I was glad when everyone said they wanted to go back to the house and just relax. Grace had to go and visit her sick grandmother so she left to go and pack her bags. This left Jake, Mary, Nelly and I on the living room couch with nothing to do.

“How about swimming? I’m sure the pool’s heating in on.” Nelly said. We had been trying to come up with things to do but most were just bad ideas while the rest were impossible.

“That sounds okay.” Jake said, looking at Mary and me. I shrugged while Mary said yes. So we went swimming. We lent Jake one of our extra swimming trunks that we were never going to get around to actually wearing – being fake rich had its perks – and Mary went to her house to change into her swimming costume.

The pool was already heated so Jake and Nelly dived in without second thought. Mary and I, on the other hand, seated ourselves on the lawn chairs, drinking a mixture of juices. We made it look like they were alcoholic drinks as we were under age – not that that was a problem though.

“Hey, Mary, why don’t you jump in with me?” Nelly pulled himself out of the pool and walked over to Mary. He scoped her up into his arms before he jumped in the pool. Jake also got out of the pool but instead of taking me like Nelly did to Mary he just sat on the chair the girl had just occupied.

“Do you ever join in on the fun that other people have? This is the second time you are sitting out on everything.”

“Nelly and Mary seem to want their space.” I simply stated. Jake and I looked over to where my twin brother was clearly flirting with Mary. She was shyly laughing at what he was saying and he seemed to only want to pay attention to her.

“You give your brother space a lot.” Jake said as he dried himself off with a towel.

“What do you mean?” I turned on my side so I could get a better look at the guy I was sitting with.

“Anyone can see that you don’t like being apart from your brother. Remember how hard it was for me just to get you out of the house for a couple of hours when Nelly was sick?” I smiled at the thought of that time.

“But why would you say I give him a lot of space?”

“You guys are friends with totally different circles of people. You don’t even sit with him at lunch. It’s like you guys are twins that hate each other.” Jake’s words hit home hard. I turned to lie on my back and stare at the stars.

“You make us sound so sad.”

“That isn’t what I meant, Nelu.”

“You know, there was a time when we were separated.” I turned back to Jake, hoping to see the reaction in his eyes while I told him a story I never told anyone. “That was the first time someone died because of me.”

“Did they die because you were separated?” Jake asked.

“No, they died because of a mistake they made, but the blame got shifted on me.” I take a deep breath before going in to my story. “When we got separated, we were both twelve. Nelly got adopted by this really nice couple. They sent him to boarding school a week after he went to go stay with them. I found this silly because they could have just left him at the orphanage if they wanted to be away from him.

“Anyway, I went to go live with some other lady that was working as a spy from some company. She was never home and when she was, she would either be working in her office or drinking with friends. That’s where I learnt how to cook. Then I taught Nelly, but that’s another story.” I looked back at the stars.

“What happened then?” Jake seemed to earnestly want to know more about my story so I carried on.

“There was a week where she never came home. Not even once. Then when she did come she was bloody and bruised. Later that night people broke into our house. They weren’t the usual robbers as they didn’t come to steal anything. They just beat her up. I could hear her screams from my bedroom so I went down stairs to see what was going on.

“She looked worse than before, her eyes were barely visible and I think a couple of her teeth were lying on the floor. It was bad and they were just getting started. Then they saw me.” I almost choked on my voice as I thought about what happened next on that dreadful night. I felt Jake’s hand lightly caress my arm.

“You don’t have to carry on if you don’t want to.”

“I want to. I don’t want to keep secrets from you.” There was a sharp pain in my chest as I thought about all the lies I was telling him and all the secrets I was keeping.

“Let me tell you about my family then. That way we are both kind of even.” I nodded at his compromise. He stood up as if he was going to leave but only indicated for me to make space on the lawn chair for him. I scooted over and when he was comfortably seated I slowly laid my head on his chest.

“You can talk.” I said after a minute.

“Everybody knows that my mother died of cancer two years ago, but my family doesn’t talk about why she died. My mother needed a kidney transplant and they had found that she and my dad were a match. Both my parents’ families were happy that she was going to live because of the kidney that she was going to get from my dad; well my dad on the other hand didn’t want to give a kidney.

“No matter how much anybody begged him, he didn’t want. His excuse was that she was cheating on him so she should have gone to her boyfriend to ask for a kidney if she so desperately needed it. My mother filed for a divorce and since they had signed a prenuptial she got half of everything that they owned together. My mother had gotten a company from her father but she kept it in her sister’s name in order to keep it out of my dad’s hands. In her will she passed over everything to me with clear instructions that her family must make sure he doesn’t get his hands on any of it. And because of that my dad and I don’t talk.”

“That’s mean. He didn’t have to let her die like that.” I said slowly. I wasn’t sure how exactly Jake felt about his dad. My eyes drifted over to the pool steps, where Nelly was sitting in between Mary’s legs looking at her as if her had never seen anything so beautiful.

“I know what you mean. I loved my mother and would have wanted her to meet you.” Shocked by this statement I looked up at Jake to see if he was lying. He wasn’t. “Do you know that my dad and I share the same name?”

“Really? Is that why you don’t like being called by your full name?”

“Yeah, I’m going to change my name when I turn eighteen.”

“Don’t, I think that your name suits you. I couldn’t imagine calling you by any other name.” I whispered the last part but Jake’s laughter told me that he had heard me.

Tonight was perfect. Mary and Nelly seemed to be so much closer. And Jake and I seemed to be forming a much stronger bond. I looked up at the sky, the stars being the last thing I saw before I fell asleep in the arms of a handsome guy, listening to a lullaby made by the beating of his heart.