Fuck me. Her smile. I felt like my heart was going to combust inside my chest.
I stood there like a fool as she began to erase, add colors, light and shades. I watched as she attempted to bring the eyes to…life.
“Thank you,” I said instead, after what felt like hours.
She paused, lifting her head. “For what?”
“For earlier.”
“Oh,” she beamed again. A bullet to the heart. But no pain. Just a high.
“It was nothing,” she said dismissively. “I’m just glad I could help.”
I recalled her words from earlier. The one that had been churning at my mind since our encounter.
“Nice to meet you…again?” I rephrased and something flickered across her eyes. “You said that back in the hall.” My voice was quieter. “Have we met before?”
There was a small pause. Then she nodded.
“It was two weeks ago.” Her expression shifted. “At Fitz’s Lit and Brew.”
I stiffened. The name of the coffee shop struck a cord inside me. That was where I always had my coffee every time I came down to Braemont. Except that two weeks ago, I wasn’t anywhere near Braemont. But Zaghan was.
Zaghan.
Zaghan’s words surfaced in my memory.
‘Be careful down at Braemont. Some fucker tried to kill me’
Realisation snapped into place.
It wasn’t me she met that day. It was Zaghan.
My stomach coiled, the weight of the revelation settling heavily on my chest.
If she truly met me two weeks ago at Fitz’s Lit and Brew, then it wasn’t me she met. She had met Zaghan. My irrational twin brother. My other self. The other version of me.
This meant Zaghan had talked to her. He had interacted with her.
A thread of unease pulled tight in my gut. What exactly did the two of them talk about?
“You don’t remember, do you?” she asked, her head tilted as she watched me closely.
I studied her too, wondering how to answer that. I couldn’t lie.
“I don’t,” I admitted, my voice even.
A flicker of something passed over her eyes. Disappointment? Hurt? These things confused me a lot.
“Oh.” That was all she uttered.
A beat of silence stretched between us. Then she added, “It’s okay, it wasn’t a long interaction. You were sitting at the back. I walked up to you to ask if you had seen a book at your table when you arrived.”
My mind worked through the information.
A book. That was how it started. Zaghan had met her over a book.
I hated it. I hated that I wasn’t the one to remember it. Hated that Zaghan had a memory of her and I didn’t. And Zaghan would never forget. Not when she looked like glass, something he could easily break. Her memory would linger. He would come back to look for her. To claim her.
