Three Weeks, Nine Months, A Lifetime

Chapter 8

I swung him around to face me, ignoring the stares of the people he had just been talking to. We both didn’t say anything for a while. I was searching his face, trying to look for signs that would tell me this wasn’t him, but everything was the same. Everything.

            And then he spoke, “Do I know you?”

            My mouth worked to try and get something out a few seconds, but I was too stunned. “Um…” I said lamely. “You’re—“

            “Oh, you’re that girl,” he said.

            He looked like Matt, he even sounded like him, but the way he was speaking to me, like I was a stranger, told me it wasn’t him. I shrugged, trying to keep a straight face. “I’m that girl?” I asked.

            “The pretty one from that picture on my brother’s desk. You must be his girlfriend,” he said. And then he held out a hand, saying, “Devlin Carson, nice to meet you. Call me Dev.”

            He sounded so… normal. After all of the sympathy from everyone today, his forwardness was actually kind of scaring me. And then what he’d just said started to sink in, and I took a step back. “You’re Matt’s brother,” I stated. “You…”

            Dev’s face darkened. “He didn’t tell you either?” He looked like he wanted to say some more, but he kept it all back. Likely, he didn’t trust me, and I didn’t blame him.

            I shook my head to answer his question. Suddenly, I just wanted to get out of there. I was staring at Matt’s face… No, I was staring at Dev’s face, but it was almost exactly the same, and I could feel my throat clogging up; if I tried to speak now, I’d probably start crying.

            Instead, I just walked away. There wasn’t really much else I could say anyway, and Dev didn’t seem like he wanted to talk to me anyway, even if I was Matt’s girlfriend and all.

            I stepped outside, took a deep breath, and then headed to the car, where my parents and Paul were waiting. Once inside, Mom asked, “Are you alright?” I just gave her a smile—though fake—and glanced out the window, hoping she would leave me alone.

            She did.

            How could Matt have a brother? How could he have a twin? How had I never known this? We went to the same school! We’d known each other for a year. Keeping something like this a secret… It was so unlike Matt. And then he’d gone and died and now his brother was back to…

            I realized I didn’t know. I had almost no knowledge about Matt’s family. His parents rarely ever spoke to me, so mention of a brother never had a chance to come up; I mean, Matt had never explicitly told me a lie saying he was an only child, he’d just… never brought it up… and I wasn’t sure why.

            “Can you stop the car?” I asked quietly. My dad, who was driving, didn’t hear, and I repeated myself, louder, more hysterically. He finally did stop, and I said, “I need to get something. I’ll find a way back home soon.”

            Before anyone could argue, I was out of the car and walking along the pavement as far away from my family—and civilization—as possible. I found the ice cream shop Matt and I had spent so many hours in, and I walked in with a bit of hesitation, ordering Matt’s favorite—mint chocolate chip—before sitting down and stuffing my face.

            There weren’t many people here now, so it gave me time to think, even though the more alone I was with my thoughts, the more I felt like the world was crashing down around me.