Emerson dragged her foot against the ground. "How have you been?"
"Fine."
She pursed her lips. "Are you excited for the trip?"
"Yeah." I checked my nonexistent watch. "And we're about to leave, so…"
"We drove over here at two in the morning in the dark," Easton stated as if I wasn’t aware.
"Well, I am glad to know that you are capable of driving at night." I smiled sarcastically. "It's a good skill to have."
"I don’t need the sass," Easton grunted.
His sister jabbed him in the side and he winced. "What did we talk about, Easton?"
He sighed, relaxing his tense shoulders as he tried to make his tone gentle. "When we found out you were in the hospital it was seriously the scariest thing I've ever experienced."
I waited for him to continue because surely that wasn't the end of his sentence, but Easton pressed his lips together and shrugged at me. Emerson facepalmed.
"You came to say that?" I asked, my face scrunched up with disbelief. "You could have texted."
"Easton has more to say, he’s just struggling to say it," Emerson interjected. "But I swear, he and I feel really bad that we let you get to the point of…you know. We wanted to tell you before you left."
Emerson and Easton were the most uncooperative and unapologetic people I knew. The only people they cared about was each other, to hell with everyone else. Getting an apology—even a half-assed one—felt unreal to me. It felt so unreal that it did not make me feel better like I thought it would.
Not knowing what else to say, I mumbled a weak ‘thanks’ as I turned on my heels.
My sister scoffed. "Is that all you're going to say?"
I looked over my shoulder. "What do you want me to say?"
"Something more than that."
"Sorry, Emerson, but those few words that you and Easton rehearsed doesn’t exactly make me want to give you a heartfelt speech." I faced them as my eyes narrowed. "Thanks for the apology, I needed to hear that. But as much as I want it to make me feel better about everything, it does not."
Easton took a harsh step forward. "Nothing can be fixed overnight, but now we can see where we may have gone wrong."
"May have?" I scoffed. “You two have a special twin bond that no one will ever understand but you, and it’s amazing for you. Seriously, I’m glad you guys have each other. I just wish you would have extended that sibling bond to me.”
Emerson frowned. "But we have. Sure, we haven't been the kindest emotionally, but we've always supported you in other ways. We buy you things and we wouldn’t do that if we didn’t care."
"I want your love, not your money.”
The twins’ eyes met each other and they shared a look. I expected them to speak, but I realized they were left dumbfounded.
“I want the sibling relationship others have, but I realized that wasn’t possible for us because of what happened eighteen years ago. I would fix it if I could raise the dead, but I can’t. That was when I thought that maybe if you saw that I was capable…. worthy of being your brother, then maybe you could accept me."
Easton groaned. "You're speaking in riddles."
My jaw clenched. "I worked my ass off since elementary school to be at the top of the class because ofyou two. And guess what? I did that. I also skipped a grade. Don't know if you remember since you never acknowledge it unless it's to make fun of me, but I did.”
“But still, your lack of reaction told me that it wasn't enough,” I seethed. “When we got to high school I ran for class president because surely you had to take notice of that. And guess what happened then? You did take notice because I lost every single time."
Easton stood like a statue while Emerson’s eyes met the ground. I did not notice how worked up I was until I felt the sting of my fingernails piercing into my palms.
"Everything I have done has been to show you guys that Mom and Dad dying came with something.Me, it came with me."
"You did all of that because of us?" Emerson asked quietly.
