Page 58 of Sunrise Arrows

For a minute, things are normal and we laugh. However, it doesn’t last, and a thick, somber layer falls over us again, reminding me why I’m here in the middle of the night.

Hunter clears his throat and says, “You’re gonna get mad-der but I tested her. When she got up to use the restroom, I followed her. You know people can never tell us apart, and you weren’t wearing your glasses so I knew it would be easy.

“She barely spared me a second glance when she came out. Just murmured an apology for almost running into me and went on her way back to you. It was like she didn’t even realize we were twins.”

“She’s always said you were the ugly one.”

“Which is ridiculous!” he cries. “We’reidentical. If I’m ugly, then so are you.”

“Not to her.”

“Whatever,” he dismisses. “Anyway, I still didn’t trust her. I mean why would she be?—”

He cuts himself off, and I roll my eyes and guess, “Why would she be interested in me? Go ahead, Hunter. We both know it’s true, I’m not exactly the twin or Hayes brother anyone was ever actually interested in growin’ up and Tinsley… God is she stunning and so damn captivating. Lightyears outta my league.

“I couldn’t believe she didn’t have a boyfriend or that she was interested in me. I still can’t. She could have anyone she wanted wrapped around her finger—even more so now—and she chose me.”

“I don’t know, Arch, I was skeptical… maybe jealous. Not that she was with you, but that you were with her. I held out as long as I could while she had Mom and Ryder both falling in love with her, but she fuckin’ won me over.

“When she talked about going to L.A. to record her album at the end of the summer, I wasn’t concerned. Stuff like that falls through all the time. I thought for sure she’d fail to achieve her dreams simply because the odds of it happening are like one percent.”

“Less than,” I correct. “There isn’t even a one percent chance amongst developing artists that they’ll reach her level of fame and success.”

“Exactly. But then I heard her sing for the first time and I knew she was gonna make it. She was going to make it and you, you were going to be left behind, either for some Hollywood whatever or because you aren’t meant for that kind of life. I know it, and whether you want to admit it or not, you know it too.”

Hunter shifts on the step and he’s a near mirror to me when we look at each other—our height and the scarcest difference in the pattern of our irises being all there is to differentiate us when my tattoo is covered and I’m wearing my contacts.

“When I came home and saw that she was leavin’, I tried to get her to stay. I begged—promised that if she just came back into the house, I would forget the whole thing. I tried, Arch, you gotta believe me; I tried. Tinsley just kept going on and on about regrets and y’all being ruined while saying how much she loved you but how could that be true? She was fuckin’ leavin’ you. You were getting plans drawn up for a house and shifting your classes to do it online and had just asked Mom for the family’s engagement ring and Tinsley… she was leaving you.

“I failed to keep her here for you at least until the morning so you two could talk about it, and as she drove away, I swore I wouldn’t let her have the chance to do it to you again. So yeah, I went inside and I found the letter in y’all’s room and I took it. I didn’t want you holdin’ onto false hope or goin’ after her only to be right back where we were about to be in a few months.”

I could almost understand why he did it. A part of me even wants to. But he lied to my face for months. He manipulated me and talked me out of what Ryder and our mom spent weeks trying to get me to do, which was not wait and go find her. Day after day, while my entire world faded out, he was there keeping secret the answers to things I couldn’t figure out. He had the truth of what was going on and refused to let me have it.

And instead of owning up to it and admitting he was wrong about her, he took an opportunity to shatter her heart and faith in me and ran with it for nine fucking years.

Shaking my head, I stand up. I can’t and don’t want to deal with this any longer. I have my answers, now I just want what I came for.

“Where is it?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

And just like that, I punch him again. “I don’t have to fuckin’ answer shit, Hunter! But you want to know what it looks like for us? It looks like me spending the rest of my fuckin’ life attoning for the sins you committed, because she should have never spent a single goddamn minute questioning if I ever loved her. Not when she’s all I’ve thought about and wanted for ten years.”

I’m in the doorway of the next bedroom ready to cut the mattress open if I have to when he says, “It’s at Ryder’s. I was gonna burn it but I couldn’t, so I put it in the false bottom of Dad’s desk where he used to keep his gun. I never moved it.”

I don’t say anything else; there’s nothing to say. At least nothing I might one day wish I could take back.

I trot down the stairs, open and close the door with a silent finality, and get in my truck to head over to Ryder’s house. I don’t need to know what was in the letter, not really because I have my Tinsley back and that’s all that matters at the end of it all, but I need that piece of her. She gave it to me along with every other piece of her heart and her love, and I’ve never even laid eyes on it.

“Archer?”

“Shh… go back to sleep, baby,” I whisper.

The sheets rustle as I get into bed and curl along Tinsley’s back. I wrap an arm around her torso, reaching to rest my hand between her thighs. The other I slip under her pillow, and I nestle my face into her hair. I breathe in her strawberry scent mixed with the lake and me, then murmur, "I love you,” leaving a kiss behind before tucking my chin over her head.

Sleepily, she hums, “I love you too,” shimming back so we’re flush and burrowing deeper into the blankets. As she settles in, she tugs on my arm beneath her pillow and brings it over her breasts, kissing my knuckles.

I know the moment she realizes my knuckles are split. She tries to sit up, but I tighten my arms around her, reaching up to rest my fingers on her throat, feeling her heartbeat.

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