Without Merit(63)

I can feel my shoulders wanting to slump forward. I can feel my forehead wanting to meet my hand. Instead, I try to keep my composure like he always does. “If you aren’t attracted to her, then that means . . .” I can’t even say it out loud. “We’re identical twins, so . . .”

He laughs silently again. I wish I could figure out rhyme or reason to what causes him to do that. If I figured out the trick to his quiet laugh, I’d do it all day every day.

“You’re wondering if it’s possible for someone to be attracted to you and not to your identical twin.” He says it with such little effort.

I shrug. Then I nod.

“Yes. It’s possible.”

I try not to smile because that answer didn’t mean he was attracted to me. But a girl can hope. “Why did you and Honor never take things beyond a friendship?”

“She’s seeing my friend,” he says. “I’d never do that to him. Besides, when I met her, sure, I thought she was beautiful. But after spending a couple of days with her, it just . . . I don’t know. There was never a romantic connection. She didn’t like my art. She didn’t like my taste in music. She was constantly on the phone gossiping about people and that annoyed me. But there were other things that drew me to her in a different way. She’s loyal and fun and I like hanging out with her.”

I absorb everything he just said without responding. I want to believe it, but it’s hard when I had the wrong impression of them for so long. “What about that day on the square? If you aren’t attracted to her, why did you kiss me when you thought I was her?”

Sagan’s expression grows serious. He releases a heavy breath and leans back against the swing, looking out over the yard. He pulls my leg across his lap and leaves his hand lingering on my knee. “It’s complicated,” he says. He runs his hand down his face and struggles with his words for a moment. “I saw Honor . . . you . . . browsing the antiques store that day. I watched her for a while. I was curious, because she was so different that day. Dressed down in a pair of jeans with a flannel shirt tied around her waist. She wasn’t wearing makeup, which completely threw me off because Honor always wears makeup. And I knew Honor had a sister but I didn’t know she had an identical twin sister, so the thought that Honor might have been you never even crossed my mind. I don’t know . . . it’s hard to explain because you’re identical. But I was drawn to her that day in a way I had never been drawn to her before. I felt things I had never felt before when I was around her.

“I liked how she looked at everything with the curiosity of a child. I liked that she never once pulled her phone out. Honor is always on her phone and sometimes I just want her to put it away and enjoy the world around her. And I really liked it when she took the blame for that little boy when he broke that antique. And then when I walked up to her outside and looked at her up close, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. And even though I had never kissed her before and I felt guilty as hell for kissing her, knowing my friend liked her, I couldn’t not kiss her that day. Something came over me in that moment and I couldn’t stop myself.”

His eyes meet mine. “But . . . then she called and I finally put two and two together . . . and it made sense why I felt like I’d die if I didn’t kiss her, when I’d never once felt like that before. I wasn’t attracted to Honor. I was attracted to you.”

My heart couldn’t beat any faster if I drank a 5-hour ENERGY and chased it with a Red Bull. Everything he just said is everything I’ve been wishing were the truth. I’ve fantasized that he saw something different in me that he didn’t see in Honor, and now that I’m hearing his version of it, I half expect to wake up from a cruel dream. I wish I could go back to that day and engrain every moment into my memory. Especially the moment he bent down to kiss me and said, “You bury me.” I didn’t know what it meant then and I still don’t, but I hear those three words every time I close my eyes.

“Why did you say you bury me right before you kissed me? Is that something you say to Honor?”

Sagan looks down at his hand—the one that’s caressing my knee—and he smiles. “No. It’s the meaning of the Arabic word tuqburni.”

“Tuqburni? What’s the English word for it?”

He leans his head against the back of the swing and tilts it a little so that he’s looking at me. “Not every word can be translated into every language. There isn’t an English equivalent for the word.”

“You bury me sounds a little morbid.”

Sagan smiles. I can see a hint of embarrassment in his expression. “Tuqburni is used to describe the all-encompassing feeling of not being able to live without someone. Which is why the literal translation is, ‘You bury me.’?”

I take in what he just said and the fact that he said those words to me right before he kissed me that day. I love that he said that, but I hate that he didn’t know he was saying it to me. At the time, he thought he was saying those words to Honor. And even though he admits he was attracted to her that day because it was actually me, it doesn’t explain why he didn’t just explain that to me right after it happened. It’s been more than two weeks now.

I clear my throat and swallow my nerves until I can find the courage to ask him about it. “If you and Honor aren’t a thing, and if you’re attracted to me like you just said, why didn’t you act on it? It happened weeks ago.”