“He’s not…” is my very best defence. And we all know it’s an intolerably weak one.
“Yourcousin!” Jon reiterates. “Do you know that’s illegal most places?”
“Is it?” August goads him. “Like where? Not London, I’m sure.”
“Like…” Jon splutters to a stop. “Anywhere civilised! It’s disgusting!”
“We don’t think so,” August prods, and right about now, I want to slap him. I know he likes getting under Jon’s skin, and I’ll admit, some part of me finds that incredibly attractive, and quite funny, but not like this. Not with everyone else in the van shrinking from me, looking at me like I really am kissing my cousin, whatever shred of respect any of them had left for me after everything Jon’s done dwindling away like so many streetlights in the distance.
“It’s sick, man,” Jon declares. But he lunges forward, slipping his hand like a snake around my waist. “Let me help you. I’ll take you away from him. I don’t know what he’s done to you, what your family situation was like?—”
“Oh Jesus. It’s not like that, Jon.”
“He’s a predator. A sicko. And I won’t let him touch you ever?—”
“He’s me!” I cry, shoving him off, stepping back so violently I almost fall. “He’s me, alright? He’s me and I’m him and look at us!” I fling my hand back and forth between us, August’s lips tight and tilted to one side, his dark eyes on me. Was I not supposed to say that? He never explicitly said I wasn’t supposed to say that.
“What the fuck are you on about?” shouts Jon. “He’s not your soulmate.I’myour soulmate! It’s me! Your other half—you and me!”
“No, Jon. Not like that.” I slam my head into my hand, frustration rising with every second. “He’s me. Look at him. He’s an exact match for me.”
“I knew it!” Shashi exclaims, and for the first time since she met August, her wariness drops, and she rushes forward from the back of the van to sit opposite him.
“What do you mean you knew?” August asks, perfectly shocked at her reaction.
“It’s so obvious,” she declares. “Cousins don’t look like this.Twinsdon’t look like this. It’s everything. Even the freckles are a perfect match.”
Jon must take Shashi’s words more seriously than mine, because he slips down into the seat next to her and stares hard at August, then me, then August. “No. That one has glasses.”
A cackle rips out of August, so I drop onto the seat next to him, letting my hand fall on his knee to quiet him. His eyes shift down to it, Jon’s eyes shift down to it, then I scrunch it into a ball and put it back on my own knee.
“He’s me, alright? A lot of weird shit has been going on lately, and I tried to tell you on the phone, and you wouldn’t listen.”
“So…” Jon stares at the pair of us. “You kissedyourself?”
“Is that better or worse?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well, I don’t know! But he’s not my cousin!”
“How the hell did this happen? What’s even going on?”
“It’s…” Where to even start? “It’s complicated. Too complicated. I don’t even know what to tell you. Just that… it’s been a really hard time, alright?”
The van moves up the street, lights and cars flashing by while he stares hard, making up his mind. Then, eventually… “I’m sorry.” The first words that aren’t a drama swirling around Jon are spoken quietly, and the first genuine apology he’s given me in months rips away the tension between us.
“It’s alright.”
I’m guessing it’s the calm moment between us that finally prompts August to speak in a way not directly intentioned to piss Jon off. “I came to August for help. And back there, those people…” He breaks off, looking at me with a hesitance I’m unaccustomed to in him.
“Was it us?” I ask. “Did we do that?”
“It’s… I-I think it’s just the coffee thing.”
“The coffee thing? Really? It’s not because we… Because…”
Because you kissed me.
