They were brothers.
They were twins.
I flipped the photo over and looked at the writing on the back.
Tucker and Max, brothers forever.
I lifted my eyes to stare at the man who had been living in my home. Who I woke up wrapped around. He looked utterly different to me now.
The eye sees what it expects to see. How many times had I cautioned a jury about this? How many times did I tell them to look past what they thought was obvious, to look past what they expected to see?
His face seemed sharper, more chiseled, and it wasn’t because his hair was shorter. His eyes held some kind of hardness that a person only got from experience. His shoulders were broader, his chest slightly more muscular. And his abs… his abs were more defined.
Along with the tattoo that I knew decorated his back, he had a band around his left bicep. A black, solid stripe wrapped around the muscle and in the center were the words Semper Fi.
“Tucker,” I said, holding the image between us. Max didn’t talk about his twin very often, but he told me about him when we first starting dating. He said they looked exactly the same but couldn’t be more different. I always thought I might meet Tucker someday…
But never like this.
He glanced at it but made no move to take it from my hand. When he looked, I saw stark pain flash across his features and his chest expanded with indrawn breath.
“Where is Max?” I said, this horrible feeling making me feel heavy. “What the hell did you do with Max?”
Tucker lifted his eyes from the photo and looked at me.
I knew whatever he was going to say was not going to be good.
The photo fluttered to the ground, drifting over beside the bed, when I launched myself at him. I hit his warm, solid chest head on, barreling into him with all my weight.
He didn’t even move.
“Where is he!” I demanded, hitting his chest with the sides of my fists.
“Let’s go sit down,” he said, trying to lead me toward the living room.
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me about Max!” I yelled, yanking away from him and planting my feet into the floor.
Tucker spun around, pinning me with a hard and angry stare. “Max is dead.”
Shock hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water.
Silence descended upon the room like it had been plunged into darkness. It was a thick and charged silence, the kind that made it hard to breathe.
“You’re lying.” I accused.
“I wish to God I was.”
The pain behind his words wasn’t something that could be pretended. The naked grief he didn’t bother to conceal in his chocolate eyes couldn’t be denied.
“No,” I said, my voice a mere whimper.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice gravelly and low.
Tears swam into my eyes, blocking my vision, and grief bubbled up inside me. Max was dead. My best friend in the world was gone and I hadn’t even known it. I went about my life like everything was fine. I worked. I ate. I slept. I didn’t question the gut feeling I had that something was different. I didn’t realize something could be wrong.
Dear God, I kissed his brother.
I liked it.
The floodgates opened and tears rained down my cheeks. A sob ripped out of my throat and I placed my palm over my mouth to try and contain the sobs.
Grief like this couldn’t be contained.
The pain and loss of losing someone you loved was too powerful to hold inside.
My shoulders slumped and shook as I cried and tears dripped onto my blouse. How easily your entire world can shift in just moments.
I felt his heat first, like a warm blanket that just came out of the dryer. His warmth radiated between us, and I swayed. Tucker wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his bare chest, pressing a hand against the back of my head and holding me tightly.
I cried harder because I liked it.
I cried harder because his touch felt so good.
I was an awful person.
My boyfriend died and his brother came into this house, pretending to be him, and I didn’t even know it.
What’s more is I told him just earlier that I liked the “new” him better.
My back spasmed with every sob, sobs that now came out silent. It was as if my body didn’t have the energy to make sound.
“Shhh,” Tucker crooned, rocking us back and forth as we stood in the center of the bedroom with photos and papers scattered at our feet.
My tears leaked all over his skin, dampening his chest acting as a tissue for my grief. He didn’t complain. In fact, it seemed like he held me tighter. It was the kind of hold that anchored a person, the kind of hold that made me feel like even though I was falling apart, all of my pieces were going to stay where they belonged.
I sobbed for a long time, until my eyes ran out of water and my throat hurt. Even after I began to quiet, he still held me. We still rocked back and forth in a comforting rhythm until little by little my brain began to work again.
Little by little reality came back, pushing into my fuzzy head and past my swollen eyes. My body felt drained and exhausted. But even my poor physical condition couldn’t stop my brain from wanting to know everything.
I had to know.
I pulled away and looked up. “I want to know everything.”
Tucker searched my eyes for long moments and then gave a short nod. “Come on.”
I followed him out into the living room and tucked myself into the corner of the sofa. When I bent my knees to tuck my legs under me, they burned with pain. I looked down and realized for the first time since coming home that both my knees were raw and bloody.
It must have happened outside when we were being mugged.
The blood had dried, but my movements cause the cuts to split back open and were both oozing bright-red blood.
Instead of pulling my legs beneath me, I stretched them out and rested my feet on the coffee table.
I looked up to see the muscle in Ma—Tucker’s jaw jump, and he went quietly into the bathroom. I heard the opening and closing of the cabinet and he reappeared with a small first aid kit.
I glared at him. “My knees are not important right now.”
He laid the kit beside my feet and sat down beside me. He didn’t lean back, but sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. From this angle, I could see the broad expanse of his muscular back and a clear view of the tattoo that made me realize he wasn’t Max.
In a single line down the right side of his back were five black stars. Each one looked exactly the same.
I watched them move as he reached forward and unlatched the kit, laying out some supplies on the wooden coffee table.