Trade It All(11)

Despite the people passing her on both sides, Willa covered her face with one hand. She remembered accusing Lexi of something similar when they’d argued over Lance many years earlier. They truly had come full circle, back to a dark place. Someone bumped into Willa and brought her back to the moment, making her aware of how public her emotional display was. “Let’s talk about this tonight.”

“Let’s not. I really don’t want to go twenty rounds with you about something you’ve already made your mind up about. I’m working late then going out. Don’t wait up for me tonight.”

Regardless of how upset she was with her sister, Willa loved Lexi. She struggled to verbalize how she was feeling. Her greatest fear was losing her sister. Her second greatest was losing herself in Lexi’s shadow. “Lexi, I don’t want to fight with you either, but this was wrong.”

“Fine, I was wrong. Keep hiding from the world, but don’t blame me when that stops you from having the life you want. If you want to move out, Willa, move out. Or I will. Maybe you need to see what it’s like to not have me looking out for you. Maybe that’s what it’ll take for you to appreciate me.” Lexi hung up.

Appreciate her? How can she think I don’t appreciate her? She’s my best friend. My twin. Of course I appreciate her. I chose being with her over everything else. Everyone else.

Willa pocketed her phone and hailed a taxi. Her anger had dissolved, and in its place was a feeling of emptiness she didn’t know what to do with. She’d put the past behind her. Nothing but pain would come from looking back.

On the ride back to her apartment, she considered calling Kenzi but didn’t. When it came to this situation, there was too much Kenzi didn’t know, would never know.

Willa entered her apartment and placed her phone and keys on the tray she’d purchased to keep the entryway organized. Lexi had probably placed her keys in the tray twice in all the time they’d lived together, and likely only by mistake. She was much more the type to walk in, toss her keys in the general direction of the table, and keep going. Willa had always gone back and put them where they belonged. She didn’t see how Lexi thought she was the one who needed taking care of.

Unless she knows.

But there is no way she could.

On the way to her bedroom, Willa stopped when she caught her reflection in a mirror across the room. Dressed as she was, at first glance, she could be Lexi.

Did Lance believe me when I said I was Lexi?

Does it matter? After all this time, it shouldn’t.

And I shouldn’t be this angry.

Lexi isn’t a bad person. She just doesn’t think things through. The ripple effect of her impulsiveness was lost on her. Like a person who runs across the street without looking and wonders why two cars crashed behind her, Lexi was blind to the devastation she sometimes wreaked. How much was a person’s fault and how much would have happened anyway? It was a question Lexi and Willa never agreed on.

Willa changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt. She took out her laptop and sat on the couch. Whether she stayed or moved out, she needed a job. She started to write an email to Dax, asking if he still had a position for her, but then decided to call him later instead.

She didn’t feel ready to speak to him or Kenzi yet, not after seeing Lance that morning. I should have told him it was me. I should have acted like seeing him was no big deal.

Instead, I hid behind a lie.

I’m a coward. No wonder he chose her.

Willa forced herself off the couch and headed to the gym, taking her reader tablet with her. She ran on a treadmill much longer that day than she normally would have, both because the story she’d chosen was a good one and because she didn’t want to rush back to her life.

She ran until she was too tired to care what Lance thought of her.

Too tired to worry where Lexi was headed that night.

She ran until she was dripping with sweat and her muscles were shaking from the exertion. Only then did she stop. Another woman might have released the tension of the day by crying, but Willa never allowed herself that luxury.

Crying had never solved a problem. It hadn’t brought her parents back.

Wishing things were different was a waste of time.

I have to find a job—and now.

When I do, I won’t have time to argue with Lexi or waste another moment thinking about a man I should have purged from my system a decade ago.

The next day Lance was seated at the dining room table with his parents and all of his siblings except Andrew. Dax looked comfortable in his spot beside Kenzi. A visibly pregnant Emily was seated beside Asher. There was an air of anticipation that had made the meal drag a bit, but no one was asking why they’d been summoned that evening. If the expression on his mother’s face was a clue, it wasn’t bad news.