Page 70 of A Stealthy Situation

“Fucking hell.”

“Question: how do you know I’m a twin?”

“We’re not doing this.”

He’s so close now. “How can you be sure it’s not just me? That you haven’t been hallucinating this whole other person? I don’t remember a twin. Do you love me that much that you need more of me in your life? I’ve gotta say, Ash, that probably worries me more than the hallucinations. You should get it checked out. And the brain itch. I hear losing your parents at a young age can make you kinda fucked?—”

The line goes dead.

I fall back onto my bed, wanting to be a whole lot more relieved than I am.

“West has been calling you?” I ask Em.

“Can’t talk. Hungover.”

“You’re getting us both in shit. I can handle West and Asher over the phone, but if they come here?—”

“They won’t.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“You can really see Asher missing a game or West skipping out on work as the season’s just starting?”

He’s got a point there. As head coach of a Division One hockey team with multiple Frozen Four wins under their skates, West is busy right from the start of the semester.

“What if they send Jasper?” I ask.

We pull identical we’re fucked faces. Jasper is West’s husband, and because he’s a world more put together than any of my siblings, he’s always felt like the adult in our household. We both love and fear him because when Jasper gets angry, he doesn’t pitch a fit like a Dalton does.

He goes quiet.

Some of the most terrifying moments of my life have been sitting across from Jasper as he stared me down, waiting for me to cough up all my sins. As a tenured professor at CU and head of the math department, our cheating wouldn’t just disappoint him—it’d kill him. I’m worried Em being expelled will do the exact same.

“Jasper has work,” Em says. “They took all their vacation leave this summer.”

“Don’t underestimate them. You know West is good at going for the low blow.”

“Too. Hung. Over.”

“Fine, but you need to figure out something to tell them. I can’t pretend not to know who you are forever.”

“Maybe I should disappear, and we can test out that theory.” He moves the pillow to grin up at me, but it does nothing to make me any happier.

I hate worrying and stress. Actually, I hate everything right now.

I rub the building ache in my sternum, wondering when the hell it will fuck off already. “Maybe you’re right. Running away to Mexico is getting more and more appealing.”

“Wouldn’t work.”

“Why?”

“Because the thing you’re running away from is something that can’t be left behind.”

I’d ask what he’s talking about, but I already know, and the last thing I want is for him to say it out loud.

“Well, moping isn’t working. Texting isn’t working. Hiding out from everything and running away aren’t the answers. So, what do I do?”

“Go see him. Talk to him.”

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