Her hand shot up to cover her mouth again. “Who does something like that?” This reminded her of the more burning question. “Who is she?”
“Avery Miles.”
As if a bus had hit her, she thudded against the sofa’s backrest. Her heart that was already on the floor felt like the sandcastle that Avery had once stomped on because it had been bigger than hers. She didn’t even see Finn’s face anymore.
“Do you know her?” he asked.
She looked at him. His face was a ghastly mix of sincerity, grief, shock, and disbelief.
“You don’t know?” she asked.
“Know what?” His voice almost broke. He looked like he couldn’t take any more bad news.
“She’s my cousin.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother and her mother are sisters. Twins.” She didn’t add that even their names were a continuation of the other—Linda and Darian—one name ended with the syllable the other began with. And that was just how they thought of their daughters—as sisters.
“But you never …” He shook his head, as if trying to negate what she had just told him.
“Mention her? Talk about her? I know.” She shrugged.
“And your last names …”
“We have our fathers’ last names,” she said. Though, from the look on his face, she saw that he had just figured it out himself.
Having been back in town only recently after years away, he couldn’t have known or remembered that she and Avery were related. With four years between them, and two years between Avery and Finn, they hadn’t been in each other’s circles growing up. And she didn’t spend time with Avery or talk about her unless she had to.
And, as if it just struck him with a renewed force, Finn stumbled to his feet. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he mumbled as he walked away from the coffee table and just paced back and forth in the room.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” he yelled and slammed a fist into the wall. “Fuck,” he then breathed out, shaking his fist and covering it with his other hand.
She got up from the sofa and went over to him. Drops of blood appeared on his knuckles, his skin was torn. She took his hand between hers. She felt his pain in her own body, as if she needed to borrow it because she couldn’t feel her own. Not yet at least.
“Jane.” With his free palm, he gripped both her hands that held his. “I’m so sorry. I … if I … I didn’t know.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“It was before …”
“I know.”
“I’m so sorry, Jane.” He looked lost. The blue of his eyes never seemed so gray, like angry winter waves. “I love you. I love you.” His eyes searched for hers.
“I love you, too, Finn.”
“I thought I was careful. I swear. I never … except with you. What am I going to do?” He was twenty-five, on the verge of new beginnings, and his life had suddenly taken a sharp turn.
“I don’t know,” she said, but deep down, she foresaw it. Finn never knew his father. It was a gaping hole in his life. He was too good to let a child of his grow up without one if he could do anything about it. He would have been involved either way, but Avery had made sure to tell his mother. She could imagine the pressure he’d be under to do more than just be involved.
And like another truck, it hit her then—in whatever constellation this was going to play out, she and Finn couldn’t be together anymore. Because she couldn’t be with the father of Avery’s child. It was like being with your sister’s baby daddy. And it didn’t even matter that the two of them didn’t even like each other.
The very words—Finn, father, Avery, child—didn’t make sense. She wondered if they ever would.
“I want you. Just you,” he half-whispered. He then wrapped his hand around her nape, pulled her closer, and kissed her. A kiss that grew more desperate, and hard, and deep, and demanding, defying, with every second. She gave in to it, and on the sofa, where her heart had been broken, Finn made love to her for the last time.
After a week of heaven, they had a week of hell. And though it took everything in her, she made him leave her house and asked him not to come back, because they both had decisions to make.