It was Maxon pressing his chest against my back.
“Love?” he murmured. ”I love you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to sob. Trying not to scream. Trying not to break right there.
I used to think our story began the day Lewis told me he loved me. But the truth was… it began long before that.
We were childhood friends—me and the twin boys, Lewis and Maxon—because our parents were inseparable. Business partners. Vacation buddies. The type of adults who talked about raising their kids side-by-side the way other people talked about backyard gardens.
I practically grew up at their beach house.
I remembered those summers so clearly it hurt. Lewis smiling shyly at me, always the gentler twin, offering me seashells as if they were precious diamonds. Maxon chasing us with water balloons, loud, stubborn, and cocky even at ten.
The adults used to tease us constantly.
“She will marry one of those twin boys someday,” they’d laugh.
Then Victoria arrived in our lives for real. She wasn’t just a playmate anymore; she became part of the family when her parents died in an accident. She was six. Lost. Quiet. I remember feeling so much pity for her, so much instinctive protectiveness, that when my parents said she’d be spending most holidays with us and the twins, I didn’t complain.
We all grew up together like that—an unbreakable circle.
Or so I thought.
Maxon was the first to break it.
He confessed to me when we were fifteen. Brazen and stupid, that boy. His cheeks were red, but he still smirked like he wasn’t scared.
But I was.
“You’re a playboy,” I had said sharply. “You don’t know what love is.”
He had laughed, pretending it didn’t matter, but I saw it—just for a flash—in his eyes: the hurt. Or maybe his pride shattering. I’ll never know.
Still, I tried. At first. I tried to see where it might go.
But then Lewis happened. Quiet, careful Lewis. The one who didn’t make grand gestures but made me feel… safe. Seen. Wanted in a way that wasn’t loud or exhausting.
Little by little, all my attention shifted toward him. I didn’t even notice Maxon drifting away until the day he snapped—until he became angry, almost violent in his frustration.
That was the last time we spoke.
By twenty, Maxon had left, the entire family treated him like the black sheep. Even their grandmother couldn’t stand to hear his name.
And by twenty-three, I married Lewis.
Except now—