Page 47 of Wilder

Where the hell did he go?

Lifting my phone, I scrolled through my recent calls, my thumb hovering over Greyson’s name for a second longer than necessary.

The hesitation was pointless—he was my brother; I had every reason to call him if I wanted to see where the hell he’d run off to without telling me. However, something about this situation was making my stomach twist into weird knots.

If he was going out, why didn’t he let me know?

With a quiet exhale, I tapped the screen and brought the phone to my ear.

The line rang once. Twice. Each second that passed only deepened my unease.

Finally, he picked up. “Yeah?”

The noise on his end was immediate, a cacophony of sound crashing through the speaker—music pulsing, voices overlapping, the sharp clatter of glass against wood. Laughter, distant but unmistakable, drifted through the chaos.

A bar.

Jealousy curled low in my stomach, uninvited and sharp. Not the petty kind, not even anger, really. Just that dull, sinking feeling of being left behind.

“Where are you?” I asked, even though I already knew.

“Downtown,” he said casually, like it was nothing. “Why?”

Why didn’t you take me with you?

The words rose to the tip of my tongue, bitter and heavy, but I swallowed them back before they could slip out.

Did he think I wouldn’t want to go?

That I’d rather sit here in this too-quiet house, drowning in my own thoughts on Christmas while he was out having fun?

I sighed. “Just wondering. Didn’t see you in your room.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence, then another burst of laughter in the background, louder this time. Like someone had leaned in close to him. “Yeah, I left about an hour ago.”

I gripped my phone a little tighter.

An hour ago.

So while I had been here—restless, wired, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling of something missing—he had already been gone. Left without a word, without asking if I wanted to go with him.

Maybe he hadn’t even thought about it.

Since when was that ever a thing?

Since when did we stop including each other?

We were twins. It had always been us.

From the moment we were born, from the time we could walk, talk, and think for ourselves, we had been a team. It was an unspoken rule, a silent understanding woven into our bones: where one of us went, the other followed.

It had never mattered what it was—birthday parties, afternoon hangouts, skipping class, or sneaking out at midnight just to drive aimlessly with the windows down and our music blasting.

We had always belonged together.

Had something changed?

Had I missed it?