I bite back the tears at the sadness in his voice and at how much I missed hearing him use my childhood nickname. He’s the only one who’s ever called me that. I feel like I’m home for the first time in years.
If I hadn’t I snapped out of our father’s brainwashing, we would have never seen each other again.
Luke pulls me back after a long moment, keeping his hands on my shoulders to take a better look at me. “You look beautiful, as always.”
I press the back of my hand against my nose to try to keep the tears that have welled in my eyes from falling. “I look like a train wreck. And I should have stopped somewhere to get out of this dress, but I just wanted to get away from Bridgeport. Now everyone is looking at me, and I can’t take it.”
If Luke is thinking that I deserve every bad thing that has happened to me, I don’t even blame him. The things I’ve done in the past few years are hard to comprehend, even to myself, when I think about them.
I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life, and I literally escaped with the clothes on my back.
The thing when you break out of a terrible situation, though, are all the jagged little pieces that come from that break.
Right now I feel surrounded by those sharp shards and I don’t know if I can avoid cutting myself as I attempt to navigate through the ruins of my life.
“Yeah,” Luke muses, rubbing his chin as he looks me up and down. “Can’t say that dress is what I would have gone with, sis. Besides, it can’t be easy to walk around in it.”
“It isn’t.” I sigh, defeated.
Luke considers me for another second, then nods, grabbing my hand. “Not to worry. Luckily, your twin brother is a fashion major and I think we can do something about it. Follow me.”
He grabs my hand, dragging me back to where I just came from. “Talia, babe,” he gets the attention of the pretty bartender. “Mind if Bex and I use your staff room for a sec?”
The woman looks at me with even more curiosity this time around. “Sure thing, sweetie. You know where it is.” She opens a section of the long bar to let us behind it.
Luke leads me past the area, ushering me through a door on the far end of the wall.
We’re in a narrow, dark hallway with a few doors on either side.
My brother opens a door with a sign that says Staff Room. “In here.”
He flicks the light on, as if he knew his way around here. He then goes to the old kitchen cabinets on one side of the room, opening a drawer. “Perfect. This won’t be fashion show ready, but you’ll be able to walk around easier.”
Luke comes to my side with a pair of scissors in his hand.
I barely have a chance to ask him what he’s doing when cold air hits my legs as the thick satin and lace of my wedding dress falls on the carpeted floor around me.
He cut off the wide, white gown, so that it hits mid thigh. He managed to cut out all the layers of tulle underneath too, so that the fabric falls naturally without that puffy effect it had a second ago. It almost looks like the dress was born this way, with its halter top and the flowing silk and lace short skirt. The only things that are still reminiscent of a wedding dress are its color, and the intricate crystals and pearls that adorn the bodice.
“They should have a sewing kit if you want me to hem it,” he says, admiring his handiwork.
I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
In reality, I can’t wait to get out of this dress, but that will have to wait until…
The thought hits me hard enough to take my breath away. I have nowhere to go. When I walked out of the bridal suite in the church where my wedding was about to take place, I burned every bridge with my old life. Everything I was, everything I owned, was tied to him and toPure Shine.
Walking away meant leaving everything behind and the enormity of it comes down on me like a ton of bricks.
“Luke, I?—”
My twin takes me into his arms a second time tonight, and I let his warmth seep into me. I don’t deserve any of it. I don’t deserve him.
“Shh,” he soothes me, kissing the top of my head.
Luke and I might be twins, but he’s over six feet tall and I’m a pathetic five foot three.
We stay like that for a long moment, and it feels good. I feel safe. I’m home.
