As a student, the corridors of the Grand Hotel couldn’t be more familiar to me. Today they are empty, and the sudden quiet saps my confidence. I’m suddenly cautious. The corridors that I’ve known for so long offer little comfort. I creep through the hallways as if I were a thief—as if I were doing something forbidden. I am on the lookout, my senses alert. It’s my hearing that lets me know exactly where to go. The beautiful notes of a grand piano being played comes from one of the music rooms. The music echoes enchantingly through the whitewashed hallways.

I open the wooden door to the practice room as quietly as I can and the wonderful music spills out. Karl, as always, is so engrossed in his playing that he doesn’t notice me. Without a sound, I step into the half-darkened room. My nerves quicken, and it’s almost as if I can hear my own heartbeat above the music.

While my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, I wonder why Karl always insists on closing the curtains before he plays. And why does he refuse to turn on the lights? I’ll never understand how he can play like this.

If I didn’t know him better, I would say he was trying really hard to portray himself as “the brooding artist.” Too hard, perhaps. But I do know him. And Karl has never cared about his image.

I‘m nervous but manage to stand quietly at the door. With every second that I stay here, the young man in front of me becomes clearer: dark hair, angular features, broad shoulders, and strong arms that move his fingers faultlessly over the piano keys.

A tremor runs through my body.

I have a plan. And I’m going through with it now!

For a long time there have been rumors that Karl was into men, and today, I want to confirm them.

I can’t think of any more excuses not to kiss Karl. And, if Karl’s into men, I want to know if I am, too.

The thought makes me feel a little sick, and I start to shuffle restlessly. Karl hasn’t noticed me yet. I could leave. I could sneak out of the room quietly, and he wouldn’t even know I’d been here. I lick my dry lips.

No! I have a plan. And I’m going through with it.

I steady myself and let my gaze wander over the gorgeous man in front of me. His wild brown mop of hair falls almost to his eyes. Those eyes! Although I can’t see them in the gloomy room, his eyes are as light blue as the kitschy postcard sky today. I don’t need to see them to know their color—those eyes have haunted my dreams for years.

Am I in love with Karl?

Am I really gay?

It’s now or never, I tell myself.

But I still can’t move. I’m rooted to the spot next to the door.

Only two more nights in this boarding school, I remind myself. And, if it doesn’t go well, I’ll never have to see Karl again after that.

Cautiously, I take a few steps into the room.

“What do you want, Linus?” Karl’s rough voice cuts loudly over the music. It makes me jump so badly that I swear my heart stops beating for a bit. But I force myself forward, and now there’s no turning back.

Karl doesn’t stop playing for an instant, but his eyes follow my every move with an intensity that makes my skin tingle. I force myself to stop thinking and act. My breath becomes ragged but somehow I manage to cross the room and sit down next to Karl on the piano stool.

The stool is wide, but it’s still only made for one person, so very suddenly, we are close.

Incredibly close. Unreasonably close. So close our thighs press together. Heat floods my body, and my heart is thumping madly. There’s a roaring in my ears. It’s so loud that it takes a few seconds for me to register that Karl has stopped playing entirely.

Now or never!

I raise my trembling right hand and place it on Karl’s neck. He doesn’t move away. I’m forced to swallow and his gaze immediately wanders to my neck. As he watches the play of muscles there, Karl licks his lips.

Does he want this as much as I do?

I bend forward and slowly put my lips on his, feeling their warmth.

For a moment, he doesn’t respond, and I wonder if I was wrong. The moment is so tense, it’s as if I can hear the seconds tick by loudly and painfully in my head.

Then I hear Karl sigh.

“Finally,” he breathes. The word is whispered but it’s loud enough for me to hear. And then Karl kisses me back.

I get dizzy. I really do!

I’m kissing another man!

I’m kissing Karl!

As the kiss deepens, I take all of him in. His smell is both sharp and sweet – like fresh fruit. And my fingers linger over the strong muscles in his neck that flex under my hand.

My cock becomes rock hard in seconds.

Yes, that’s a pretty big clue, I think. I’m so gay.

Then I stop thinking. There’s only the glorious feeling of his full, tender lips on mine. It’s a kiss that seems to go on and on. This is simply the most powerful experience of my life. My whole body is energized. I feel more alive than ever before.

I’m plucked from cloud nine by a loud, dissonant clang that resounds through the room. Startled, I jump up. Somehow I must have hit the piano with my elbow. And, as if the sound has shattered a dream, panic instantly hits me. What if someone heard? What if someone comes into the room now? What would I do?

I’m not ready to be outed. I’m not ready to face the other boys’ reactions. I have no idea how to deal with my deepest secret being spilled out in front of the whole school. I can’t do it!    

My only thought now is, get out of here! So I rush out of the room.

Karl calls my name. He calls it loudly. He calls it again and again. But that only makes me feel worse. I can’t stay—can’t even look at him. I can’t even face what I’ve just done.

A Different Life

Karl

Fast-forward twenty years …

Restlessly, I walk up and down the few steps between the living area and the large white grand piano that dominates my apartment, while I keep staring at the display of my cell phone. The strange text message conversation I had with my twin brother, Kai, a few minutes ago brings back memories of our childhood.

Our nanny Mathilde used to tell us lots of stories. I loved those stories. Kai, not so much. Even when we were very little, he seemed to have a much better sense of what was real and what was not. I, on the other hand, could spend hours immersed in stories and loved discovering foreign kingdoms, rescuing handsome princes, and taming wild dragons. Kai was always the one who didn't say much about it but stood up and handed our Mathilde a glass of water just before she cleared her throat. Because when her throat started getting dry, she usually finished the story quickly.

Wistfulness spreads through me. Life was never easy—not even then, but we had each other.

One particular story that Mathilde told us comes to mind. It was my favorite fairytale. I’d pester her to tell it to us all the time—luckily, she loved it too. It’s the story of how a brave prince meets a witch, but unlike ordinary fairytales, this witch isn’t remotely wicked. She loves to help people, but she’s so clumsy that she gets everything topsy-turvy. Each time Mathilde told us the story, the witch’s antics would get more absurd until Kai and I were crying with laughter.

If I’m honest, we needed the added humor because, for us, the average fairytale with its handsome princes, imposing castles, and daring deeds wasn’t that far-fetched. Our island nation of Terengia, in the North Sea, may be small—just under five million at the last census—but we’re hardy people. As well as that, Kai and I know our country’s royal family personally because we’re descendants of one of the country’s most influential families. We went to school with handsome princes, and even if there are no dragons in Terengia, hunting is part of our culture.

Looking back, Mathilde could easily have been the kind of friendly witch who appeared in our favorite story, because even though she told outlandish tales, she made our everyday life more bearable, more fun, more exciting.

I shake my head at my crazy thoughts and push away the fairytales that try to force themselves into my head with all their might. Even if the story of how the prince and the friendly witch wanted to tame a dragon is too funny. I take a deep breath to clear my head. The lack of sleep over the past few weeks is making itself known.

But I cannot––will not––suppress thoughts of my brother. An image flickers in my mind of how as kids we’d sit in our beds of an evening, the thick colorful blankets wrapped tightly around us, and listened to Mathilde's tales. Maybe Kai loved the stories as much as I did—just in his own way. And maybe he wasn't any more realistic than I was—what child is? Maybe he was just better at people-reading than I was.

My colleagues at police headquarters always say that I'm the best judge of character they've ever met. They’ve never worked with my brother, though.

My twin brother ...

My identical twin brother ...

My brother who is the spitting image of me and yet so very different.

My brother who I've barely seen in the last fifteen years—maybe once or twice a year at some family function.

My brother with whom I have the same text message conversation every week—also for fifteen years.

My stomach clenches when I think of what our relationship has become.

We parted ways—forever?

Guilt threatens to overcome me. It was me who asked for space. It was me who wanted to keep Kai at more than arm’s length. It was me who demanded that if I was to carve out a place for myself away from my family’s influence I didn’t need him beside me. Kai has done nothing except do exactly as I asked.

Don't think about it, Karl! I tell myself and squash down my anguish.

I find myself in front of the large windows in my living room that overlook the cathedral square of Terenberg, the capital of Terengia, but I’m not really taking in the beautiful view. My gaze has scrolled back through the years again. Fifteen years to be exact.

Fifteen years ago, my brother gave in to pressure from our parents and entered the Diplomatic Academy after we finished our law degrees. Today he is the Terengian ambassador in Vienna. Everyone is immensely proud of him, but how do I feel?

An inner restlessness seizes me and I can’t stand still for a moment longer. I start pacing around my apartment again as I sort through my jumbled thoughts. Yes, I am proud of him. Although his career choice means that even if I wanted to see him more often, I couldn’t.

I scrub my hand over my face hoping it will erase the agitation I’m feeling. The rough stubble feels scratchy, and the sensation grounds me. For what must be the hundredth time, I read through the text messages I exchanged with my brother less than half an hour ago. It should look identical to the ones we exchange every Sunday afternoon:

Kai: How are you?

Me: All good! You?

Kai: Everything’s fine here.

Me: Have a nice week!

Kai: Thank you. You too!

I scroll up the message feed. Yes, as I thought, the conversation is literally the same every week. I can’t stop a bitter laugh from spilling over my lips. For twenty-two years we were inseparable. We were so close that at times I could predict what Kai would say next. Yes, the kind of telepathy people expect from twins.

So what happened?

Real life happened.

I’d had enough of our parents' constricting expectations. I wanted to be free. I wanted to go my own way. The only way I felt I could do that was to make a clean break, and I was willing to sacrifice anything to achieve that freedom, even Kai.

It was the biggest mistake of my life. Still is. The meaningless exchange of platitudes every week by text and a brief back-slapping hug at family gatherings is all I have left of my brother. Sometimes I wonder why I still go to these family parties, the few I'm still invited to that is. The truth is, I’ll always turn up if I know Kai’s going. It's the last connection I have with my brother.

As I face this realization now, the pain hits me like a blow to my heart. I rub my hand over my chest as if that can take away the agony inside. I scroll back down through our chat history as if I didn't already know what those text messages say, but I’m merely stalling, trying to decide what to do.

I’m never normally indecisive. People rely on my strategic thinking day in, day out, and I approach every situation in a targeted way.  As my boss would put it, "There isn’t a bull alive that you couldn’t take by the horns."

There’s no denying that my rapid rise through the ranks of the Terengian police force is down to my determination and decisiveness. Right now, though, those qualities have deserted me as I stare at today’s text messages with that one jolting difference:

Kai: How are you?

Me: All good! You?

So far, so very predictable until …

Kai: No.

As I saw this my finger moved instinctively to the call button, but then the three dots appeared, showing me that he was in the process of typing something else. I waited, sure that an explanation would follow. Instead, I got:

Kai: Please forget I said that.

Kai: Everything’s fine here.

Then nothing.

I run my hand over my face again.

"Damn it!" I curse out loud.

Why didn't I call my brother right away rather than waiting for the text message? Now the moment’s passed. Or has it?

I pace the spacious living room of my apartment for what feels like the millionth time still staring at my phone. It’s been exactly 22 minutes since I received that ominous “No,” and I still haven’t decided how to respond.

He’s still online because the green dot next to his name is glowing. Could Kai be sitting somewhere in Vienna, a good 2,000 miles away, staring at his cell phone as indecisively as I am?

My anxious pacing has somehow led me to my white grand piano, so I place my cell phone on the music stand and let my fingers wander gently over the keys. The grand piano was a joint gift from my parents and Kai for our 18th birthday when all was still right with the world … well, almost all was right with the world.

The fingers of my right hand coax a few notes from the instrument—a scale. My left hand joins in. The music isn’t flowing naturally, though. I'm too restless, too impatient to give my fingers the time they need to warm up. So I just let them wander around the keys, sinking more and more into the music, giving my feelings life through sound.

I weave between familiar pieces, like Beethoven who’s always good for heightened emotions, and Grieg who gives me darkness and depth, until my fingers stray almost unconsciously to a wickedly difficult version of Carol of the Bells. It's spring, almost summer, but regardless of the season, Christmas carols calm me down. I have no idea why.

As the last notes fade, I take a deep breath. The music has cleared away all my indecision. I know exactly what I have to do. I reach for my cell phone and press the call button.

It rings ... and rings ...

It rings until the voicemail message starts to cut in and I end the call. I quickly switch back to Messenger, but the green dot next to Kai’s name has gone out.

I’ve waited too long.

I’m such an idiot.

***

I couldn’t be in a worse mood as I unlock my apartment. It’s been a full twenty-four hours since Kai’s last message, and it threw me off so badly that last night I hardly slept a wink. The only thing that’s kept me semi-alert today was the horrible coffee that I poured into myself by the gallon today at the Police Headquarters

And today ... today was a lot.

Terengia is usually a very peaceful country, with hardly any violent crime, but the leniency of Terengian legislation regarding white-collar crimes means that the police are masters at routing out fraudsters. A few months back, however, we were passed increasingly worrying intel. We found out that the FAIR gang, a human trafficking ring that brings girls across the border to sell to rich men, had been trying to set up headquarters in Terengia. They thought that being such a small country, we wouldn’t have the resources to deal with them. They were wrong.

Within a few weeks, we chased them out of their holes and secured multiple arrests. It’s been a short but exhausting process—not just physically tough but mentally taxing. The images I had to witness during the operation will haunt my dreams forever. I shudder at the thought.

The trial is scheduled to start in a few weeks, and today, my colleagues and I spent the entire day going through all the evidence again. We tried to tie up loose ends and create the best foundation for the prosecution. It almost broke my heart to see everything laid out before me again in such detail. What people can do to other people … Bile rises in my throat at the thought.

I drop my front door key into the silver bowl on the hall sideboard and then do something I wouldn’t normally do. I slip out of my suit right where I’m standing and leave it on the hall floor. After today, I feel infested.

I know my foul mood isn’t just because of the day I’ve had at work, though. I’m still reeling from the ‘what ifs’ of the conversation with my brother yesterday. Today has just made me feel tons worse. Sometimes I question whether I’m right for my job. Why did I want to become a policeman? Honestly, I’m not sure anymore.

I have to motivate myself to merely take the few shuffling steps to my bathroom. A bath would relax me, but I choose the shower. I feel like I just have to rinse today down the drain.

The water is warm as it sprays out of the shower head, but warm is no good to me. I turn it hotter and hotter until it's scalding. Then I spread a generous portion of shower gel on my hands and soap myself up. I inhale the rich scent of pomegranate. It’s a smell I love. It conjures up memories. This time, though, they’re pleasant ones, and I feel some of the tension draining out of me.

Pomegranate. My grandmother loved pomegranate so much that her whole house smelled of it and it was her signature scent. I miss her, but I make sure I always buy pomegranate shower gel and shampoo because it grounds me, transports me to simpler times, and brings with it the sense of the security my grandma provided.

Today, even that’s not enough to settle me. I wash my hair and soap myself from top to bottom. Then I stand, head hanging, and let the hot water splash over my neck and back. Unexpected tears start to flow, blend with the stream from the shower, and are washed away by the water.

I let myself cry for as long as I need. When the tears pass I realize they’ve provided a clear message: I’m unhappy. I have been for quite a while. Everything seems too much. I suddenly feel the pain of the disconnection from my family, but especially from my twin brother—he’s my second half, for crying out loud! Loneliness overwhelms me. How long has it been since I've had a long and, more importantly, deep relationship?

Then there’s my job. It was always my escape and I loved it … once, but in recent years it’s become more of a burden. Maybe it’s time to take the vacation that my boss has been urging me to take for ages, but what would I do with my time? Sit alone in my apartment all day with nothing but my thoughts for company? That sounds less appealing than going to work. I could go on vacation, but even then I’d just be swapping a lonely apartment for a lonely hotel room.

Sighing, I reach for my shampoo once more and wash my hair a second time. I want to be happy again, but at the moment I don’t know how to make it happen. I’ve lost my way somewhere and can’t find a way out.

People say three’s the charm, so I soap up one last time. When I turn off the shower, the smell of pomegranate surrounds me like a protective blanket, and for the first time that day, I feel something like inner peace. I breathe deeply, and as I exhale, I focus on ridding my body of the remaining tension. My shoulders ease a little, and today, I’ll take that as a win.

I grab one of my huge burgundy bath towels that I bought last year. I had to have them because it wasn’t often that I found towels that actually wrap around my whole body. It may seem silly, but with a body my size, it was a first and feels so luxurious.

Wrapped tightly in my warm towel I check to see if my feeling of emptiness is showing on my face. I peer into the mirror and notice that I’ve already got a bit of stubble despite my shave this morning. My lips are full normally, but they seem a little more swollen and my blue eyes look almost red. Both are the after-effects of crying. The only things that haven’t changed are my nose, slightly too big in my opinion, and my hair. Crying, at least, can’t change its color, although my normal dark brown looks almost black from the water. I run my hands through the short crop that’s necessary to control my curls. I can’t deny I look tired and grumpy.

My face is only telling me the truth––that even if I wanted someone to come home to, having a job with unreasonable working hours and which usually sends me home in a bad mood isn’t going to help. It’s no wonder none of my ex-boyfriends have stuck around.

Before I can take that thought any further, I’m startled by a noise and nearly slip on the slick bathroom floor. My heart stops racing as I hear the sound again and realize it’s just my doorbell.

Talk about timing. Today is really not my day. I'm as good as dry already, though, so I quickly slip into my navy blue pajama pants, which are hanging on a hook next to the shower. I grab a smaller towel and rub it through my damp hair as I hurry to the door.

When I open it, my jaw drops in shock.

My mother is standing in front of me.

Linus

I wake up and feel so cozy that I let myself lie there for a while enjoying the first moments of the new day. I don’t move. I don’t do anything.

My surroundings slowly seep into my consciousness. I feel the sun streaming through the open curtains into my bedroom warming my right shoulder and back. My legs are warm, too, but it has nothing to do with the sun. The warmth comes from the other pair of legs that are entwined with mine.

A smile plays around my lips as I piece together last night. The tousled dark brown hair, brown eyes so dark they're almost black, and a sinfully lush mouth. Images flash before my mind's eye. Images of that mouth on mine, on my nipples, around my cock. My morning wood twitches at the very thought, and I recline more fully into the warm sheets. Life is good.

I hear the bedroom door open and lazily lift my head. A tall man is standing in the doorway. Michael. The sound has clearly disturbed the man sharing my bed who begins to stir too. The newcomer leans casually against the doorframe. He’s emphasized his slender body with a fitted dark blue shirt and off-white linen pants. Mirrored sunglasses peek out from between his wild, light-brown curls, and his blue-green eyes sparkle cheekily.

He looks at us wordlessly for a moment, then raises an eyebrow.

I shrug. The guy next to me lifts his head and graces me with a sweet smile. Then his gaze follows mine to the doorway and all color drains from his face. His eyes widen, and he looks back and forth between us for a moment before hopping out of bed and frantically gathering his clothes from the floor.

An almost diabolical smile slides across the features of the man standing in the doorway as he watches the guy. The latter, clumsy with haste, tries to pull up his pants.

While he does so, the man at the door asks with exaggerated sign-language, "What do you want to do today?"

Then he adds a deep frown into the mix and scowls at the curly-haired man who, until a few seconds ago, was warm and comfortable in my bed. When he raises his left hand and points to the plain gold wedding ring he wears on his ring finger, I can’t help but smile and shake my head. He’s simply unbelievable. Michael isn’t married. Our grandfather left him his wedding ring when he passed away and he’s worn it ever since. Perhaps as a memento, but it occurs to me that I don't really know, I’ve never asked him about it. He looks so comically sinister now that I have to refrain from laughing out loud.

My conquest from last night clearly isn’t laughing, though.

"Oh my God! I didn't know he was married. I would never ... never. I'm so sorry!" he stammers, aiming his voice vaguely towards the door. I feel so sorry for the poor guy, and it's time to put an end to the cruel game.

With a sigh, I stand up and walk over to the guy––is it Fred … or maybe it’s Klaus ... Damn me and my memory for names. I calm his agitation with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"My brother’s an asshole!" I announce in my raspy morning voice.

The guy stares at me and it takes a moment for the penny to drop. His expression changes from sheer horror to confusion to disbelief and arrives finally at the expression I've been waiting for: relief.

"You mean ... he's not your husband?"

I shake my head throwing an obscene sign my brother’s way that would be understood by everyone, even non-signers, but my brother just laughs.

Simon, or is it Paul? Whoever he is turns around startled at the sound.

"So … he’s not completely deaf and dumb then?"

I roll my eyes in annoyance.

"He's deaf. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a voice."

Peter, no, John ... looks as if he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. No wonder. No one likes to be woken up like that. I give him a consoling kiss on the cheek.

"Call me. Last night was ..."

I replace the end of the sentence with a wink, and the nameless guy takes it as his cue to continue dressing. Considering I gave him his first orgasm simply from grinding with him on the dance floor last night, it seems he’s just as eager to go as he was to come. And there was plenty more coming.

When we finally made it to my apartment, I fucked him first over the kitchen table, then in the shower, and we even woke in the middle of the night to fuck again. He was positively insatiable—couldn't seem to get enough of my cock—totally my kind of man.

My brother, now bored, signs, "I'm going to make coffee."

I ignore him and focus on the guy in front of me who’s itching to leave. I'm not normally into repetitions, but I make a few exceptions, and for this dark-haired beauty, I'd make an exception in a heartbeat. My morning wood is already twitching again, and I sigh. If only my brother had been half an hour later I could have made this guy come again.

I search for the guy’s name again in my mental log, but I come up blank. Maybe I should write the names of my conquests on my forearm with a pen. That would make the morning after so much easier. It occurs to me only now, though, that maybe we didn’t get to formalities like names. Our lips were busy doing something other than talking most of the time, anyway.

Now the guy just looks uncomfortable, and I hope, a little belatedly, that Michael hasn’t scared him away completely. Sometimes my brother doesn't know when to draw the line.

When the guy’s fully dressed, I lead him into the hall. While he puts on his shoes, I repeat my request from before for him to “Call me.” After all, there are a few areas in my apartment that didn’t see any action, but the door slamming shut behind Rudolf ... Konrad—damn it, I give up—sounds pretty final.

I gaze at the closed door for a moment then shrug. It was a memorable night, and I wouldn’t have been averse to a repeat performance, but mornings with my brother, Michael, are an almost sacred ritual. So, pushing my wistful thoughts aside, I make my way towards the kitchen. Despite the unusual start, I’m ready to get going.

Michael and I work together on our family-owned apartment leasing business that we have here in Vienna. We’re not exactly rich, but we can live comfortably from the money our property portfolio has accrued. Michael is our financial wizard. He takes care of current income and expenses as well as other investments. I’m more concerned with the everyday necessities the business requires, like showing potential tenants around the apartments and making sure all the little repairs and maintenance are done. We always start our workdays in my apartment over a nice cup of coffee, and since Michael has a key to my apartment, he’s usually the one who makes it.

Mm. Coffee. A delightful fragrance wafts from the kitchen in my direction, and all thoughts of the hot guy from last night are blown away.

"You're an asshole," I announce as I enter the room, its exposed brick walls glowing with a mellow light in the morning sun. It’s a repeat of what I told the guy who just left, but I want to make sure Michael sees me clearly enough to lip-read this time. At some point, Michael's big mouth and his dark sense of humor are going to get him into real trouble.

Michael laughs out loud and holds a flowery cup out to me. I eye the ugly vessel critically. Where he got it is a mystery to me—not from my cupboard, at any rate.

"Mom brought it back for me the other day from some trip she took," Michael explains, unprompted.

"And because you didn't like it, you thought you’d just dump it round here?"

Michael laughs again, while I shake my head in exasperation.

"You hate waste even more than me,” he says.

He’s not wrong, but I’m going to take it upon myself to get rid of the hideous mug as soon as possible. Maybe our assistant would like it. Then again, she's just as likely to flip me the bird and throw the cup into the garbage can in a high arc. At least that way the problem would be solved one way or the other, and I could tell my mother with a clear conscience that I didn't throw it away.

Despite the awful cup, the coffee is wonderful. Strong and black—the perfect pick-me-up after dancing the night away. Going out on a Sunday is rare for me, but yesterday I just couldn't stand my own four walls a moment longer. Especially after one of my last remaining single friends had called me and raved about his new partner, totally in love. The jealousy I felt was the most intense I’ve ever experienced. Then memories flooded into my mind making me even more miserable. Memories I would rather repress. Memories that don’t reflect me in a very good light. Memories that leave me with a longing for something I never had and probably never will.

The sound of a thick sheet of paper being pulled from an envelope snaps me out of my depressing thoughts. Michael is holding a cream-colored, high-quality card and scanning the gilded and deeply embossed writing with the fingers of his other hand.

"What is it?" he finally asks me with a penetrating look.

I shrug my shoulders.

"Don't pretend you can't read it," I reply as nonchalantly as I can.

Our mother felt she had to send me to one of those expensive boarding schools in Switzerland where the children of the super-rich are educated, and despite my family’s wealth, I’ve never felt so poor in my life as I did there. I was surrounded by assholes who thought that because we didn’t own multiple vacation homes on every continent we were beneath their notice. There were a few exceptions, though, and two of them were Terengian twins Kai and Karl. We became good friends quite quickly, and there was a moment when I thought Karl and I might be something more ...

I try to push this thought aside. It’s these kinds of memories I can’t face right now. Wishing them away, though, can’t stop other images flooding my mind. Beautiful and not so beautiful memories. It was a difficult time for me. We were, and still are, a very close family, and it took me a while to come to terms with life at boarding school, far away from everyone I hold dear. Luckily, our closeness survived my unhappy experience, and even though Michael and I moved into our own apartments a long time ago, we all live less than ten minutes apart. I see my brother every day and my parents at least three or four times a week.

Michael waves a hand in front of my face, snapping me back to the present. It takes me a moment to reorientate myself back into the reality of my sunny kitchen.

He looks at me impatiently, his hip leaning casually against the white kitchen cabinet.

"Are you going?" he signs.

I stare for a moment at the invitation to the ball which Michael has placed in front of him on the worktop. It’s a ball that’s held every year to celebrate the Terengian national holiday. Every year, without fail, an invitation flutters its way into my house, and every year it opens up old wounds.

I’m whipped back through the years again to that … thing with Karl in the music room. Afterwards, I’d spent the last two days of school life holed up in my room, avoiding Karl and his twin brother like the plague. Somehow I’d managed it. I didn’t see either of them—it's amazing what you're capable of when you think your future depends on it. It's not as if it didn’t take a lot of effort, especially as Karl was persistent. He even called me repeatedly during the summer vacation. I couldn’t bring myself to touch the phone, let alone answer it. Merely holding the phone with his name on the caller ID made my throat constrict. If I’d answered the call, I know my voice would have come out like a strangled squeak.

His calls became less frequent during the fall of that year. I was glad at first. Relieved. I thought I’d dodged a bullet. The regret came later. It was a slow but creeping realization that I had broken something that could have become something unique. By the time I’d found enough balance to be able to hold a rational conversation with him, Karl had stopped calling. I wasn’t brave enough to call him. I remember standing there so many times, cell phone in my hand, staring at his number, paralyzed with fear.

The whole thing taught me one lesson though: that I'm a coward who isn’t worthy of love. Once I’d accepted that sad truth about myself, I just kind of moved on.

As fate would have it, though, Karl's brother Kai became the Terengian ambassador in Vienna, and that's when the damned invitations started.

I sigh. The lightness of the night and the morning has vanished, and my whole body feels suddenly very heavy. I know the cause: I’ve never had the courage to attend a single ball. Proof positive that I’m a coward. Worse perhaps because it’s not even Karl who’s inviting me. Kai is the Terengian ambassador to Vienna, not Karl. But there’s always the ‘what if’ that he'll be there, too. They are twins after all, so it’s not an outside possibility.

Besides, I wouldn’t know anyone else there, and I’m sure that an evening at the embassy would be way to stiff and boring. So not me at all. If I keep telling myself that, it might ring true one day.

Michael is still looking at me with his intelligent blue-green eyes. He’s so perceptive that I feel quite vulnerable for a minute, like he’s been listening in on my thoughts.

I shake my head defensively.

"Why not?"

"Way too boring." It’s as good an excuse as any when it comes to this particular social event.

Michael studies me closely. He’s the only person in the whole world I can't fool, and I realize too late that my feeble excuses won’t wash with him.

Before I can say anything else, though, Michael signs, "We're going," with total conviction and finality.

My heart slips to the floor. There’s no way I can do that. No way I can face Kai and Karl. Then a word Michael used seeps into my consciousness.

"We?" I ask.

"Yes. It says ‘Mr. Weinberger and guest."

I look at the invitation again to stall for time, but honestly, I've read it so many times in the last few weeks that I could recite what's written there in filigreed gold lettering by heart. I try to get a grip on my emotions, but I can’t stop my hands trembling. I grip the card tighter.

When the silence stretches into awkwardness, I have no choice but to respond, so I ask, "Why?"

"Because he's the one that got away," Michael signs.

That's not true, I think.

So I whisper, "I’m the one that got away. From his twin brother."