after Thayer’s parents had died that we met. We’d both gone to a grieving support group, him for his recently deceased parents and me for my recently passed grandmother, both of us confused teenagers turned adults. We’d found kinship in one another, and it didn’t take long for us to become friends. Neither of us liked being alone, so when Thayer had found the apartment, I’d moved in and the rest was history.
“So you showing up at the same time as my accident is purely coincidence?”
Troian nodded. “I’d heard of you, obviously, but I had no idea that was going on. Thayer had no idea I was in town. I showed up outside the apartment when he was on his way to the hospital to see you that first day.”
That answered most of my questions. Sort of. It still didn’t explain why Thayer hadn’t told me. A lot of what Troian was saying as the motives behind Thayer’s actions were pure speculation. I needed to hear it straight from the source to know for sure.
“I came here to make amends,” Troian sighed, his fingers bulging in his pockets as he nervously played with the material between his fingers. “I’ve already deposited the money I stole from Thayer back into his account, plus interest.” My eyes bulged, but Troian didn’t allow me a response. “This whole shitshow started with me impersonating my brother at the bank, so I did it one last time to keep him from arguing about taking the money. It’s already his.”
“And he doesn’t know any of this yet?”
“I tried to talk to him at the hospital, but it was pretty clear the only thing on his mind was you,” Troian stated. “As it should have been. I have a knack for arriving at just thebesttime.” Sarcasm turned his lips into a smirk, and it was the first time I’d seen something comfortable on his face.
It seemed like convenient timing for Troian to show up, but it also felt like he was telling me the truth. About everything. What hurt more than anything was that this had been happening under my nose, without my knowledge. Thayer had harbored this for a decade, for fuck’s sake.
How was I supposed to take this news any other way than to feel completely untrustworthy?
Creaking from our ignored hinges reverberated off the walls as the front door wretched open, Thayer stepping inside with a bag of food dangling from his hand. When he saw the two of us, his eyes became saucers with a wide berth.
His eyes went to me first. “Bas, I was going to stop by the hospital again but I—”
“Was avoiding me?” I rolled my eyes, but my smile betrayed my inner feelings. “Yeah, I got that part.”
A memory struck me like lightning across the sky of Thayer and Troian’s conjoined past. My mind raced back to the time that Thayer had started worrying more about money, claiming he needed to leave his janitor job. After that whole ordeal, Thayer had debuted a new haircut shortly after. A haircut that resembled the one I saw when I craned my neck in Troian’s direction.
“Wait, have you been in this apartment before?” I looked between the twins, but pointed my finger at Thayer. “You cut your hair right around the time you told me you’d have to quit your job at the school to make more money.”
Thayer sighed, running a hand through his jet black hair. “Yeah…that night you found me passed out on the couch? That wasn’t me.”
I remembered the night Thayer was talking about. I’d woken up in the middle of the night and decided to make sure he’d made it home alright. When I saw him on the couch, donning a much closer haircut than usual, I’d just shrugged and went back to bed. There’d been no reason for me to actually check Thayer’s bedroom because I’d never known there was two of them.
I turned to Troian, who nodded. “It was me. I’d shown up berating Thayer for money, like I told you.”
“And you cut your hair to cover up that Troian was here?”
Thayer sighed. “I wasn’t ready to tell you what was really going on, so it seemed like the best idea in case you started asking questions.”
Understanding the reason behind it was one thing, but accepting it was another. “Why did I have to the hear the truth from your brother though? Why couldn’t you have told me, Thayer?”
“Did you tell him thetruth, Troy?” Thayer’s tone was sharp and accusing, and even I could detect the hurt in Troian’s eyes as his brother set their cooling food on the kitchen bar.
“Yes,” Troian hissed, hands forming fists from their denimconfines. “I told him the truth, asshole.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry. That was fair. I’ve lied to you a lot. But I’m not the lying asshole brother you cut out of your life. I would’t lie about the bullshit I’ve put you through.”
“He told the truth.” That much I knew. There was no reason for Troian to lie to me. Especially when he was claiming that he wanted to make amends with his brother. It didn’t exactly boast well for him to lie to Thayer’s best friend. “The better question is why didn’t you tell me?”
