“—wasn’t what we agreed to. Mom and Dad said I was running the account; you had no right to get involved.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t care. You knew better. You knew that would break the terms of the whole agreement, and why? So you could get your stupid face tweeted out?”

All of the anger leaks out of me, leaving me on the sidewalk with my fists clenched and my body stiff and nowhere to put any of it.

“Yeah, I do care. Jesus. We’re better than this. And Mom and Dad clearly didn’t know what the rules of the agreement were, or they never would have sent that, which means you lied to them.”

I back up on the pavement, wishing I hadn’t just charged up to him. He obviously doesn’t want me hearing this.

“No, Ethan, it’s not about that. It’s about one more thing you just have to beat me at, you can’t even let me have—”

He turns, then, too quickly for me to anticipate it. Our eyes lock, and he looks so stricken to see me there that I want to look down, look at the street, look anywhere other than at the way he is trying and failing to wipe the hurt off his face.

“I gotta go.”

Jack

I hang up the phone, Ethan’s piss-poor excuses still ringing in my ear as I look up and see Pepper, standing there like a deer in headlights, looking like she wants to disappear.

No, worse. Looking like she feels sorry for me. Like the gears are turning in her head, and she’s trying to think of the right thing to say to make me feel better—the second twin. The lesser one. The one everyone only bothers to talk to when they’re trying to get to the other.

I was worried when I saw that stupid picture that she was going to be furious. That it would wreck this shaky friendship we had now, and the even shakier something else—that weird current between us on the bus when she ribbed me, or the way she almost seemed paralyzed in the moment after I said her full name.

It’s worse. Anger, I can handle. Pity, I really can’t. Especially not over this.

“Jack—”

“There’s a bus stop across the street. It’s another straight shot back to Stone Hall.”

Pepper takes a cautious step toward me. “Are you okay?”

I keep my eyes trained on the cement. “I’m sorry about the tweet.”

“It doesn’t sound like it was your fault,” she says, her voice low.

So she did hear everything. Of course.

“Your brother’s just being an ass.”

“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t talk about my brother.”

I’m waiting for her to rile in that way she usually does, waiting for her to rise up to meet me. But she’s too steady, standing on the sidewalk with a mortifying kind of empathy.

“I have to go home.”

She nods. Tilts her head toward the bus stop across the street. “Just over there?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She waits for a beat, like she thinks I’m going to say something else, but there’s nothing in me. I know it’s ridiculous to be this upset over a stupid picture, but it’s not a picture. It’s the tip of the goddamn iceberg. It’s every sport Ethan had to beat me at, every stupid project of ours he’d be so excited to start and leave me to finish, every afternoon he left me alone in the deli to live his stupid perfect Ethan life with his perfect Ethan friends and make me lie to our parents’ faces about the times he wasn’t doing any of that, and smoking stupid pot—

It’s like I’ve been watching the shadow of some moon cross over me my whole life, and now it’s just a full eclipse.

Pepper walks toward the intersection to get to the bus stop, and without consciously deciding to, I follow her.

She slows her pace down so we’re walking side by side, not saying anything, letting me brew in whatever this is. I don’t know how it’s possible to want to get the hell away from someone and actively follow them like they’re a magnet at the same time, but Pepper seems to take it in stride, glancing over at me every now and then as she comes to a stop in front of the bus stop.

“I’ll be fine to get back,” she says.

“You’re sure?”

She nods. “I’ll get you back your MetroCard on Monday.”

I rock on my heels, not quite leaving and not quite not leaving. We both spot the bus coming down the street, and it makes the decision for me.

“You’re super sure?” I ask, just in case.

“Yeah,” says Pepper. “And—thanks again.”

I don’t say anything, just watch her get on, watch the bus pull away and her with it. I suddenly feel like an asshole up here in Morningside Heights, in my spiffy school uniform, my hair still slicked back in the style my mom made me brush it into on my way out the door. The style that screamed Ethan so much, it couldn’t not feel like a total kick in the pants when I looked at the end result in the mirror.

I shake it out of my hair now and walk over to a 1 train stop. I hope the walk across town to the east side when I get off the subway will do something to calm me, but if anything, I’m even more aggravated by the time I get to the deli—the weather’s nice for November and the streets are full, and I’m just the kind of invisible on my own that nobody thinks twice before nearly barreling into me.