Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)

Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)

Aly Martinez



WILLOW


“Why?” I yelled, my whole body thrumming with betrayal as Hadley sat across the room, high as a kite. Her green eyes, which were only one shade different than mine, were unfocused, cocaine no doubt coursing through her veins. It was her drug of choice and had been since we were sixteen.

“Could you shut up?” she snapped, draping her legs over the arm of the chair.

“You had a baby!” I waved the journal in the air before I threw it at her. She didn’t even try to dodge it.

I’d found it with at least a dozen others in a box she’d mailed to me in Puerto Rico. Was it a gross invasion of privacy to read them? Probably. But after a decade spent with her in and out of rehab, countless nights chasing her down, months where she’d disappear and I had no idea if she was dead or alive, I didn’t feel guilty in the least reading them, hoping for even one tiny glimpse into the woman that was Hadley Banks.

She was supposed to be moving in with me.

She was supposed to be getting her life together.

She was supposed to be sober.

And yet…

She’d never used the plane ticket I’d bought her.

She’d run up over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of debt on various credit cards.

And just the night before, when I’d flown back after having my heart ripped out by reading her journals, Beth and I had found her half naked in a glorified crack house in Philly.

It was safe to say that Hadley was not okay.

And the more I’d read, the more I’d realized she never had been.

My twin sister, a mere three minutes older than I was, hadn’t walked out of that mall the day our parents were murdered. The innocent eight-year-old little girl on an outing with her family had died in that tragedy. Not physically, of course. She’d walked a lot of steps after that, the majority of them in an effort to outrun the horror of that day. What she really needed though was to follow my footsteps—right into a therapist’s office.

Was I the picture of mental health? Hell no.

I’d contemplated ending my life.

I’d done my time trapped in the prison of fear inside my mind.

I’d woken to the agony of phantom bullets ravaging my body.

But I’d never stopped fighting to get better.

Hadley and I had shared a lot of things in life.

A mother.

A father.

A birthday.

A reflection in the mirror.

But our experiences in that mall couldn’t have been more different.

Hadley was the last person to be found the day of the shooting. When the first shot had been fired, she’d been standing several yards away, snapping the picture to end my roll of film. I’d lost her in the chaos and only later learned that she’d been trampled by men and women alike. Her arm had been broken, but no one had stopped to help her. No one had acknowledged that the terrified child existed. Somehow, she’d gotten herself to the Chinese restaurant where she climbed into a small cabinet, holding the interior latch of the locking mechanism so tight that her fingers became bloody and raw.

She was in agony, but she remained silent long after the police and paramedics had stormed in.

For three hours, she hid in that cabinet.

Alone.

Only a sliver of light peeking through the crack.

Fear terrorized her to the point that she didn’t trust the police enough to come out. In the end, it was a female investigator with rich red hair that she’d seen through the crack and mistaken for our mother that convinced her to spring from that cabinet.

Her sudden scream for our mom startled them.

Guns were drawn.

Aimed at her.

Breaking her all over again.

This time irreparably.

While Hadley and I were identical in virtually every way, after that day at the mall, there was one vast difference that changed the path of our lives forever.

I’d walked out of that war zone with my faith in humanity still intact.

I’d had Caven.

And she’d hated me for it ever since.

I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d gone after him. I’d never seen him or spoken to him after I was carried away on a stretcher.

But a part of me had always loved him.

And for that alone, Hadley made him pay.

“What did I ever do to you?” I whispered, my throat so thick with disgust I could barely get the words to escape. “Please, tell me. What did I do to you that was so horrible that you felt the need to get back at me by making a baby with Caven of all fucking men?”

She shot me a smirk. “Is that what you’re mad about? That I fucked your precious Caven?” His name was a sneer on her lips, and that shot anger up my spine.

“No. See. I’d expect that from you. Honestly, I’m impressed you waited as long as you did. God knows you’ve been trying to punish me for not dying in that shooting for eighteen years now. And what better way than having a baby with the boy who saved me and then giving her up without even telling me?” I planted my hands on my hips and fought back the sobs. “I know you hate me. I know you’ve never forgiven me for being the reason we were at the mall that day. And I know—”

“You know nothing!” She suddenly shot to her feet. “For fuck’s sake, maybe it wasn’t about you, Willow. Ever think of that? I’m sorry to disappoint, but this wasn’t some grand plan devised to torture you. He had Kaleidoscope, plain and simple.”