Accidentally His

Chapter 4: FLASH-BACK

I typed his name into the search bar again. Ryan Glasgow. Then added keywords: twin brother, Glasgow Enterprises, private, university, abroad, birthmark, mole. Nothing. Nothing that mattered. Just one line here, one mention there... always tied to Jack. Always background noise. No photos. No interviews. No scandals. No proof he existed beyond a name and a passing sentence in articles that weren’t even about him. Like he was some kind of myth. A shadow in Jack’s spotlight. I even tried deep diving... Reddit threads, all Jack's tagged photos on i********:, alumni blogs, niche gossip forums. People speculated about him like a ghost. “The other Glasgow,” they called him. “The one that got away.” f*****g poetic. Useless.

From across the room, Jynelle didn’t say anything. Just sipped her tea and kept reading whatever boring think-piece she had open on her tablet. But I could feel her watching me. She’d been watching me spiral since I walked in the door. Probably before that. Probably before I even knew I was spiraling. That’s what Jynelle did... she ran ten simulations of my disasters before I even executed them.

I slammed my laptop shut and paced like a wild animal, teeth gritted, fingers twitching. I wanted to scream at something. Punch a wall. Scream at Jack for being real. Scream at Ryan for being invisible. Scream at myself for being so stupid... for sleeping with the wrong twin and not realizing until I’d already built a shrine to his face. My face. I looked in the mirror and didn’t even recognize myself anymore. Just a girl cracking from the inside out, foundation peeling, mascara threatening to run if I blinked too hard.

Jynelle didn’t flinch. She just said, calm as hell, “Still no mole content online?”

“Nothing. Not one f*****g image. Not a single shirtless beach shot, not a single gym pic, not a single mole.”

“Then stop wasting your time,” she said without looking up. “Go analog.”

I froze.

She glanced at me then, that sharp-eyed look she used when she was about to change my life with one sentence. “You want a ghost? You don’t use a search engine. You move like a ghost too. Offline. Eyes up. Fieldwork.”

I blinked at her. “You make it sound like espionage.”

“It is.” She sipped her tea again. “You’ve been treating this like a romance. I’ve been treating it like a data breach.”

I picked up my phone anyway. Typed out Ryan Glasgow mole like a f*****g maniac. Nothing. Typed Ryan Glasgow swim just in case some grainy photo from five years ago had survived. Typed Ryan Glasgow river like the algorithm could read my memories. I got a nature documentary and a hiking blog. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to scream, He was real! He pulled me out of the water and disappeared, and I never forgot his face, and now he’s nowhere!

“I know he’s real, Jynelle.”

“You think I don’t believe you?” she said, finally closing her tablet. “I do. But the boy who saved you isn’t going to be archived on Pinterest. And if he is, it’s under someone else’s name.”

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until stars bloomed. “I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not.” Her voice didn’t waver. “You’re just too deep in the wrong phase. Now we pivot.”

So I did the only thing I could... I went back. Not on Google. Not on i********:. But in my own head.

Back to the river.

Back to the truth.

I was seventeen. Not the girl I am now. Not polished. Not curated. Just soft and insecure and too round in all the places society told me not to be. The kind of girl who got called “bubbly” like it was a compliment. The kind of girl who got invited to things just to be the joke at the edge of the group. We were all supposed to jump that day. Some secret swimming spot in the woods behind Mariner’s Bluff. I was already sweating, uncomfortable in my too-tight swimsuit, wishing I’d said no. But I didn’t. I never said no. I said yes and climbed the rocks with my heart in my throat, pretending to laugh with the rest of them, pretending my knees weren’t shaking.

They jumped first. The pretty ones. The ones who glowed in wet hair and no fear. When it was my turn, I hesitated. Just a second. Long enough for someone to say, “Don’t be a p***y, Scar.” That did it. I jumped. Feet first. Straight into the water.

And then everything went wrong.

The current hit harder than I expected. I went under fast. Couldn’t find the surface. Couldn’t find my breath. Panic bloomed like fire. My arms flailed, kicked, found nothing but more cold. My lungs screamed. I remember that moment exactly... when fear stopped being emotional and became physical. My body wanted out. And I couldn’t give it what it needed.

I was going to die.

Just like that.

Swallowed up for trying to prove I belonged.

Then... hands.

Strong. Certain. Arms wrapped around me and dragged me up like I weighed nothing. My head broke the surface and I gasped so hard I felt it in my spine. I coughed. Choked. Fought the urge to cry. He didn’t say anything. He just swam. Fast. Straight to the shallows. And then he was pulling me up the bank like he’d done this before. Like saving drowning girls was just another part of his day.

I remember the sun on his skin. The droplets falling from his hair. I remember trying to speak, trying to say thank you, but I was too busy coughing, sputtering, embarrassed to death. And I remember watching him walk away. Just like that. Like I was a chore. Like I didn’t matter. I only saw his back.

But that was enough.

He had a mole. Dark. Left side. A little above the waistband of his swim shorts. I stared at it like it was divine. Like it meant something. Like it had been placed there for me to remember.

And I did. Every goddamn day since.

I built everything around that moment. That boy. That mole. My desire. My ambition. My transformation. I became who I am today because of that one afternoon. That one brush with death and beauty and anonymity. And now I didn’t even know his name for sure. All I had was a twin with no mole, a fantasy with no facts, and a sinking feeling that maybe the boy who changed everything didn’t want to be found.

“I need to see Ryan,” I said finally.

Jynelle didn’t blink. “Then stop waiting for him to show up.”

I stared at her.

She said it like it was simple. Like I hadn’t spent years building a church out of a mole and a memory. Like it was just math.

“Offline,” she repeated, leaning back into the couch. “Stop scrolling. Start observing. Keep f*****g Jack if you have to. But watch him. That phone, especially. Watch for patterns. And stop reacting. You can’t act like the plan broke when the real one hasn’t even started yet.”

Her voice was low, cool, sure.

I swallowed hard. “You really think I can pull this off?”

She didn’t even look up from her cup of tea. “You already are.”

I stopped looking online. There was nothing there but dead ends and recycled bullshit. If I wanted to find Ryan, I had to go analog. Eyes open. Ears sharpened. Smile loaded. I said yes to everything Jack invited me to... charity dinners, rooftop tastings, silent f*****g auctions. I laughed at every joke, wore dresses he’d want to peel off with his teeth, played the good little lover with eyes only for him, while mine were scanning every face in every room. I started watching Jack closely. Who he texted. Who he answered. What made him flinch. Who made him frown. I asked roundabout questions, sugar-coated and stupid, like, “Were you always the more outgoing twin?” or “You ever switch places as kids?” He’d laugh. Shrug. Deflect. He didn’t suspect me. Not yet. I was charming. I was sweet. I was patient.

But I was also looking.

I watched his phone. The way he tapped it. The rhythm. The way his fingers moved. Six digits. Easy pace. Same every time. He didn’t shield the screen when I sat beside him anymore.

And tonight, while he was in the shower, I picked it up.

I stared at the lock screen like it was the final boss in a game I had trained my whole life to beat.

And then I typed it in. Six numbers. And the phone... unlocked.