Chapter 4

Cole had been sick before. Two years ago.

The pain had come on so fast, so completely, that he'd nearly blacked out. The streets around his building were confusing enough that the ambulance kept circling; he couldn't stand, couldn't speak clearly enough to guide them. He'd had to drag himself outside to find help.

"I remember the woman who found me," he said. "She crouched down right there on the sidewalk. She held my hand and stayed with me the whole time. And she told me—" His voice caught. "She told me to hang on. She said she'd be there. She said she'd marry me. That she was my family."

I went very still.

Something cold moved through me.

Because I remembered.

Preston's parents had been traveling. It was just the two of us in the apartment. Things had gotten carried away. And in the middle of it — through the gap in the railing on the balcony — I'd caught a glimpse of something. A pair of eyes. Wide, stunned, not quite believing what they were seeing.

That was Cole.

"By the time I found you again," he said quietly, "you were already in my brother's arms."

He stepped toward me slowly, and took my hand, pressing it flat against his chest.

Then he held up his hands — both of them, scarred and roughened in ways I hadn't noticed before.

"Don't send me away," he said. His voice dropped. "I'm not asking for much. I'll take care of my health. I'll be better. Even if you only want me for—" He stopped. Started again. "Even if it's just this. I don't care. I just need—"

BANG.

My heel hit the wall.

I had nowhere to go.

The door burst open.

Preston — carrying containers of food, still in his coat — shoved through and ripped Cole away from me in one motion. Then he started hitting him.

Methodical. Controlled, at first. Then not controlled at all.

His fists landed again and again.

Then they stopped.

He held his hand in the air, trembling.

"Why aren't you fighting back?" he demanded.

Cole was on the floor, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Because..." he said. "I was hoping that once you got it out of your system, you'd let me have Nora."

"No."

Preston shot to his feet.

But Cole grabbed his ankle. "You said you would. You promised me—"

"Enough!" I shouted.

This was insane.

"Do the two of you think I'm an object?"

Preston spun around. "That's not what this is, Nora—"

I backed up. He stopped.

In his eyes, something raw and ruined — too much of it. "I just... I couldn't think of another way to keep you."

I turned and ran.

Not back to Preston's apartment. Not to any of it.

To my own place.

The guilt, the panic, the shame — it was all pressing in at once, threatening to crush me.

Late that night, my phone rang. Preston. I didn't pick up. A voice message came through seconds later.

"I'm outside your building. Can I see you? Just for a minute."

I pulled back the curtain and looked out.

He was there. Leaning against the wall, a cigarette burning down between his fingers, the ember small and red in the dark.

Preston never smoked.

I grabbed my coat and ran downstairs.

Up close, his expression was wrecked and restless. "Nora..."

"Let me go first."

He closed his mouth.

The words came out in a rush. "When I came back from my trip, I had face blindness — I mistook Cole for you. What happened... that's on me. I know it doesn't change what actually happened. Preston—"

I couldn't keep the tears back anymore.

"I'm sorry. We should break up."

He caught my hand. With the other, he wiped my face.

His voice broke. "Don't cry. Every time you cry, I—" He stopped. "Don't."

He was always like this. Falling apart on the inside and putting me back together first.

I cried harder.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—"

"So..." His voice, barely audible. "You're saying you want to be with Cole now?"

I went quiet.

"What?"

And that was when I saw it — his face, pale as paper, eyes bright with tears that hadn't fallen yet.

His mouth was shaking.

"Then can I— Can we not break up? Even if you like him, I'll— I can be the other one. I won't tell Cole. Please."

I couldn't process it fast enough.

It felt like my brain was trying to fold itself in half.

But Preston took my stunned silence as encouragement.

He pulled me into the elevator — into my own apartment — and kissed me like nothing else existed. Like something in him had come completely loose.

It was nothing like the Preston I knew. He was always careful, deliberate, tuned in to me. Tonight he was something else entirely.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I had the detached, confused thought: What did he mean by "the other one"?

But the thought didn't last.

He knew me too well. He always had.

The ceiling blurred.

At some point, through the heat of it, his voice dropped near my ear — ragged, nearly broken — and he spoke in a voice that wasn't quite his.

"Like this?" he murmured. The cadence was different. Softer. "Is this how he does it?"

My entire body locked up.

"Like this? I can learn anything you need."