26. Emmett

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

emmett

Why is Jonah here,and why is he with someone so damn hot? Someone who’s the complete opposite of me.

I tear my gaze away and turn to Harrison, who’s taken pity on me like one of my big brothers would. “He’s here.”

“What? Where?” He lifts his head and swivels it around like he’s a fucking gopher.

Real subtle, Harrison.

“Don’t look! He’s at the back with some hot guy.”

This time, when Harrison looks, he tries to be more subtle. “That’s not some hot guy. That’s Dr. Sinclair. Biology professor.”

That doesn’t fill me with any kind of relief.

This is my own fault though. I knew telling him I had a secret would create this huge wall between us, and I was delusional to think he’d be okay with never knowing, we’d ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after, but I couldn’t keep pretending like everything was okay. He was asking about a future, and I couldn’t lie to him.

“Can we get out of here?” I ask.

“He’s already seen you.”

I glance back where Jonah and his professor date person put down their empty drinks and head this way. Jonah’s stare bores into me.

I hold my breath. My heart thuds. And then, when Jonah breaks eye contact and ducks his head, slipping right past us and heading for the exit, my heart stops completely.

Even though I wanted to do the exact same thing just now, it stings like a bitch. At least he got the chance to walk out on me first. If he feels even a fraction of what I do for him, I wouldn’t want to hurt him like I hurt in this moment.

How did it go from being so happy to complete misery, all over a guy I’d barely started dating?

What is it about Jonah that makes me this gooey-eyed love monster? Am I really that self-sabotaging, that guilt-filled, that I went for a man I knew I couldn’t have so I could hurt like I’m supposed to?

Did I subconsciously do this to myself so I could experience the punishment I never got and dragged an amazing man into my guilt-filled bullshit at the same time?

I have to go apologize. Or make it better somehow. If I could make it better for him, maybe my gut would stop churning.

Benny comes to my side. “Are you going to chase after him?”

I should, but my feet won’t move, and I know I’m going to chicken out. “What’s the point?”

“You really like him, and I’ve never seen you this torn up over a guy.”

“I can’t keep lying to him. It’s not fair to him, and I’m getting a stomach ulcer from the stress and the guilt.”

“Question. If you could tell him the truth⁠—”

“I refuse to throw you under the bus.”

“Let me finish. Take me out of the equation. If you could tell him the truth, do you think there could be a real future with this guy?”

“If he forgave me … possibly?”

Benny sighs. “Let me put this in more simple terms. If you had a chance at a future with him, would you want to take it?”

“Not if it meant⁠—”

“Your answer is obviously yes, so I’m going to fix something for you this time.” Benny turns to walk away when I grab his arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Something I should’ve done last semester. No, something we both should have done years ago.”

I’m too stunned to stop him.

That is until his boyfriend says, “Where’s he going?”

Then, the thought of years and years’ worth of consequences comes crashing down on me. “To ruin his life,” I growl and chase after my brother.

I move so fast my hood falls off my head, but when I catch up to him, he’s storming his way toward Jonah and Dr. Sinclair, who are watching one of their phones, and I assume they’re waiting for a ride share.

Jonah looks up and sees Benny first. “Em … no, wait, Ben.” Then his gaze flicks to mine.

“If Emmett won’t tell you the truth so he can protect me, then I’m going to do it for him.”

“Don’t,” I say. “You’re throwing your whole future away.”

“I’ll start over if I have to. Do college all over again.”

“Benny …”

He turns to me, gripping my shoulders. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Start over?” Jonah asks.

I’m about to physically put my hand over Benny’s mouth when he says, “I wasn’t in your class. Emmett was. He did my math classes for me.”

Jonah stumbles backward. “He what?”

“Jonah,” I say. “I can explain.”

His face is contorted in shock, and he shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “It was you. You were … it was you in my class.”

“So you did sleep with a student,” Dr. Sinclair says to Jonah.

“I …” Why are words not working?

“You cheated your way through my class by doing your brother’s work for him? Why would you—” He slumps. “Because you’re good at math.” Jonah turns to Dr. Sinclair. “And you said your friend said Emmett was a top student, but he has undiagnosed dyslexia.”

And here it is, the moment I’ve been dreading. The moment where it all implodes. His mind ticks over in real time, with each revelation written all over his face. From shock to anger to finally heartbreak.

He turns to Benny. “Let me guess, you’re better at English. You’ve been swapping the whole time.” Then, his normally warm brown eyes become cold as he pierces me with his harsh stare. “Was anything you said real?”

“Jonah, please.” I’m begging now.

Jonah’s shutting down on me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“You know what normal kids with learning disorders do when they’re struggling?” Benny asks. “They get help because their teachers can tell that they’re having trouble. But when you have a twin … it’s easier to pass off the responsibility, especially when we could help each other. We didn’t think we could get away with it forever, but we always found a way.”

“How long has this been going on? Since freshman year? Before then?”

I look down at my feet. “Since middle school. You have to understand. Our parents had died, and it was clear that Benny and I had different talents and lacked what the other had, so … we decided to stick to what comes naturally to us.”

“Swapping places comes naturally?” Jonah yells. “Wait, of course it does. You two lived in the same frat house for six months pretending to be the one person, and no one picked up on it. How have you never been caught?”

Benny and I look at each other.

“People are dumb?” Benny snarks.

“No.” The disdain in his voice kills me. “You two are sociopaths who are good at their craft.”

Benny lunges for Jonah, but I hold him back. He’s already screwed his life up enough as it is by even telling Jonah anything; adding an assault charge to the list of shit we need to own up to is the last thing we need.

Jonah backs away from us. “You were right, Emmett. This is something I would never be able to get past, and now I have all the answers I needed. This thing is over.”

And just like that, my heart shatters.

“Fuck you,” Benny hisses and tries to break free of me. He’s almost successful, too, because suddenly, holding on to him is too difficult. Harrison grabs his other side though.

“You know nothing about what Emmett has been through.” Benny’s still yelling. “Fucking nothing. You have no idea how much this has been eating at him, but he has stayed loyal to me because that’s the type of guy he is. He should be choosing you, but you won’t let him. If you can’t see that he’s a decent person under the blanket of our mistakes, then you don’t fucking deserve him.”

“Bennett,” I yell. I never use his full name. Ever. It’s what makes him stop.

“You know what I don’t deserve?” Jonah asks, eerily calm. “To be put in the position of having to choose between reporting this or keeping my mouth shut. You’ve both put my career on the line.”

I glare at Benny because he had to have known this is where this was heading, right? All his hypotheticals inside about wanting a future with Jonah don’t fucking matter when there is no way to work through this all.

Dr. Sinclair grips Jonah’s forearm. “Hold on before you go running to the dean about this.”

Jonah turns his head toward his colleague, his eyes wide. “What? Out of everyone, I thought you, Mr. Stickler For the Rules, would be the first to run to Dean Kirwin.”

“I’m not saying what they did was right, but I am saying they have a right to explain themselves completely first.”

“I don’t owe either of them anything.” A car pulls up to the curb right where they’re standing, and after Jonah checks his phone against the license plate, he climbs into the back seat.

Dr. Sinclair looks at us, his mouth open like he wants to say something, but eventually, he, too, slips inside the car, and they drive away.

My legs buckle, and I almost fall, but Benny’s there to hold me up.

He’s always there for me like I am for him.

The water in my eyes refuses to go away no matter how hard I blink, and then Benny and I are standing there, on the street, holding each other.

“So …” he eventually says. “That didn’t go to plan.”

I pull back. “What was your plan? Do you really think you could’ve told him that you have cheated your way to your degree, even your high school diploma, and he’d be like, ‘Oh, your secret is that you’ve made a mockery of my whole career? Thank you so much, now I can be with your brother who tricked me into thinking he was you for months.’ You really think that?”

“Well, no, but I figured he’d be angry at me, not you. I’m the one who cheated in his class.”

“But I’m the one who actually took his class. This is why I knew I shouldn’t act on any attraction I had to the guy in the first place. Because it would never work out, and now you’ve gone and screwed up everything for yourself. What are West and Asher going to say when they find out we’ve both been kicked out of college and have no plans for the future?”

“I was serious,” Benny says. “I want to start over. I’ll do my whole schooling again if I have to.”

“If any college will have you after a cheating scandal.”

He smiles. “Daddy Jasper will accept me. He’s head of the math department.”

I wipe my nose with my sleeve. “You’d go back to Vermont?”

“It’s not my first choice, but I do know it would be yours. I could get the schooling help I need. You’d be able to play hockey, coach hockey, do whatever you want.”

“What about Harrison?” I glance over Benny’s shoulder, where his boyfriend is standing, watching this all unfold.

Harrison’s hands are in his pockets, and he’s avoiding eye contact with me. “Benny and I have already spoken about it, and if he moves, I move.”

“You’re leaving?” Felix shrieks.

“Not definitely. We don’t know. My plan was to finish my master’s first, but maybe that timeline has been bumped up due to a certain someone not thinking his actions through.”

“You’ll get used to that with Benny,” I say, and my brother punches my arm. “Why you punching me? You know it’s true.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to say it out loud.”

The tension crackling in the air is broken with some laughter.

“Well, that was a fun shitshow,” Felix says. “How about we go back inside and drink all those emotional booboos away?”

Earlier tonight, I had no desire to go out drinking. Now? I’m hoping drinking my weight in alcohol will make me forget everything that happened today.