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The last bit wasn’t said with spite or contempt which Gabriel was expecting. Just furious resignation, which was a hundred times worse.
“Look. Nicky ”
“I’m surprised you came home. Chris said you had a bag full of clothes.” Nick’s gaze went to the duffel bag Gabriel had dropped by the door.
“That’s not about you.” The words almost hurt to say.
“What’s it about, then?”
Every question was another tick toward an explosion, like a bomb counting down. It didn’t help that Nick was sitting there, completely implacable. “It’s about Michael.”
“You mean, because he thinks you’re starting fires?”
Gabriel flinched. But what could he say?
“It might help,” said Nick, “if you would deny it.”
“I shouldn’t have to deny it.” The lights flickered.
But that’s all. The power waited for direction. Gabriel held his breath.
Nick glanced up, and some of the anger leaked out of his voice. “You want to talk about it?”
Gabriel tried to dial back the power. Chill out.
It flickered again, almost a refusal but then settled, easing back into a normal rhythm. Gabriel let a breath out. “No.”
“Fine.” Nick’s voice sharpened right back up. “You want to talk about why you couldn’t give me a heads up that we’d been accused of cheating?”
Oh. Damn.
“They said something to you?”
“Of course!” Nick straightened in the chair. Wind whipped through the screen to ruffle his hair. “Damn it, Gabriel, you might not give a crap if you graduate, but I sure do.”
Of course he cared. What did Nick think, that he was too stupid to bother? It took three tries to speak, and even then, it came out strangled. “When they asked you . . . what did you say?”
“I said I’d stop! What the hell do you think I said? You know, she asked if I was taking your tests in other classes. She said cheating was grounds for expulsion. She said this could go on my transcript ”
“Oh, who cares.” Gabriel snorted. “You think the people who hire us to plant perennials are going to check your high school transcript?”
“No, but colleges might.”
College? Shock almost shoved Gabriel off the bed. Nick had never said one word about doing anything more after high school than helping Michael with the family business. “You want to go to college?”
Now Nick looked sheepish. “Well. I knew you weren’t interested ”
“Where the hell are you going to get money for college?”
“I don’t know. There’s aid, and . . . look, I haven’t even applied yet. It’s just something I’m thinking about.”
When Nick thought about something, it wasn’t a whim. Nick would have schools in mind. He might be thinking about moving away.
Away.
Gabriel had spent two days barely saying a word to his twin, and it felt like water torture. He couldn’t imagine weeks passing. Months.
When they were little, they’d shared a room, a bed on each wall. For years, Gabriel had thought a twin bed meant only twins slept in them. If they dressed in the same pajamas which had been almost every night Mom would say they looked like a pair of bookends. Half the time, Gabriel would wake up in the morning to find Nick had climbed into bed with him sometime in the night.
