Page 48 of My Twin Sister

I look up at Wyatt, my eyes filling with tears.

“Go inside with the boys so my parents can go home. I’m going to take Grace to your parents’ house. I’ll be right back.”

I shake my head and the tears fall down my face. “No. I don’t want you alone with her.”

He sighs. “Please trust me. I’ll be right back. I promise you.”

I don’t want to hear another word. I spin out of his hands and stomp toward the house. If he’s going to leave me for Grace, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. If they’re going to have their little heart-to-heart, that’s what’s going to happen.

I open the front door and pray the boys are in bed so they don’t see the state I’m in. It’s bad enough Wyatt’s parents are going to. I feel my face get warm when it clicks in my head that Frank and Tina are here. I was shouting just outside about something no one was supposed to know. Please God, don’t let them have heard.

Twenty-Nine: Grace

Wyatt opens his truck door for me. It’s not the same one he had back then, but it’s similar. I watch the front door of the house as I climb into the cab, and he shuts the door. My hands are trembling from the adrenaline. When he gets in and starts the car I turn and glare at the side of his face.

“You told her,” I say.

He looks over at me but back at the road quickly. “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

I laugh, but it lacks humor. “Well I sure didn’t tell her, and I can’t imagine Frank did. So then how does she know?”

“I don’t know, Grace. I swear I never told anyone.”

I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t make sense. He had to. Maybe he was drunk and doesn’t remember.

“Grace.”

I look over at him. The glow from passing streetlights illuminate his features before they’re cast in shadow again. A face I had memorized but only vaguely recognize now.

“You can trust me,” he says. “You know that.”

And I do know that. It’s one of the only things I know. Because all those years ago, Wyatt saved my life when he pushed my head under the icy water that night. And everyone believing I was dead all this time means he never told my secret. Maybe he thought I never made it back out of the water that night. But he knew I swam away from the beach alive.

“I know,” I say finally.

He pulls the truck in front of my parents’ house, but neither of us moves.

“I think it’s time we talk,” he says. “We might not get another chance to be alone.”

I sigh. “Well, come inside then. I need a glass of water.”

In the house, we strip off our coats and toss them onto the armchair. Wyatt looks around at I don’t know what.

“I never liked coming in here after you left. I knew you were alive, but it still felt haunted by you.”

“That must’ve been tough, dating and then marrying my sister and all.”

I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t turn to him. I go to the kitchen and pour myself a big glass of water. My anger at him makes me a hypocrite and I know it, but I can’t make it stop.

When I come back into the living room, his eyes are still on me.

“I should have told you. I would have if I’d had more time.”

I push out a breath and collapse into a chair on the other side of the living room from him.

“It’s not like you owed me anything. Not after what I did.”

“Stop it,” he says. “I meant what I said then. It wasn’t on you. You were a kid. He was the adult.”