Slept with one Twin...and Fell for the Other

Chapter 2

Bellamy POV

I loved my dad.

Not in the kind of way people say they love someone just because they’re supposed to. No, I really loved him. He was my best friend before I even knew what best friends were. He was the one who packed my lunch for school every morning. He made sure my homework was done, braided my hair with clumsy, calloused fingers, and still managed to put warm food on the table—even when he worked twelve-hour shifts at the dockyard.

He made sure my mother never lacked anything. And still… she was never home.

As I got older, I stopped wondering where she went. I stopped asking.

Because the older I got, the more I realized—she wasn’t just going out with her “friends.”

There were men.

Always different ones. A smile too wide. A dress too tight. She called it “deserving a little attention after all I’ve done for this family.”

I don’t know if my father ever knew. Maybe he did. Maybe he saw it and stayed anyway, for me.

Because he never once brought it up. He never yelled. He never left.

He just stayed. He just loved.

My mother, on the other hand…

She always told me I was ugly. That I looked too much like my father. Said I’d never have her beauty, that men would never love a face like mine.

“You’re just plain,” she’d say. “A copy of that boring man.”

And yet, somehow, despite her voice living in my head for so long, I fell in love.

Garrett was charming—too charming. The kind of man who said all the right things and brought roses just because. He said I was the most beautiful woman in the room, and for once, I believed it. He opened doors, pulled out chairs, and whispered about the future like it was made of glitter and silk.

My dad didn’t trust him. He never said it straight, but I saw the way he watched Garrett like he was waiting for a mask to fall.

“Love isn’t just gifts, Bells,” he told me once. “It’s who a man is when no one’s watching.”

But I told him he was being overprotective. And less than a year later, I married Garrett.

My dad died a month after the wedding.

Heart failure, they said. Just like that.

And from the day he was buried, my life turned into hell. The Garrett I married didn’t exist anymore. The man I lived with—he was someone else.

The bruises started small. Words, at first. Then slaps. Then fists. And always, the apologies came too late.

I couldn’t stay. Not anymore.

So when I ran into the street after he threw that vase at my head and missed, I hailed the first taxi I could find.

The driver looked at me like I had a ghost sitting on my shoulder. “Are you alright, madam?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Because what was I supposed to say?

No, I’m not alright. My husband tried to hit me with a vase and I’m running for my life?

I gave him an address I hadn’t been to in months.

My mother’s house.

I just needed one night. A roof. A breath. If I went back, I was sure I would die.

When the cab dropped me off, I hesitated before knocking. But the sky was darkening, and my shoes were soaked from the gutter water. I was freezing, and the only thing I could hear was my father’s voice again.

“If life ever backs you into a corner, Bells, don’t wait for someone to save you. Save yourself. You hear me? Always.”

I knocked.

A man opened the door. Tall. Shirtless. Some stranger. His eyes skimmed over me lazily. “Uh… babe? Someone’s here.”

I blinked. “Is my— Is Lorraine here?”

A second later, I heard her voice. Sharp. Cold. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” the man answered. “A lady?”

Then my mother appeared at the doorway in a silky robe, wine glass in hand. She looked me up and down and scoffed. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

“Please,” I whispered, voice trembling. “I need a place to stay for the night. I can’t go back. He’s going to kill me.”

Her expression didn’t even shift.

“What do you mean, kill you?”

I swallowed hard. “He’s abusive, Mom. He’s been hitting me. But you wouldn’t know that because you never check on me. You never call.”

She let out a dry chuckle. “Well, good. Serves you right. You’re a spoiled brat. Your father ruined you with all that pampering. Maybe now you’ll learn to be a proper wife. He was too good for you. Made you useless.”

I stared at her. My eyes burned. But I wasn’t surprised.

I don’t think she’s ever said a kind thing to me in her life.

“Please,” I begged. “Please, just one night. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

She sipped her wine, rolled her eyes, and turned away. “Garrett,” she said into her phone. “Your wife is here, crying on my porch. Please come get her. I have company.”

My breath caught. “You didn’t.”

She ended the call and looked at me with a fake smile. “He’s on his way. Go be a dutiful wife.”

My heart stuttered. No. No, no, no. I couldn’t go back.

I would not go back.

“Run like hell, Bells,” my father’s voice echoed again. “Don’t wait for the storm to pass. Be the storm.”

I turned and ran again into the street.

The sky opened up above me. Rain pelted down like it wanted to bury me whole.

“Damn it!” I gasped, wiping my soaked face as I ducked under the awning of a dimly lit bar.

I sat down at the corner table and placed my hands over my face. “Daddy I need you.”