Oh, sweet mercy. “Don’t call me that.” He never called me by my given name, not like this. Not when he was touching me, even if it was in anger. Not when it was just the two of us. I was his Songbird. I had always been his Songbird.
“What should I call you?” Deathly quiet, darkly ominous, he didn’t ask the question, he dared me to answer it.
No way to turn back, and no way to move forward, I did the only thing I could.
“Songbird,” I whispered.
Instantly releasing her, I stepped back.
Songbird.
She didn’t deserve for me to call her that. My Songbird didn’t lie to me. My Songbird didn’t let my twin put his hands on her. My Songbird didn’t play games.
Ignoring the bullshit in my head, I cut all emotion from my tone. “When were you going to tell me it’s Abernathy?”
“I…” Dropping her gaze, swiping at her tears, she didn’t pretend to be surprised. “Vance said you didn’t need to know.”
Locking down everything, I didn’t react. “Because?”
She reached up to smooth her hair. It was a gesture I’d seen her do a thousand times. She wasn’t vain. She didn’t know her own beauty, and she never used to worry over her dress or makeup. But her hair she’d always been cognizant of. Except halfway through the gesture of her hand grasping her own locks, she stopped and pulled her arms in instead.
Then she spoke how she used to speak to me—with thoughts spilling rapid-fire out of her mouth as she bled her accented words together.
“I don’t even know anymore. This is all crazy. That sick man is out there somewhere, wanting to blow us all up, and it’s my fault. Everything is my fault. Every single thing that’s happened is because of my actions, because of what I did. I was foolish and didn’t understand what I wanted back then, what I already had. Except now that I do, now that I desperately want what I can’t have anymore, it’s too late. I don’t know how to fix any of this. I can’t make you love me again. I can’t undo the past.” She gripped her arms tighter, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You killed a man because of me. I can’t fix that.”
My muscles stilled, but the realization hit with the force of a blast wave.
This wasn’t about what I’d done.
This wasn’t about her mistake.
This was about what I hadn’t done.
I hated my brother. I hated his selfish arrogance and competitiveness. He wasn’t a brother. He was an adversary who wanted everything I’d ever had. He took the girl I lost my virginity to. He fucked the girlfriend I had before Sanaa, and he’d allowed Sanaa to think he was me. My clothes, my grades, my Songbird, my fucking T-shirt that night, anything he’d ever wanted, he took.
Sanaa was the straw that made me snap, but Vance wasn’t the problem.
I was.
I’d given him every opportunity to fuck me over, and I’d never said a goddamn word. That night ten years ago was the culmination. I’d walked away from my own damn actions.
It was beyond time to take responsibility.
“You didn’t make me do anything.” She’d brought joy to my life. I didn’t think about a future for myself before her. I was too damn busy trying to get through school and work as many hours as I could to bring in money to help Ma with the bills while Vance fucked off and chased girls. “My punch was the one that killed him. I have no regrets for hitting him. His death wasn’t intentional, but given the same situation again, I would still hit him for what he said.”
Recoiling as if I’d struck her, she stepped back. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Because then you’d have to admit I’m a murderer? Guess what, I am. Would you’ve rather been passed around Trinity Media Group and raped by men twice your age?”
“Don’t do this.” She shook her head as if she was horrified. “I knew who you were when you enlisted. I knew that man. He was honorable, and I wanted to be with him. I never stopped wanting to be with that man. But you aren’t acting like him now. Not even close. That man, my Ronan, he wouldn’t have condoned murder, accidental or not.”
She had no idea who I was. “Then you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did.” I was exactly him.