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Eddie knew there was something going on with Buck the moment he got back from his trip to San Dimas. He spent all weekend helping Sophia move in with her girlfriend. Eddie had a double shift so he couldn’t make it and Buck went in his place. Eddie thinks that Buck’s weird ass behavior has more to do with Taylor. She’s turned the loft into a not so kid friendly/safe place. Yeah, he heard enough about that one on his way to give Buck the keys to his truck for the trip. So, maybe they are still fighting over that?
He didn’t really think anything of it until Buck showed up at the dispatch center, looking pale and tired and genuinely miserable. Eddie thought maybe something happened over the weekend to change that. And something did.
Just not this.
“Wait… just wait a minute, what are you talking about?” Eddie pulls out a second mug for Buck and pours the coffee in, making it just the way his best friend likes it. He really looks like he could use a strong cup.
“The bar? We talked… and okay I was a little drunk but then you took me back to Sophia’s place and… Eddie, why are you shaking your head like that?”
Eddie did a lot of things last weekend, talking to Buck in some bar wasn’t one of them. He thinks he would remember if he drove to his sister and her new girlfriend’s place.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Buck. I’ve been at my Abuela’s all weekend with Chris, helping her put together her new jardín.” Eddie even has pictures to back them up but before he can say anything Buck goes from looking miserable to being extremely upset.
“Why are you being such an asshole about this?” Buck’s eyes narrow down and starts walking towards Eddie. “If you didn’t wanna talk about this, why tell me to put a pin in it till I was sober? Why give me hope if you were just gonna be an ass and pretend it never happened?!”
“Buck, let’s take a minute here, okay?” Eddie is so lost and all he wants to do is make everything better, but he doesn’t understand why Buck is so upset about a conversation they never had to begin with. “The only time I talked to you this weekend was over face-time and that was to put Chris at ease that you were coming back.”
Eddie remembers because Christopher has become especially emotionally clinging after their talk a few weeks ago. Therapy has been good for both of them, but they had miles to go. Eddie’s at a loss when Buck lets out a grunt and just leaves. He’s so tempted to follow his best friend, but he can’t leave his station. Instead, he sends a text with the pics he took that weekend of Chris turning soil over with his cousins and sends them to Buck, data stamp, and all. He hoped that they could get together for dinner and hash things out. The last thing Eddie wants is for them to go back to not talking to one another.
*
Of course, dinner didn’t happen because Buck swore, he’s got a 48-hour shift coming up that he can’t call out of. Eddie chose to believe that Buck wasn’t avoiding him at all. He just needed time to get their schedules lined up again.
It all comes to a head on Friday morning, Eddie’s day off. He dropped Christopher off at his friend’s house for a sleepover. He’s already going through the list of things that need to be done when he gets a text message from Buck, asking if they can meet up at an outdoor cafe of all places.
*
Eddie is plenty nervous by the time he gets to the place. He’s earlier than Buck so he just goes ahead checking his phone to see if Christopher is already settled in with his friends. Eddie orders Buck’s usual and his own, just to keep himself busy for the few minutes before Buck shows up. It doesn’t take long for Buck to show, and he realizes that his best friend is just as nervous as he is about this. To an Outsider Buck seems calm, cheerful. But Eddie can see the small cracks in his best friend’s armor. They did promise each other to be honest no matter what even if it was tough to get their words out.
“I uh… wanna apologize for my behavior this week.” Buck holds out his hand, “No, please let me get this out.”
He seems genuinely apologetic. Eddie gestures for him to continue. There’s something about the way Buck is holding himself that pulls at his chest.
“See I’ve been under the impression that we had a conversation last weekend.” Buck looks so distressed about this. “Apparently I was wrong and took your reaction as confirmation of something you weren’t aware of.”
Eddie sits up in his seat. “Buck, I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Buck looks two seconds away from clamming up and running from the table. Eddie reaches out slowly and skims his fingers around Buck’s wrist. “Hey, whatever it is, we can talk it out.”
Buck inhales slowly and exhales in the same manner, like he’s bracing himself for a hard fall or something. “I went to a bar last weekend and had a few drinks.” This is where Buck hesitates for a few minutes before continuing, “Then I thought I saw you on the dance floor or someone who looked exactly like you.”
Eddie doesn’t know why but suddenly his heartbeat feels like it's picking up slightly the more that Buck babbles.
*
As far as revelations go Eddie thinks he manages this one pretty well. For starters he doesn’t run off screaming into the streets when Buck shows him the picture that Sophia’s girlfriend sent him. Buck wasn’t kidding about this guy looking exactly like him. According to Sophia’s text this guy could be his twin. The first thing he does is make his sister promise this doesn’t go beyond their small circle, not a word to their parents. Not until he can figure this out. Which turns into an argument until Buck takes the phone from him.
Eddie feels like his heart is gonna burst out from his chest.
“What do you wanna do?”
It’s the first time he’s been asked what he wants to do as opposed to what he’s gonna do. Eddie feels a little more than lost here.
“How about I take you home?”
It’s a suggestion Eddie readily accepts, and they pay for their meager orders.
*
Out of all the ways to find out he’s been missing an actual blood relation, (a brother no less), Buck accidentally finding him first isn’t exactly at the top of his list. Especially since his best friend did it while he was drunk out of his mind and participating in a one-sided conversation with said brother.
Eddie still can’t get over it. The drive back home is a blur and most of it is spent on mentally trying to figure out if what happened when he was little has anything to do with it.
Growing up like he did, Eddie always felt like a part of him was always missing. When he was little, he would try telling his Mami what he felt and how he needed to find his missing half. His Mami was always so dismissive saying he had a wild imagination.
The first time his mom ever yelled at him, Eddie was only five years old, and told him to stop talking nonsense. Eddie remembers bursting into tears trying to tell her what he was missing was real. It was the only time he remembers his dad coming into the house and scolding his mother for upsetting him. The only time his dad held him and argued for him against his mother.
When he was ten, he remembers his parents having this big blow out over him. It was the first time he ever saw them really fighting and Eddie knew it was because of him. His dad took him away for a few days. Just another example of how weird his childhood was. For a while it felt like he had an actual dad. One who took his ball games and out to his Tio’s ranch, teaching him how to ride and wrangle the horses.
Eddie can’t believe it all comes rushing back to him this way. He gets out of the truck as soon as they pull into the driveway. Eddie drops his keys, toes off his sneakers, passes the kitchen and heads straight to his bedroom. The closet door is open when Eddie walks right in and starts digging through his stuff. Flinging clothing and old boxes aside frantically in his search.
“Eddie? What are you doing?”
Eddie is a man on a mission, probably looking a little crazy, getting to the back of his closet when he finally finds it.
“What is that?”
Eddie settles on the floor of his bedroom with a small trunk like box in front of him. His fingers are unsteady as he unlatches it and flings it open. “When I first moved out here my mother sent this to me.” Eddie removes the soft, mint green and yellow baby blanket from the top and places it to the side. There’s a large square album that he pulls out next. “I haven’t been through this since we moved here, even then…”
It’s a baby book. Eddie’s baby book. He opens it up to find his original birth certificate in plastic binding. Behind it are two separate pictures. “Mami always told me it was the same picture, double exposure or some shit like that but… I think this… was my brother.” He holds up the second picture into the light.
Buck takes it from him and turns it over. “Eddie and… Sean… 1988, his name’s scratched out.”
Eddie knows that he was born in a small town outside of El Paso, Texas. What he didn’t know was that he’d been born a twin. He looks closer to his birth certificate. His eyes get a little wide when he spots the box marked birth. It does not say single. How the hell did he go all these years without noticing that little detail? Eddie rubs at his tired eyes, feeling the ache building up behind them.
“Eddie…”
He looks up to see Buck holding up a third picture, one he has no memory of. There are two little girls in the picture, one he recognized as his big sister, the little one standing by her side grinning real big couldn’t be Sophia because she looked older and was holding a baby in her arms. A baby Eddie’s pretty sure that wasn’t him. Adriana looked old enough to remember.
His big sister had a lot of explaining to do.
*
The phone call to his big sister two days later did not go so well. It starts out polite with the two of them catching up on what they’ve missed with one another. It's been a busy two months with their schedules clashing, work, school, kids. Adriana has five rambunctious children, ranging from three to fifteen years old. It’s when Eddie tries to steer the conversation towards their childhood, that Adriana gets suspiciously quiet.
“Adri… tell me you didn’t know.” Eddie can tell even over the video screen, that the pinched look on his big sister’s face tells him all he needs to know. He doesn’t need to elaborate on what he’s asking her.
Adriana sits back in her chair and looks around, as if she’s afraid of being caught or something. “I didn’t put it together until Julie and Felly were born.”
It takes a moment for it all to sink in. Julia and Felix Adriana’s first set of twins.
“Buela Isa mentioned twins running in the family and Mami got real pale and dragged her into another room. I didn’t think anything of it till we brought them home from the NICU.” Adriana twists the sleeve of her shirt through her fingers. “Mami looked so guilty, I asked her about it but you know how she is.”
Tight lipped and in control of everything. Eddie knew damn well how she was when it came to things that she didn’t want anyone else to know.
“When Lisa and Javi were born, I remembered, and went through the old photo albums, and I found a picture of us when we were little. Well, who I thought was us?”
Eddie knows the exact picture she’s talking about. It’s the one that Buck found in his baby book.
“Mami flipped the freak out and snatched it from my hands so fast I thought she ripped it in half.”
“She didn’t.” Eddie can still remember the shock of seeing said picture with the date on the back.
“How do you know?” Adriana leans closer to the screen, eyes narrowed down at him.
Eddie holds up the picture so that his sister has a clear view. The shock on her face matches the one he had two days ago when Buck showed it to him.
“Holy shit Eddie where’d you get that?”
“Think the real question here is, why the hell didn’t you tell me?!” Eddie had been pretty patient throughout this entire call but his temper at being lied to his entire life burned through him. “Javi and Lisa were born three years ago, which means you’ve known for a while.”
“Eddie, you don’t understand,” Adriana sits up bracing her hands on the desk. “When I talked to Mami about it she was really upset. I’ve never seen her that way before, you didn’t know, and she didn’t want you to know.”
“Oh, well that makes everything okay then.” Eddie rolls his eyes at the screen. Of course, what Mami said always goes.
“Eddie, you don’t understand!”
“I understand perfectly. Our mother abandoned our brother and thought it was okay to keep it from me.” Eddie takes a breath trying to calm himself down. “And then when I started asking questions, she made me think I was the crazy one and sent me to a shrink!”
“That is not what happened!” Adriana’s shouts at the screen.
“And then my older sister, knowingly chose not to tell me and is defending our mothers’ actions.” Eddie keeps plowing through all of Adriana’s weak protests.
“Eddie, stop it! You don’t know what it was like for Mami back..”
“You know what I don’t get?” Eddie shakes his head trying to keep the tears at bay, “Is why you’re making her out to be some sort of victim after what she did to me.”
“Eddie, you were insisting on missing some imaginary friend. Of course, you were sent to a therapist!”
“You still believe that bull Mami told you?!” Eddie is at the end of his proverbial rope.
“It’s not bull.”
“It sure as hell, not the truth.” Eddie shoots back, anger building in him. He’s so close to losing it and it’s only the sound of the front door opening and his son’s crutches sliding against the floor that stops him. “I gotta go.”
“Eddie please don’t bother Mami with this. She’s under a lot of pressure right now.”
Eddie doesn’t bother with a reply; he just ends the video call and closes the laptop.
*
“Ouch.” Sophia says after Eddie tells her about the conversation via video call two days later.
He sits on his sofa, a coffee mug in hand, the laptop open on the coffee table.
“I mean what did you expect?” Sophia wrinkles her nose. “Adri and Mami were always closer, or did you forget who she used to rat us out to her and papi?”
No. Eddie didn’t forget, he just thought that Adriana wouldn’t lie to him about something like this.
“Don’t sweat it, once she comes off her high horse, Adri will feel guilty and apologize.”
Eddie sighs, shaking his head, “And I’ll just wait till I grow a pair of wings and fly.”
“Right.” Sophia laughs.
*
Adriana takes her sweet time coming down from that high as hell horse. In between that and Buck being weird at work (not enough to garner attention) Eddie had put a pause on what he wanted to do about Sean.
That flew out the window when he opened the front door days later and came face to face with his own… face.
“Uh… hi.”
Eddie nearly slams the door shut on the identical stranger standing on his front porch. He’s frozen in place. It takes a moment for his brain to kick start, and another few for him to actually say something. He takes a step back, heart racing in his chest as he gestures into his house.
“Come in.”