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I have always been good at keeping others at a distance.
I have always been good at hiding my emotions, even covering how I truly feel with fake smiles and laughs.
I have always been good at controlling myself. Heck, there are two pretty ladies who always dress skimpy around me. Ah no, make that three. The third one, her mother even asked me to at least spend a night with her.
But when I met my brother’s mate...
She just gets me.
Well, she’s a fan from a different world. She has always been our fan since she was a kid, she said. But she has always liked my brother more.
I get that. I understand that. And when they got together, I was happy about that.
But the closer we got, the more difficult it became. No one else understands me the way she does. No one else trusts me with their thoughts and feelings as much as she does. And I do so too with her. I might have even told her a lot more than what I tell my own twin.
And as much as I try to deny it, I know I'm feeling something – something I shouldn’t, something that should never come out, otherwise it would ruin everything. It would bring me and him against each other again.
I'm not dumb; I just pretend to be one, usually just to keep others from bothering with me or to make those I care about smile with my foolish streaks. But even that, she saw through. And maybe I am indeed an idiot because that got me wanting her more.
She shows care for me more than she needs to. I'm always just the third wheel but when I'm with them, she never makes me feel left out. She treats us equally, that sometimes I forget that she belongs to him, until he does some innocent gestures like putting an arm around her, which quickly reminds me of where I stand.
I tease them often because I enjoy annoying him even way before. He always looks funny when he’s grumpy, and it’s fun when our banter turns into an exercise. But lately I tease them for a different reason – because I have to show it to myself, that she is his, just to keep me from entertaining thoughts that I shouldn’t have.
Those times she was in danger, I was ready to lay my life down for her. At first, I thought I was thinking like that just because I want my brother to be happy. Then I realized it was mostly because I really care for her.
In those times he upset her because of the foolish, atypical way he thinks, I badly wanted to punch him, just knock some sense into him at least. But I knew it wouldn’t bring anything good. It would only hurt her to see us fighting, so even then I had to control myself. More so in those times she confided in me and cried in front of me but was still doing her best not to. Even more so when I found out he left her... for a month, in her world, without saying anything.
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That time, I was not just bored, I was feeling off and restless. As if there was something I should be doing but I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I barged into her world, into their apartment, hoping I didn’t pop up in the middle of an intimate moment. It was one of my guilty pleasures anyway, spending time with her, doing whatever.
But that time instead of her smiles that I was looking forward to, what I saw was her crying, looking so messed up. She was surprised when a portal opened in her living room, and she wasn’t able to hide her disappointment when she saw that it was me who arrived. And what was worse was that she cried even more when the portal behind me closed. I didn’t understand it then why.
As she explained what happened, there was this strong feeling brewing inside me. It didn’t help that I was watching her cry as she told me everything. I didn’t know if it was really her or if it was me who was at one's weakest moment, but that time I just couldn’t stop myself.
I called her by her name, something I realized I'd never done, and said, “Be with me instead,” before I leaned in and kissed her. And that didn’t end there.