The Dragon Twins (Dark World The Dragon Twins #1) - Michelle Madow Page 0,1
him, I turned my eyes back down to my journal. “I broke up with my boyfriend,” I said. “Well, ex boyfriend.”
Why am I telling him this? I pressed my lips together and glanced around, as if searching for a way out even though I knew every inch of the cove like the back of my hand.
“Let me guess,” he said, and when I looked back up at him, my skin tingled with electricity. “You broke his heart?”
My chest panged at the reminder. “Something like that.”
Silence again, but a comfortable one.
“We were best friends,” I continued with a small sigh. “Now, he hates me.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. You don’t seem like the type of person who’s easy to hate.”
“Thanks, I think?” I shook my head slightly and smiled again, watching the way his silky hair moved in the breeze. I wanted to run my fingers through it to see if it was as soft as it looked.
“You wouldn’t be writing in your journal to figure out your feelings if you didn’t care about his feelings,” he said simply.
“Maybe,” I said, although I knew Joey didn’t see it that way. He thought I’d been heartless. That I didn’t care about him at all. That I’d used him and then abandoned him.
As my best friend—ex best friend—he should have known me better than that.
“So, why’d you break up with him?” Ethan asked.
Why do you care? I wanted to ask in return. I was just some stranger on the beach.
But for some reason, he did care. And who knew—maybe talking about it would help me get rid of the weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders since the breakup.
“He just wasn’t the One,” I said. “When we kissed for the first time, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I didn’t want to lead him on. So I broke up with him.”
“Right after you kissed?”
“Yeah.” I bit my lower lip. “Not the most tactful way to go about it, was it?”
“I can think of worse ways,” he said. “But that one probably wasn’t the best.”
“At least I know you’re honest.”
“I try to be.” He glanced down at the sand, his eyes suddenly distant. “When I can.”
I set my journal down and turned to face him. “You can always be honest,” I said. “It’s not always easy, but long-term, it’s always better than lying.”
He brought his focus back to me, as intense as ever. “Have you ever had to keep a secret?” he asked. “A big one, for the greater good? One that other peoples’ lives depend on?”
“Not really,” I said, since my family’s belief that we had witchcraft in our veins would sound crazy. Especially since none of us had ever been able to cast a spell. And because we’d sworn to tell no one. “Have you?”
A shadow crossed his eyes, and he stood up and brushed the sand off his jeans. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you around again, Gemma.”
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly, my head spinning from the sudden way he’d come into my life, and the sudden way he was apparently leaving it. “Maybe.”
He spun around, jogged out of the cove, and turned the corner before I could ask how long he was staying in town and where he was heading off to so quickly.
2
Gemma
“You’ll never guess what happened at the beach today,” Mira said as she grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes and dumped a huge spoonful onto her plate. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her bright blue eyes twinkled with excitement.
That was the only genetic physical difference between me and my twin—her eyes were blue, and mine were green. It shouldn’t have been scientifically possible, since we were identical. The doctors had no explanation for it.
My mom called it magic.
Mira was also tanner from all her time surfing, and her hair was shorter and dyed blonde. But those were choices—not something she was born with.
I took the bowl of mashed potatoes and spooned a more sensible portion onto my plate. “You caught your biggest wave yet?” I asked.
“Nope.” She smirked mischievously. “I met someone.”
“Let me guess,” my mom said as she placed the bowl of mashed potatoes back in the center of the table. “This ‘someone’ is of the male variety?”
“Duh.” Mira rolled her eyes. “He was walking by, and we got to talking. He just moved to town, and he’s never surfed before. So starting tomorrow, I’ll be giving him lessons.”
“He’ll be a pro by the end of the year,” my mom said.