The Other Twin

46

AN- whenever Rory talks, he is using the text to speech app, unless specifically stated otherwise. This will be the same for the rest of the chapters, unless again stated otherwise for whatever reason.

Charlie's POV-
Going up to Rory's room, I look through the door and see my son cuddled up against his boyfriend, both of them asleep. I smile, taking a picture to send to his mom, with the caption "I think he's going to be okay." Renee said the she was coming up to Forks the minute she heard about Rory's stroke, but planes have all been full. She doesn't have her own car, and her new husband is taking his playing baseball. I told her not to worry, and have been updating her since then with his condition. She landed at the airport a while ago, and is coming here. She texts me back with a heart emoji, a heart eyes emoji and a heart eyes cat emoji. I shake my head at my ex-wife's childish texting methods, the smile still on my face. I did love Renee, and I think I do still love her in some ways. Not romantically, and I would never want her again, but she is still the mother of my children. She follows up with a text saying she will be here in fifteen minutes, and I go back downstairs, not wanting to disturb my son earlier than I need to. His mom and I will talk with him when she gets here, but I don't want talk to him about... all this until she's here. I go back downstairs and wait on the couch.

About fifteen minutes later, a knock on the door disturbs me from my infinite scroll of the facebook. (I'm down with the kids on social media). I open the door to Renee, who stands awkwardly.
"Hey," she says, looking down.
"Hey," I reply, before moving to make space for her to enter, "come in."
"Wow, this place has barely changed."
"I'm a fairly simple guy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Rory's upstairs. I think we should have a talk with him."
"I agree."
We walk up to his room, and I see him now awake, smiling with his boyfriend. I knock on the door, and he turns to face me.
"Hey, your mom's here. We need to talk," I tell him, moving out the way to show him Renee.

Rory's POV-
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. My parents are here. Together. To talk to me. This is bad. This is very bad.
"I guess I should go," Edward says, moving to get up. I grab his hand and he looks at me.
"I can come back later if you want."
I nod quickly and he gives me a hug goodbye, not wanting to kiss me with my parents watching.
"Actually, Edward, if you would like to come for dinner, I would live to meet my son's boyfriend," Renee asks him.
"I would love to, ma'am."
"Come around, six thirty. I'm cooking."
"Thank you, Mrs Dwyer."
"Please, call me Renee."
"Thank you, Renee."
I watch as he leaves, before my parents' attention falls back on me.
"Can we come in?" Dad asks me.
No, I answer in my head, but I click the yes button on my speech app. They come in and sit either side of me on the bed.
"Rory, I think we all know that we were going to have to talk about Bella," mom tells me.
"I know," I tell her, not looking at either her or dad.
"When did it start? When did she start hurting you?" Dad asks me, putting a hand on arm, "she's gone. The only person you're hurting is yourself."
"When I came out."
"Rory, that was over a year ago," mom works out and I look even further down.
"It wasn't that bad at the beginning."
"Really?"
"Other than that night, it was a hit every so often. Nothing that bad. And then my first boyfriend, but we ended up breaking up and we were mostly okay again. Until Edward."
Mom immediately hugs me and lean into her warm embrace.
"Why wouldn't you tell us, kid?" Dad asks.
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"Oh baby. You were hurting," mom tells me.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, kid," Dad tells me. Tears well in my eyes as I type out the next message. Fuck. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Get back in there tear. No, it's falling. Fuck, there's another one. Nope, I'm gone.
"I should have been stronger."
"Rory. It's not your fault, okay? None of this was your fault.
The advatage of not being able to speak was that my parents wouldn't hear my voice breaking as I repeated, "I'm sorry."

Eventually, everything calm down and I wipe my eyes.
"I'm fine. I'm going to go and have a shower," I tell them, trying to get up. Dad hands me my crutches and helps me get to a position that means I can get off the bed.
"Can you get down the stairs alright?" Mom asks me. I nod in response, sniffing and wiping my eyes again.
"I can move you into one of the downstairs rooms if you want? To make it easier," Dad tells me, and I shake my head. This is my room and I don't want to leave it, even if it's harder to access. Finding a way down to the bathroom, new clothes in a tote bag I carried down with me, I take my first proper shower at home. Dad's added one of those shower chairs, and I sit on that to make sure my legs don't give out underneath me. It takes a while to work out how to use the shower sitting down, but I worked it out soon enough. I had done it at the hospital, after all. Getting back to dry and change was harder, but I managed it and used my crutches to walk back out of the bathroom. After my shower, I felt much better, and clean for about the first time in weeks. Looking at my parents, they were tip toeing around eachother, but they had calmed down their high emotions. I sit on the sofa, and mom sits next to me, putting a plate of biscuits between us, handing me a mug of hot chocolate.
"No chance of coffee, is there?" I ask.
"Not on your meds there isn't."
I roll my eyes and throw my head back in annoyance.
"Cheer up. I brought biscuits."
"Thanks."
"So, Edward..."
"MOM!"
"I just...haven't heard much about him. Charlie's heard more than I have. I'm feeling left out."
"I don't have a choice do I?"
"Not really, no. I can start. He seems polite. Sweet as well."
"He is," I tell her, blushing.
"Oh, my baby is blushing. You must really like him."
"Yeah. He's kind. And amazing."
"And hot."
"MOM!" I hit her with the cushion and she laughs.
"What?!? He's objectively very attractive."
"Yes. But you can't say that."
"You fancy him."
"We've been dating for, like, a while. Yes, I fancy him."
"Not that long. But, oh, young love. I can't wait to talk to him tonight."
"Mom, be nice. We want him to like me."
"Don't worry, I'll be your wing woman."
"We're already dating."
"Fine, I'll just have to embarrass you heavily."
"Mom!"
"No, she's right. Thar is our job as your parents," Dad chimes in, coming from the kitchen with a cup of coffee. I try to reach for it, but he moves it further out of my reach, "not a chance."
"I hate you," I tell them.
"Yeah, kid, we love you too."