Tasting My Ex's Twin Brother

Chapter 3: The Downpour

Elena's POV

For one agonizing second, I couldn't move. My fingers were still tangled in the fabric of Evan’s jacket, my body still warm from a kiss that was never meant for him. But my eyes were locked on the patio. On the way Ethan’s hands gripped Tiffany’s hips. On the way she smiled into his neck, a triumphant, cruel smile that suggested she knew exactly who was watching.

"Elena," Evan’s voice cut through the fog, dark and frantic. His grip on my waist tightened, trying to physically turn me away from the glass. "Don't look. Look at me. Let’s get out of here."

"Let go of me," I whispered, the words scraping against my throat like glass.

I yanked myself out of his arms, the sudden movement tearing the silk of my dress slightly against his watch. I didn't care. The spiked punch was buzzing violently in my veins, turning my paralyzing grief into a white hot, blinding rage.

I pushed past Evan, my heels clicking loudly against the hardwood as I marched straight through the open glass doors onto the patio.

The cool night air hit my bare back, but I was burning up. The patio wasn't empty. A dozen people from the hockey inner circle were lounging on the outdoor couches, drinking and laughing. But the moment I stepped into the light, the laughter died down.

"Ethan," I said. My voice wasn't loud, but it carried a lethal clarity that cut straight through the loud thumping of the bass inside.

Ethan stiffened. He slowly broke the kiss, his amber eyes blinking heavily as he looked over his shoulder. When he saw me standing there in the cherry red dress, his face went entirely pale.

"Elena?" he stammered, his arms slowly sliding away from Tiffany’s waist. Tiffany didn't look flustered at all. She smoothly slid down from the railing, smoothing out her tight black skirt, a small, satisfied smirk playing on her lips.

"What is this?" I asked, pointing a shaking finger at the two of them. "This is why you couldn't come pick me up as your date? This is why you forgot our five year anniversary?"

The crowd on the patio fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Marcus slowly lowered his red solo cup, leaning forward.

Ethan glanced around anxiously, his ego visibly bruising under the watchful eyes of his teammates. His apologetic look vanished, replaced by a defensive, arrogant scowl. He stepped toward me, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Elena, drop it. You're making a scene. You're drunk."

"I'm making a scene?!" A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped my lips. "You stood me up! You left me waiting for hours yesterday, you ignored my texts all day today, and then you leave your dorm with her on the night that was supposed to be ours!!"

"Oh, sweetie," Tiffany chimed in, stepping up right beside Ethan, her shoulder brushing his. "I told you yesterday, you’re suffocating him. Ethan needs a girl who actually fits into his life now. Not a high school leftover who follows him around like a lost puppy."

"Shut up, Tiffany!" I snapped, the tears finally spilling over my eyelids, ruining the smoky makeup Maya had carefully applied. I looked back at Ethan, my heart breaking all over again. "Tell me she's lying, Ethan. Tell me you didn't throw away five years for this."

Ethan looked at Tiffany, then looked at the guys on the couch who were watching his every move. He couldn't look weak. He couldn't let his high school girlfriend embarrass him in front of the varsity squad.

"You want the truth, Elena?" Ethan said, his voice turning cold and vicious. He took a step closer, looking down at me with utter contempt. "I'm sick of it. I'm sick of your neediness. I'm sick of you clinging to the past. Yeah, I’m with Tiffany tonight. We're done. Go home. You're embarrassing yourself, and frankly, you're embarrassing me."

A collective murmur went through the patio. A few girls giggled in the back.

The humiliation was a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. I looked at the boy I had loved since I was fifteen years old, and I didn't recognize him at all. He was a monster wearing my boyfriend's face.

Before I could say another word, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, followed instantly by a deafening crack of thunder. Within seconds, the clouds opened up, pouring a torrential, heavy sheet of rain down onto the patio.

People shrieked, scrambling up from the couches to run back inside the house. Ethan immediately grabbed Tiffany’s hand, turning his back on me without a second thought as he guided her out of the storm.

I stood frozen under the downpour. Within seconds, my hair was plastered to my skull, and the red silk dress was soaked through, clinging freezing cold to my skin. The rain washed the makeup down my face like black tears.

I turned and stumbled down the patio steps, fleeing into the dark, blinding storm.

I didn't know where I was walking. My heels sank into the mud of the quad, forcing me to rip them off and walk barefoot over the freezing, wet grass. The rain was coming down so hard I could barely see five feet in front of me. I collapsed onto a concrete bench beneath a flickering streetlamp, pulling my knees to my chest, sobbing so hard my entire body shook.

Headlights pierced through the darkness.

A silver sedan pulled up to the curb right next to my bench. The passenger door flew open, and Maya jumped out, holding a large umbrella. She ran through the downpour, throwing her arms around my shivering shoulders.

"Elena! Oh my god, Elena!" Maya cried, pulling me up from the bench. She shielded me with the umbrella, guiding my freezing, trembling body into the warmth of the passenger seat.

She climbed into the driver's seat, immediately turning the heat on high and throwing a thick, dry blanket over me. I huddled beneath it, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as I stared blankly at the dark dashboard.

"How did you find me?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the sound of the rain drumming against the roof. "I didn't call you."

Maya threw the car into drive, her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. She looked over at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of fury and deep worry. "I didn't get a call from you, El. Evan called me."

I blinked, shifting beneath the blanket. "Evan?"

"He called me from the party," Maya said, her voice softening. "He sounded worried. He said Ethan did something, that you ran out into the storm, and that you didn't have your shoes. He told me exactly which path you took toward the quad and told me to drive until I found you. He stayed on the line until I spotted your dress."

I pulled the blanket tighter around myself, burying my face in the blanket.

Evan.

Even after the chaotic mess in the hallway, he looked out for me.

----

The next morning, the storm outside had cleared, but the real wreckage was just beginning.

I woke up to the sound of Maya’s phone buzzing incessantly on her desk. I felt hollow, my throat raw from crying, my muscles aching from the cold rain. I sat up in bed, rubbing my swollen eyes.

Maya was sitting at her desk, staring at her screen with an expression of pure, unadulterated horror.

"Maya?" I asked, my voice hoarse. "What is it?"

She slowly turned around, her face completely drained of color. "Elena... you need to see this. Someone posted to the campus anonymous board last night. It's viral. It's everywhere."

She handed me the phone.

My heart dropped into a bottomless pit as I scrolled through the feed. There was a video, but it wasn't just the video of Ethan dumping me on the patio. The post was titled:

"Elena Hart gets caught sleeping with the wrong twin; Ethan Carter dumps his cheating ex on the spot!"

I tapped the video play button with a trembling thumb.

The footage started in the dim hallway inside the hockey house. It was shot from a high angle, likely from someone standing on the stairs. It showed me rushing up to a guy in a varsity jacket and throwing myself into his arms. The audio was faint, but you could clearly see the intensity of the kiss. Then, the camera zoomed in as the guy pulled back, revealing Evan’s face.

The video immediately cut to a second clip, the confrontation on the patio. But the audio had been edited, stripped of context. It just showed me screaming at Ethan, and Ethan coldly telling me we were done because I was embarrassing him.

The comment section was an absolute bloodbath.

“Holy s**t, she tried to hook up with his identical twin brother at his own team party? That’s sick.”

“No wonder Ethan was making out with Tiffany. He probably knew his girlfriend was a loyal-hoe.”

“Look at her in that red dress, she was literally hunting for a Carter brother. Disgusting.”

“Poor Ethan. Imagine getting cheated on with your own twin.”

The phone slipped from my hands, clattering onto the mattress.

They had twisted everything. The timeline, the intent, the truth, all of it rewritten in a matter of hours. Now, I wasn't the heartbroken victim of a neglectful boyfriend.

In the eyes of the entire university, I was the villain.