Seeing Double

Chapter 14 - Its Complicated

“Oh my god, Em! I can’t face him right now!” I hissed desperately as Em kept pushing me in the direction of the door with that scheming smirk on her lips.

“Its now or never, Andy,” she chirped back cheerfully as she reached out for the doorknob.

“NO!” I yelled, grabbing her hand before she could wrench my door open.

“Oh, are you busy right now?” Daniel called out from the other side of the door. He must have thought that the shout was for him. “Is that Emily with you?” he asked, sounding extremely nervous.

“No, wait!” Emily screamed. “She’s com – umph!”

I clamped my hand over Em’s big mouth before she could say anything more and glared at her threateningly.

“Fine,” I growled. “I”m going to go out but you’re not going to say anything. Promise?” I narrowed my eyes at her as she nodded eagerly, her eyes shining with excitement. I frowned, but reluctantly let go of her. Taking a deep breath, I pasted on a smile and opend the door.

An involuntary gasp left my lips as the sight of the brace over his nose bridge and the ugly dark bruise on his left jaw. Ian really went and beat him up last night, I thought guiltily.

 “Oh, hi,” Daniel greeted me with a nervous chuckle, which I returned with a similarly nervous one of my own. “Hey, Em,” he smiled at the figure who was grinning from ear to ear behind me.

“Holy sh -!” Em exclaimed in horror upon seeing his face, stopping immediately when I shot her a deathly glare. “Right. I’m going to get something to eat downstairs,” she sobered up, winking at me as she skipped down the stairs, leaving the two of us quite alone. That sneaky little brat.

“What happened to you?” I immediately asked once we were alone, reaching up to better see his bruised jaw, completely forgetting the earlier awkwardness of the situation.

“Got into a fight at Matt’s last night,” he shrugged it off like it was nothing, but I gripped his face tightly and forced him to face me.

“You broke your nose! This is not nothing!” I told him sternly. “I’m so going to kill Ian,” I muttered under my breath as I finally let go of his face. He might be mad but that’s no excuse for beating his brother up so badly. Heck, I should be the one doing the punching!

“What?” he asked me curiously, but I shook my head, not wanting him to know that I knew that it was Ian who had beaten him up. “And my nose is not broken, Andrea. Its just a fracture,”

“Still!” I glowered at him, but he just shook his head, clearly not wanting to discuss this further. “So, um, what’s up?” I asked him bluntly, leaning against my doorframe nervously. Now that my initial shock over his injuries were over, the awkwardness had settled back in. “It’s so hard to act like I normally do around him after what happened, and now that I finally understood the reason for his awkwardness around me, it only made matters worse.

“Yeah, uh, can we talk in your room? It’s kinda, I - ”

“Sure, come in,” I cut him off, not really wanting to hear the rest of the sentence. I had known immediately from the look on his face what it was he wanted to talk about. Turning away from him gave me time to rearrange my features into one of calm nonchalance, when in fact my heart was pounding wildly and my palms have begun to sweat from the tension. How am I supposed to react? Should I pretend that I still don’t remember? I flinched slightly as he closed my bedroom door after him, and my eyes darted wildly around the room for an alternative escape route. The window perhaps?

“So,” he cleared his throat, grabbing a chair and sitting down facing me. “Andy, I have something I have to tell you,” he continued seriously, his eyes searching my blank face warily.