Page 41 of Mirror Image

“What?” I jumped in before she could finish the insult. “Pathetic? Sad? Lame as hell?”

She pulled a sheepish face. “I was gonna say ‘refreshing,’ but it sounds like maybe you’re a little sensitive about it.”

“Right, because you’re so worldly,” I muttered—immediately regretting the statement as I recalled her comment from that night in the car when she alluded to having been sexually abused. I rushed to correct the offending statement. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Sam. That was so insensitive of me . . .”

If she was pissed off or hurt, she didn’t show it. Instead I got a single-shoulder shrug and a long, slow blink—another one of Sam’s dramatic trademark maneuvers. It was jarring to look so much alike but be so fundamentally different.

“Whatever,” she replied nonchalantly. “Sex is no big deal. But trust me, the longer you wait, the more disappointed you’re going to be.”

“Yeah? And why’s that?” I asked—again regretting the knee-jerk response as soon as it was out of my mouth.

I didn’t want to know.

But I did.

No one had ever given me any of the nitty-gritty details.

“Because it’s not like you see on TV or in the movies. And it’s not even close to that shit you read in your romance books,” she informed me, gesturing with her chin toward my paperback on the nightstand between us. “It’s not all that wooing and flirting. It’s not sweet or romantic, so you can just forget about those ‘book boyfriends’ you fall for. You’ll never find a man who’s commanding but not stalkery, fiercely protective but not overbearing, or ridiculously handsome and independently wealthy—but who picks plain Jane over slutty Sally every time. Oh, yeah, and that part where they know your body better than you do and can give you orgasms for days? Total and utter bullshit. Those guys don’t exist outside the pages of a trashy romance.”

I glanced down at the book with its well-worn spine. The mythical man she described was exactly the one within those pages—dark, brooding, possessive, adoring. He was, in fact, a pretty accurate rendering of the guy who starred in all my fantasies. Before I could comment, she spoke again, her voice quieter and uncharacteristically serious.

“Sex isn’t pretty, Mary. It’s about power and aggression.”

“Sam,” I started slowly, cautiously, “did someone . . . Were you raped?”

My twin stared at me for a long beat.

“No, Mary,” she said softly. “No one tied me up or held a gun to my head, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No one has to hold a gun to your head for it to be rape.”

“Will you please just stop using that word?” she asked, growing agitated.

“Which word, Sam? Rape? Because that’s what it is when you don’t consent. Or when you’re too young to consent. Or when the person has power over you and you don’t feel like you have any choice but to comply—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you just quit it with the sexual harassment training course already? It wasn’t rape. I was not raped. I was involved with an asshole who made me think he actually cared about me, that he maybe even loved me, then he took everything from me.”

“What do you mean ‘everything’?” I press cautiously.

“My choices. My power. My heart. My soul.”

It sounded like rape to me, but I didn’t want to agitate her anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I said, softer, holding her gaze.

Her expression turned confused. “What have you got to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry that it happened to you—whatever it was. It must have been awful.”

“Could we please just not?” she asked, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I just—I’ll maybe talk about it sometime, but not today.”

Just like that the facade shifted, and for the briefest of moments, I got a glimpse of the real Sam. She was a child, really—a little girl who’d been playing dress-up in the oversize shoes of a grown woman for far too long. She was tired and fearful, distrustful and jaded. But underneath it all was the tiniest glimmer of something that looked like hope.

I could work with that. I could be the one she could trust and lean on. I would proudly bear the mantle of her hope if for no other reason than it was painful to see the echoes of her past reflected in the face that we shared. It was too close, too much of a reminder that it could have just as easily been me.

“Well, I think you’re a badass,” I told her softly, then lightened my tone with a grin. “I mean, look how far you’ve come—living in the lap of luxury!”

Totally deadpan, I gestured to the green-carpeted, wood-paneled room around us as my twin watched, her eyes narrowed on me, trying to assess how serious I was.