“Seriously.” Odette rolls her eyes. “You’d think breaking a freaking hymen is some kind of natural testosterone booster, the way they go on and on about it.”
“Sis, haven’t you heard?” Ophelia waves her arms through the air like a witch casting a spell. “The virginal hoo-ha has magical powers to enhance virility — like powdered rhinoceros horn and shark fin soup!”
The twins both throw their heads back in a fit of laughter.
“Ollie isn’t like that,” I insist, trying not to sound defensive. “Even if I did tell him, he wouldn’t care.” I swallow hard, wishing it would clear the lump of uncertainty lodged in my throat. “This is really not that big of a deal.”
“Uh huh.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
I glare at them in turn. “I thought you two invited me over to cheer me up, not to judge my boyfriend’s sexual preferences.”
“Sorry! Honestly. We aren’t trying to be judgmental. We just don’t understand… why?”
“Does he have… you know… some sort of problem?” Odette asks. “Anatomically?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of.” I shrug. “He’s from the south. He was raised in the Bible Belt. He’s religious.”
“Religious. Oh. So his problems are psychological.”
“Ophelia!” Odette glances at me. “She didn’t mean that.”
“I did, actually,” her twin mutters.
I can’t help laughing. “Really, I’m fine with it. The one and only time I had sex didn’t exactly go well, remember? I’m not in a rush to replicate those results.”
Odette purses her lips. “Archer really did a number on you, huh?”
“He did totally ghost her, after she’d spent, like, her entire life in love with him.”
“Ophelia,” Odette hisses again. “That wasn’t very sensitive.”
“So? It’s the truth.” Ophelia glances at me. “No offense, Jo.”
“It’s fine.” I shake my head at the ridiculousness of this situation. “You guys did warn me, after all.”
“We did?”
“Yep. Back at Exeter, on graduation day. You told me Archer’s disappearing act was because he might not feel the same, after we slept together.”
Ophelia blinks slowly, pushing her frame upright. “Wait. That was on graduation day? The day he ghosted?”
I nod.
“Are you sure?”
“Tough to forget the day you had your heart ripped out of your chest. Especially when that same day, you’re forced to get up on stage and give a speech about conquering the future and fulfilling your life’s potential.” I pause a beat. “Why do you ask?”
They trade a loaded glance. “The timing of it all…”
“It’s just…”
“Just what?” I ask, feeling my blood pressure skyrocket. “What aren’t you saying?”
“Graduation day,” Odette murmurs, looking at her twin strangely. “Isn’t that the same day…”
Ophelia nods. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Guys.” My teeth are suddenly grinding together as tension ripples through me. “Explain. Please.”
They look at me with the same expression — sympathy mixed with a strange hesitation I can’t interpret. “We didn’t realize…”
“You must not know about the accident.”
“What accident?” I ask.
“Archer’s accident.”
For a second, time goes still. The breath halts in my lungs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Look, we don’t know the full story, but…” Odette heaves a sigh. “Right around the time you left for Switzerland, we found out Archer was in a pretty bad car accident.”
“Totaled his truck,” Ophelia jumps in.
“Flipped it right over.”
“Rumor was, that’s why he missed our commencement ceremony.”
“He was in the hospital for a few days, recovering from surgery.”
“No,” I whisper. The rejection comes out thin, a breath-starved sound. “No, that’s… it’s… Where did you hear this?”
Ophelia shrugs. “Chris Tomlinson got drunk at a party last year and told us about it. He said he wasn’t supposed to say anything, that Archer didn’t want people knowing he was hurt, but…”
“Can you blame him?” Odette grimaces. “If I was a star pitcher and I completely shattered my throwing arm right before my first college season, I wouldn’t much feel like talking about it either.”
His arm.
His pitching arm.
Shattered?
No.
There’s no possible way.
My mind spins, trying to process this information. Cycling through a million emotions at once. Even as I recognize the ring of truth in their story… Even as my mind presents a memory of Archer on the island, tucking his hand from my sight — fast but not fast enough to hide the surgical scars… Even as the mystery of him living in Gloucester, working as a lobsterman, finally starts to make sense… there is a part of me that cannot accept their words. Cannot process the magnitude of what they are telling me.
“No,” I say again. The only word I seem to be able to voice. “No, that can’t be right.”
Odette’s nose wrinkles. “I mean, yeah, there’s probably more to the story. We only got the SparkNotes version from Tomlinson before he passed out that night.”
“And the next time we tried to talk to him about it, he told us to butt out of other people’s business.”
“So rude!” Odette mutters.
“Totally.” Ophelia shakes her head. “We just, like, wanted to know if Archer was still in the hospital or not. We would’ve sent flowers or something.”
“I think he was there for a long time. A week or two, maybe? We definitely should’ve sent flowers.”
“Oh well. Too late, now.”
Nausea is stirring inside me, the champagne and gummy bear concoction in my stomach churning in a noxious cyclone. It takes all my strength to keep from retching all over their oriental carpet as I shake my head back and forth. “No. No, you’re… That’s not possible. None of this is possible.”
“It’s just what we heard.”
“Then you heard wrong!” I snap. “Archer can’t have been in the hospital with a broken hand on graduation day, because on that day… He came to my house. He left a note. It was his handwriting. It said—” I swallow hard, trying to get myself under control. “It said we’d made a mistake, sleeping together. That he just wanted to be friends. That he was going away for the summer, to an elite training camp, and that we should take some time apart.”
“He came to your house?”
“Yes!” I’m practically yelling.
“You actually saw him there?”
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “I… No. Not me. Not personally.”
“So, who said they saw him?”
“My…” The anger leeches out of my voice, leaving behind nothing except a quivering sort of confusion. “My mother did. My mother said she saw him… She said… She said…”