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“Thanks.”
I type Nikolai’s name and call him. The longer the phone rings in my ear, the louder my heart thumps.
My chest falls when it goes to voicemail. He doesn’t check those—ever. I don’t know why he even has the service.
“You mean I could remove it?” is literally what he replied when I asked him that once.
“I’m sure he’ll come around.” Glyn offers me an encouraging look. “I’ll kick his arse if he doesn’t…or maybe like send Kill because he’s really scary.”
I smile and give her back her phone.
The door opens and I look up, hope blossoming in my chest with a force that hurts.
But that’s the thing about hope, it exists to be crushed.
It’s not Nikolai who walks in.
My disappointment is short-lived, however, when my eyes clash with my identical ones. I gulp, my heart swirling in a puddle of my own humiliating feelings that I confessed to my parents not too long ago.
I wanted to ask about Lan, but I didn’t dare to. A part of me is relieved that he’s here. The part that held on to the fact that he does care, even if everyone said he didn’t.
His face looks the most distraught I’ve ever seen. Lan doesn’t do emotions. At all. I thought the only exception was Mia, but as I stare at his worn-out gaze and the lines of relief around his eyes, I think maybe I was wrong.
“You okay?” he asks as he stops beside me. His voice isn’t right. It’s too careful. Too restrained. Definitely does not fit the Lan I knew my entire life.
I nod.
“Glyn, get out,” he says.
“No.” Her gaze is alarmed as she looks at me.
“It’s okay,” I say with a smile. “Go.”
She gives me an unsure glance before she hugs me and narrows her eyes on our brother. “You better not say anything funny, Lan.”
He doesn’t reply or even look at her. His intense attention remains on me until the door closes behind her, his hand curling and uncurling into a fist.
“You’re going to punch me for daring to hurt your identical twin?” I try to joke to break the tension.
That only manages to make a vein throb in his neck, nearly popping from the skin. “I’d kill for you, I’d shoot myself if that makes you breathe better without me shadowing you, but I’d never…everhurt you, Bran.”
My lips part and I stare at his tight expression and know that he means every word.
“I was kidding,” I breathe out.
“Don’t joke about shit like that. Your life isnota fucking joke. Fuck!” His chest rises and falls in heavy succession and I’m seriously scared he’ll pop a vein or have a stroke.
I shift in the bed, the injury in my neck burning and itching for some reason. “Lan—”
“I’m sorry.”
The words nearly split me open. It’s different to hear that from Mum and Dad or even Glyn, but this is Lan. He never,everapologizes. Not even when he nearly drove Mia away for good.
I thought I’d come down from the emotional high, but they rush back to the surface until my own chest is heaving.
Our harsh breaths echo in the damn hospital room that witnessed me at my lowest.
“What are you sorry for?”
