Fraternal: CH. 6

CHAPTER SIX: FULL DISCLOSURE

EZRA

"Well, I'll say," says Elliot, he's standing there like he was part of the entire conversation the whole time, arms crossed casually over his chest. First, how much did he hear? Two, how much did he hear? And three—wait, that's the same question twice, but honestly my brain is spinning too fast to think of a third coherent thought right now.

"Hey...Elliot," I say, my voice coming out way more strained than I intended. I clear my throat and try again. "How long have you been standing there?"

He's still just standing there with this unreadable expression on his face, like he's processing something huge but doesn't quite know how to verbalize it yet. I look at Asher who looks at me and then back to Elliot, his eyes wide with a mixture of panic and resignation. The quiet is deafening and I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to say. My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. I mean obviously we never anticipated this exact scenario which is evidenced by the fact that no one has said a word in at least a full minute. Maybe longer. Time feels weird right now.

"Wow, so there's two of you?" he asks, finally breaking the silence and leaning up against the doorframe with an expression that's somewhere between amused and completely bewildered.

"Yes there is," I say after a moment, swallowing hard and trying to gauge his reaction.

"I mean--I suspected there was something up with you, but identical twins--" he says, trailing off and shaking his head slightly like he can't quite believe what he's seeing.

"Technically, fraternal." Asher corrects, because of course he does. Leave it to my brother to get pedantic at a time like this.

"What?" Elliot asks, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"He means we're not identical twins," I say, shooting Asher a look that clearly says now is not the time for a biology lesson. "We're fraternal twins."

His expression is still confused, like he's trying to work out a complex math problem in his head.

"Identical twins happen when one fertilized egg splits into two," Asher begins, because apparently he didn't get my silent message to shut up. "Fraternal twins happen when two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm. So we shared a womb, but we're genetically no more similar than any other siblings. We just happened to be born at the same time."

Elliot blinks at us, processing. "So you're not twins?" He lifts an eyebrow, and I can see the exact moment his brain short-circuits trying to reconcile what Asher just said with what he's seeing in front of him.

I palm my face, dragging my hand down slowly. Of course this is how this conversation is going.

"Wait—what? You are twins?" Elliot asks, still visibly confused, his gaze bouncing between us like he's watching a tennis match.

Asher and I look at each other. There's a beat of silence where I can practically hear my brother's thoughts mirroring mine: How the fuck do we explain this?

"How do I—" I start, trailing off as I look around the room for something, anything, that might help illustrate this disaster of a genetics lesson before giving up. "Okay. Look. We're just brothers who just happened to be born at the same time. That's it."

"But you look alike..." Elliot says slowly, his eyes narrowing as he studies our faces like he's searching for differences he missed before.

"We're freaks of nature," I say flatly, because honestly, what other explanation is there? The odds of fraternal twins looking this similar are astronomical, and yet here we are.

"But how—"

Asher cuts him off with an exasperated sigh. "You're really not gonna get your teeth out of this, are you?"

"How long?" Elliot asks, and his voice is different now—quieter, which somehow makes it worse. "How long have you been doing this?"

I don't answer. Can't. Because the answer is too long and we both know it.

"Multiple times?" he continues, and I watch his jaw clench. "How many times did you switch? How many times did I kiss one of you thinking it was the other?"

"Elliot—" Asher starts, but Elliot holds up a hand.

"What else did you lie about? Everything? Was any of it real?"

"How did you know?" I ask instead, because I need to understand how we got caught. How it all fell apart so completely.

Elliot's laugh is bitter. "I synced my phone to my laptop. You deleted the messages from my phone, but they were still sitting there on my computer."

Fuck.

"Okay," Elliot says, and his voice is so calm it makes my skin crawl. "So what was the endgame here?"

I look at Asher. Asher looks at me. Neither of us says anything.

"I'm serious," Elliot continues, and there's something sharp underneath the calm now—something that cuts. "What was the actual plan? Were you going to keep switching forever? Keep me as some—some shared thing between you? What did you actually want from me beyond whatever fucked-up game this was?"

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

Because the truth is—we didn't have a plan. We never thought past the next date, the next switch, the next time one of us could claim a win. It was always about right now, never about what happens after.

"We—" Asher starts, then stops. His hand comes up to the back of his neck, and I recognize the gesture immediately. It's what he does when he's cornered. When he doesn't have an answer and knows it.

"You what?" Elliot presses. "You were just gonna keep doing this until I figured it out? Until one of you got bored? Until—what, exactly?"

"We didn't think that far ahead," I say, and the words taste like admitting defeat.

Elliot stares at me. Then at Asher. Then back at me.

"You didn't think that far ahead," he repeats slowly, like he's testing the words to see if they make sense. "You built this entire elaborate lie—switching identities, coordinating stories, debriefing each other in the fucking shower—and you didn't think about what would happen when it inevitably fell apart?"

"It wasn't supposed to fall apart," Asher says, and even I can hear how weak that sounds.

"Oh, it wasn't supposed to," Elliot says, and now there's real anger bleeding through the calm. "Well, congratulations. It did. So now what? What was I supposed to be to you? A trophy? A bet you could cash in? Some guy you could pass back and forth like a—"

"It wasn't like that," I say, but my voice doesn't carry the conviction it needs to.

"Then what was it like?" Elliot demands. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you two were so busy competing with each other that you forgot I was an actual person. That I had feelings. That I—" He stops himself, jaw clenching. "That I actually liked you. Both of you, apparently, which is its own special kind of fucked up."

The silence that follows is suffocating.

I can feel Asher next to me, tense and coiled like he's ready to bolt. I can feel my own heartbeat hammering in my chest. And I can feel Elliot's eyes on us—waiting for an answer we don't have.

"We fucked up," Asher finally says. "We know we fucked up."

"That's not an answer," Elliot says. "That's just stating the obvious."

"What do you want us to say?" I ask, and I hate how desperate it sounds. "That we're sorry? That we didn't mean for it to go this far? That we—"

"I want you to tell me the truth," Elliot interrupts. "For once. Just—tell me the fucking truth. What did you want from me?"

I look at Asher again. He's staring at the floor, shoulders hunched like he's trying to make himself smaller.

And I realize—we don't have an answer. Not a good one. Not one that makes any of this okay.

Because the truth is we wanted to win. We wanted to beat each other. We wanted to prove something—to ourselves, to each other, maybe even to Elliot—but we never stopped to think about what that proof would cost.

"I don't know," I say finally, and the admission feels like pulling teeth. "I don't know what we wanted. I just—I wanted to not lose."

"Lose what?" Elliot asks. "Me? Or him?"

He gestures at Asher, and the question hangs in the air like smoke.

I don't answer. Can't. Because I don't know if I even understand the question, let alone have an answer for it.

Elliot shakes his head slowly, and there's something that looks almost like pity in his eyes now. "You two are so fucked up," he says quietly. "And the worst part is—I don't even think you realize how fucked up you are."

He walks over to Asher's desk chair and drags it across the floor—the scraping sound makes my teeth hurt—and positions it directly in front of where we're sitting on the bed. Then he sits down, leans back, crosses his arms.

Like he's settling in for a long interrogation.

"Okay," he says. "From the beginning. Where did this bet even come from?"

I feel Asher tense beside me. Neither of us moves.

"I'm serious," Elliot continues. "Walk me through it. When did you two decide I was going to be your—what, your game piece? Your prize?"

"Surge," Asher says quietly. "We were at Surge."

"When?"

"The night we met you," I say. "We both saw you at the same time."

Elliot's jaw tightens. "And?"

"And we both called dibs," Asher admits. "Like—immediately. We were on the mezzanine and we saw you at the bar and we both wanted—"

"To fuck me," Elliot finishes flatly.

"Yeah."

"So you made a bet."

"Yeah."

Elliot nods slowly, like he's processing this. "Right there? At the club?"

"Yeah," I say. "We agreed on the rules. The first one to get you into bed wins."

"Wins what?"

Neither of us answers that.

Because the truth is—there was no prize. There was never a prize. It was just about beating each other. About proving something neither of us could name.

Elliot leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Okay. So you made the bet. Then what?"

"Then Asher went down and talked to you," I say.

"And danced with you," Asher adds.

"And got your number," I finish.

Elliot's eyes move between us like he's watching a rally. "As Hyde."

"Yeah."

"And then?"

"Then I texted you," I say. "The next day. Asked you to meet me at the park."

Elliot goes very still. "That was you."

"Yeah."

"The park date. The swings. The—" He stops himself. Takes a breath. "Who kissed me at the park?"

My stomach drops.

Because this is it. This is where it gets real. Where he starts untangling every single moment, every touch, every word—trying to figure out which one of us he was actually with.

"Me," I say. "That was me."

Elliot stares at me for a long moment. Then he turns to Asher. "And the movie theater?"

"Me," Asher says quietly.

Elliot nods slowly, like he's cataloging each answer, filing it away. "Surge—the second time. When we danced and then went back to my room."

The silence that follows feels heavy. Weighted.

"That was kinda both of us," I say, and the words taste like ash in my mouth.

Elliot's brow furrows. "Both of you? How does that—" He stops. Points at Asher. "I started the night with you, and brought you back to my dorm?" Then his finger swings to me. "You?"

"Yeah." I swallow hard. "And then Asher was texting you while we were—while you and I were together. And I saw the messages pop up on your phone and I panicked and I—"

"Deleted them," Elliot finishes, his voice flat.

He sits back again, arms still crossed. "Okay. So let me get this straight. You—" he points at me "—took me to the park. Kissed me on the swings. Then you—" he points at Asher "—took me to the movies. Made out with me in the bathroom. Then you—" back to me "—danced with me at Surge and came back to my room. And the whole time, I thought I was with one person."

"Yeah," we both say.

"And you debriefed each other. After every date."

"Yeah."

"In the shower."

My face burns. "Yeah."

"So you could keep the story straight. So I wouldn't figure it out."

"Yeah."

Elliot nods slowly. Then he leans forward again, and his voice drops. "Did you—with each other? After the dates?"

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