Page 157 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

“You did NOT.” I'm louder than I mean to be, loud enough that it bounces back at me off the glass and makes me flinch at my own voice. “Nobody warned me about this. That my heart would feel like it's been ripped out of my fucking chest. Everyone says love is so grand, so wonderful, and it's not, Hunter, I don't like it, I want it to stop, and also I never want it to stop, and both of those things are true at exactly the same time, and I don't know what to do with that.”

I sigh. “You know what the worst part is.” I'm not really asking. “S'not even the big stuff. It's the little things. How many days since I heard her voice. Does she think of me when she drives past a hardware store. Is Lance getting his creepy dicky grabby hands on her?”

Hunter goes quiet for a second, actually quiet, the kind he doesn't do often. “You're really in love with her.”

“'Course I am.” Hunter's quiet again, and then, because he's Hunter and there's a limit to how much real emotion he can comfortably endure, he says, “Well. The condom companies are going bankrupt either way. First me. Now you.”

“Shut upppp. This is serious!”

“I'm just saying. Rough year for the safe sex industry.”

I snort-laugh, too loud, and something about it cracks something else loose in my chest. I stand up too fast, chair going out from under me and hitting the wall, and suddenly I have clarity.

“I've got it.” I'm already moving. “I know exactly what I'm gonna do.” I yank the door open and yell to absolutely nobody, “SOMEONE GET ME A CHAINSAW! AND THE BIGGEST FUCKIN' NAIL GUN YOU CAN FIND⁠—”

Hunter's out of the chair and hauling me back inside by the collar before I've even finished the sentence, one arm braced across the doorway, afraid I'm going to escape into the wild. “Ignore him!” he shouts to whoever might've heard. “Mate. Get some sleep. And then we'll implement your brilliant plan. But for now, no power tools. Whatever's in your head right now, I promise you, sending her your amputated foot is not the grand gesture you think it is.”

FORTY-FIVE

Alexia

The thing about coming back to the place you think of as home, after some time, is that everything is just... different.

It's a universal truth you need to be prepared for.

The sounds, the smells, the location of things. Everything you thought you knew like the back of your hand is just... not quite right. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the place at all.

It's all about what's happened to you inside, during the time you've been away.

As it turns out, I'm not even remotely prepared for the way I feel when I'm back in my Sydney apartment. Everything is essentially exactly where I left it almost three months ago, but it feels like I'm just visiting someone else's life.

Someone with a life eerily similar to mine: same cleaning habits, the same weakness for Japanese green tea, the same pile of books she has no intention of ever reading. But she's not me. And I'm not her. The only difference between us is time.

I stare at my reflection as I'm getting ready, wondering if I could go back to that version of me — the one who'd feel at home here, like she'd woken from a fever dream, back in the life she was always supposed to live.

"Can we maybe do this later?" I ask the woman in the mirror. She's inwardly rolling her eyes at me, but gives in and goes back to practising her presentation.

"The following reports," I say for the hundredth time, "found that multilateral sanctions regimes..." I lose the thread halfway through, because suddenly who I'm seeing in the reflection is no longer me.

It's Marcus, grinning like it's Christmas, telling me I'm gonna knock everyone's socks off. Then he lifts his foot to show me his sockless foot. I laugh.

And then he morphs into Zachary, running around, making sure I have everything I need: water bottle refilled with IV hydration powder, extra printed copies of my paper, a spare pen tucked into my bag because I always forget I've stuck one in my hair.

Then Rhys takes his place, not saying anything, just watching me rehearse with that steady, unreadable stillness of his. When I finally run out of words, all he offers is, "Nothing is beyond you, Alexi."

I blink and they're gone. And if I could jump into a mirror... I would.

My phone buzzes on the counter and I go for it too fast, some stupid, naive, hopeful part of me thinking the messages I just imagined might actually be there. Hope I've got no right to feel.

It's my mother.

Mum

Good luck today, sweetheart. Xx

Despite it not being from who I had hoped, it still brings a warmth to my chest. I reply a quick thanks and go back to my preparations.

Ten minutes later, all the words have become a jumble in my head and I'm staring at myself, suddenly barely able to remember my own name.