The Wrong Twin at the Wedding novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: I Know

In a hotel penthouse I kiss him and he admits who he is, and I tell him I have known all day.

The penthouse door clicked shut behind us, and I finally let go of his arm.

"Are you afraid I'll run?" Anders asked.

He had dropped the stiff face he wore at the altar.

What was left was his own face, and it was worried.

I did not answer. I put both hands on his lapels and kissed him.

I had dreamed of this for years, and the dreams were wrong.

In the dreams his mouth was cool and formal.

In life it was warm, and it was soft, and it was startled.

His whole body went still.

I pulled back an inch. "Is it your first time too?"

"Leonie." His voice came out rough. "That is not the question."

"It's a good question. I'm asking it."

"I have had one relationship," he said. "In graduate school. It lasted a semester and ended with a thank-you card."

I laughed so hard I had to hold the wall.

"That's a C plus," I said. "For the card."

"I am trying to tell you something."

"Then tell me."

He took hold of my shoulders, gently, and held me at arm's length.

"I am not Tobin," he said.

"I know."

His eyebrows went up.

"I'm Anders," he said, slower. "Tobin is my brother. I should have told you at the church, and I am telling you now, before you do something to me."

"I know who you are, Anders."

"How long have you known?"

"Since the third row of chairs," I said. "Tobin can't stand still. You stood there like you had been told to."

"I was told to."

"You blink first when you lie. Both of you do, but Tobin blinks twice."

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he asked the thing I had been waiting seven years for him to ask.

"Why did you say yes to him?"

So I told him, standing in a hotel suite in my wedding dress.

I went in order, because I do everything in order.

"In tenth grade I was ranked 200th in our class," I said. "I saw the list on the wall, and your name was at the top."

"I didn't look at the list."

"I know you didn't. That's why you were first."

"So I studied. I went to 140th, then 60th, then 11th. By senior year I was second."

"I remember who was second," he said quietly.

"I stayed second for two years. I never went for first. Second is the seat next to you, and nobody could take it from me."

His mouth opened and closed.

"Then you went to university and I went too. After graduation I found out you had a twin."

"Tobin was at school out of state."

"Tobin was in the house, and the house had you in it. So I became Tobin's girlfriend."

"For seven years?" he asked. "In my own family's house?"

"I never kissed him. Not once. He never noticed. He was busy."

He let go of my shoulders and put one hand over his mouth.

"You did that for me?"

"I did it very carefully," I said. "I had a schedule."

He made a sound that was half a laugh and half something else.

"Leonie, I thought you loved him. I watched you eat dinner with him for seven years."

"You never said a word."

"What could I say? My brother's fiancée..."

"Anders."

"Yes."

"Ask me what I want."

He took a breath and did not look away.

"What do you want?"

I reached behind me for the zipper of my wedding dress and found that it was stuck.

"First, help me with this," I said. "It's been stuck since the photographer."

He turned me around. His fingers were careful, and they were slow, and I felt them at the back of my neck.

The zipper gave a little. It gave a little more.

"This is a terrible dress," he said into my hair.

"A hundred and eighty dollars. It had a name on the tag. Vera something."

"I will buy you a hundred of them."

"I don't want a hundred. I want one, and I want you to take it off."

The zipper ran all the way down.

Cool air touched my back, and then his hand, flat and warm and not steady at all.

"I should go first," he said. "A man should."

"No. Ladies second."

"That is not a rule."

"It's mine. I go second. It's where I'm good."

He turned me back to face him.

His eyes were dark, with that small crease between the brows.

"Then say what you want, Leonie. No grade. No plan. Just say it."

I opened my mouth, and for the first time in my life I had no answer prepared.

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