The Other Twin

CHAPTER FOUR

NADIA'S POV

I held the leather bag tightly to my chest, as I walked slowly down the hallway into my room. It was heavier than it looked.

Elias had handed this leather bag to me at the balcony.

“Every letter here was written for you.” Those words followed me all the way to my room.

Mrs. Williams had left a tray of soup on the table, carrying the scent of thyme and pepper, but inside me felt too full already.

I sat down carefully onto the edge of the bed. I felt sharp pain, pulling breath from my lips. I shifted and pressed a pillow behind me until the pain dulled a bit.

For a moment, I just stared at the bag resting on my lap. Inside were pieces of young Elias.

My fingers trembled slightly as I opened it.

The first thing I saw was the book cover with my name written in clean, careful handwriting.

“NADIA WESTLEY.”

I released a breath I didn't know I was holding, as I flipped the book open.

The first stack of letters was from shortly after he arrived at Westford.

He wrote about everything: the size of the campus, the old bookstore near his apartment, the night view from his balcony. He even described the view from his bedroom window like he wanted me to see exactly what he was seeing.

I remembered those letters vividly, especially the first one. I read it three times before replying three hours later because I didn't want him to think I was too eager.

A soft breath escaped me.

These letters were sent when we were still becoming something.

I turned the page carefully.

The next set felt mature. Elias talked about exhausting lectures, impossible assignments, Brooks family business, and the pressure that followed.

I could hear his voice in every sentence. I answered some immediately while I stayed for days before finding the right words to answer the others.

Then came the third set. This was when he started writing about me, not casually.

He wrote about songs that reminded him of me, about arguments with classmates where he caught himself wondering what my opinion would have been. He brought me into conversations I never attended.

A slight smile touched my lips.

Then, I will hide under my blanket at night to read these letters over and over again until I fall asleep smiling like an i***t.

Back then, loving Elias had felt safe. I kept reading.

He wrote about his grandparents’ house, how he wants to restore it since it had been abandoned after their deaths. Then he mentioned the east room.

I froze…

I lifted my head slowly and looked around the east room.

I was in the east room. My pulse quickened as I continued with the letter.

“The Brooks estate has a walled garden on the east side. I walked through it this summer. My grandmother planted it herself. It has gone wild since she died. There is a bench beneath an apple tree that hasn’t been properly tended in thirty years.

I think you would like it.”

My chest tightened.

I kept the letters aside, ignoring the protest from my ribs and crossed the room toward the window.

Outside, the garden stretched beneath the evening light. Exactly as he had described it four years ago.

A small painful laugh escaped me before I could stop. He had imagined me here long before I even arrived.

The final letter was untouched at the bottom.

Unlike the others, the edges looked worn.

I stared at the date, four years ago.

My heartbeat slowed. I never received this one. I reached for the envelope and opened it carefully.

December 9th

“My Dia,

I am coming home.

Not at the end of the year as I said. Sooner. The east room is ready. The garden is a disaster and I think you will love it.

I will be at the orphanage gate on the fifteenth. If it is raining, I will stand in it. I told you I would come back, and I am keeping to my words.

All of it, and all of me, Dia.

I am bringing you all of it.”

— E.

I sat still… What had Marcus done?

He didn't just read the letters, he had read this one specifically.

Marcus came to the orphanage on the 15th, repeating the same words to me, “I told you I would come back.”

I closed the book, with my hand trembling.

Marcus used the last letter. He knew the date, the location, the exact words Elias had written in his letter four years ago, three months before the fifteenth.

I looked at the date again. December 9th. The letter was never sent because Elias had already been taken.

Marcus had the letter in December, and had been in his apartment, planning, preparing his performance, while I had been in the orphanage counting down to a return I had no idea had already been stolen.

Marcus had already ordered Elias dead. He had not just stolen Elias's name, he tried to make sure there was no Elias left to reclaim it, then he came to me.

I stood up, I walked out of the east room and down the corridor as Elias’s last word in his letters echoed in my head. “All of it, and all of me, Dia. I am bringing you all of it.”

Marcus had understood the value of them, so he tried to erase Elias completely.

Elias had survived seventeen bullets, fourteen months of recovery and four years of silent and careful rebuilding and a comeback.

I pushed the balcony door open slowly. Elias turned at the sound of it. His grey eyes resting on me.

"How long?" I asked. “How long were you already gone when he came to me?"

He looked at me and the notebook in my hands.

"Three months," he said quietly.

I nodded.

"He came to that gate," I said slowly, "thinking you were dead." It was not a question.

Elias said nothing, he just watched me with those grey eyes…careful, steady, giving me room to arrive without hurrying me there.

"I was a journalist before I was his wife," I said.

"I know," he said.

"And I am still a journalist."

"I know that too."

I looked at him across the balcony.

"Then you know," I said, "that I will find out everything, starting with Marcus, and ending with whoever helped him."

His expression smoothed with relief.

"I know," he said.

His eyes, holding something that has been waiting for the right moment and has decided, finally, that it has arrived.