The Twin Brothers

Enzo leaning on the wall, looking at his phone. While Leo working on his laptop. They waiting for Liana’s lunch work. There’s only typing sound echo in that office.

“How can we find Thaver’s son–I mean, daughter.” Enzo spokes.

“I’m not sure. Can’t we ask the private doctor that handles Thaver’s wife for DNA? Or something?” Leo suggests. He stops working, turning his chair towards his brother. “We might find something.”

“Maybe. That means, we have to find Matthias.” Enzo sighs, hating to go to that place. It is not that he hates Matthias but because of Alex, he starts to hate coming there. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost lunch. Let’s go get–” Leo’s words got cut off when his door bursts open revealing Liana on Adam’s back while Felix munching the crackers…

“G–Give it ba–back!!!” Liana yells before getting down from Adam’s back.

Felix sticks his tongue out, “It’s mine now.” He smirks.

Liana is out of her little space this morning. She back to her shy side and was quiet. None of them explains to her about her headspace. She woke up, they just told her that she stay the night with them. Even she freaks out when realizes she sleeping with two shirtless men.

“What’s going on here?” Enzo crosses his arms, making his muscle arms bulk out. The stiff and Liana take that chance. She snatch the crackers out of Felix’s hands and ran towards Leo, hiding behind his office chair.

“T–They took my c–crackers!!” She points it out.

The twins shoot them sharp glares. “W–We didn’t!! We just saw her eating her lunch at the pantry. So we thought she didn’t want to come with us for lunch.” Adam already holding his butt as if those twins will cut their butt off for collection.

“Then, as we thought, she use it as her reasons not to join us. We try to tell her that you guys won’t like it.” Felix added. He takes a deep breath before continuing, “And I snatch her last crackers and run towards your office. The end.” He grins nervously at them.

The twins bring their attention to Liana. She awkwardly smiles, “Umm… I–I uhh…” She got nothing to say. She never felt this exposed.

“Why you don’t want to eat lunch with us?” Enzo asks gently, taking steps forward towards her slowly. “Did we… make you uncomfortable?” He asks again.

“N–No!! I–It not l–like that!!” She waved her hands. The expression on their face, panic, just made her even more panic. “I just… It… w–whenever we o–out, t–there must be p–people looking a–at us… a–as if we’re some k–kind of umm… weird?”

Oh yeah.

The twins forgot she has social anxiety. Having too much attention, only made her anxious. But she never says anything about it. It is not her who brings attention but themselves. Who wouldn’t look when two dangerous twins hang out with one normal little girl?

“Oh no. We’re sorry, baby.” Enzo immediately bends his knees in front of her while Leo turns his chair towards her. “Why you didn’t tell us about this concern?”

“I–I didn’t w–want to wo–worried you.” She sighs.

She stutters less a bit. That means she gets comfortable with them which makes them happy. “Every single thing makes us worried about you. If you don’t tell us, how we can help you?” Enzo crouches down, patting her knees.

“That’s what we want, little one. We want to get worried about you. So that we can show you, we will protect you with all we have.” Leo agreed. He brushes her hair out and tucks it behind her ears. Her hair is in a messy bun and she is still wearing an apron.

Liana lifted her head with a big smile on her face. She never felt this happy with people other than her foster family. “T–Thank you!!”

“Anything for our little princess.” Enzo pats her head.

Adam clears his throat catching everyone’s attention. They look at him with a ‘what’ expression. “Not going to be nosy or something but don’t you guys have something to tell her?” He arches his eyebrows, tapping his feet on the ground.

“Fuck off, Adam,” Leo growls.

“T–Tell me w–what?” Liana looks at the twin. She can hear Enzo cursing under his breath.

“She deserves to know.” He sternly said to the twins. No one ever does that with these two.

Enzo let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. Baby, pack your thing. We will get lunch and we will tell you something important.” He said.

This only makes Liana anxious and worried. Did she do something wrong? Did she do something to make them angry? Or they didn’t want to be her friend again? Her breath quickened but try to hide. She nods and walks out of the office.

“Baby, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it too much.” Enzo pats her head. “You did nothing wrong. Believe us. We never leave you or something if that’s what you think.” He frowns at her guessing it was that what she thinks of. She is easy to read.

“How about we go for lunch… now?” Adam impatiently asks.

“Let’s go.” Leo grabs her hand and leads her outside but not before letting Enzo take off her apron.

____________

Now, they are inside the car, arguing about whether eat in the McDonald’s or go with a drive-through. Leo let out a heavy sigh, pinching his bridge nose and closing his eyes. They have been inside this car for maybe 30 minutes like that. Enzo glared at those two.

“Being in line will take too much time, Adam!!” Felix groaning.

“Same goes with drive-through.” Adam fights back.

“At least we sitting and no need to stand up in line. Better than eating inside.” He rolls his eyes. “You will be the one who whining about your feet hurt.” He scoffs.

“Oh please. Who will eat a lot and order a lot?” Adam narrows his eyes on him.

“That’s nothing to do with this. Right now, we’re talking about whether to eat inside or drive-through, idiot!!” Felix rubs his face harshly and groans. “I bet the seat inside there were full since it was lunchtime!! Are you willing to wait until our lunchtime ended!? Then Liana wouldn’t have lunchtime and she starving because of you!!” He states the fact.

“Geez. I know that.” Adam rolls his eyes. “We haven’t seen inside if what you said is true. You don’t have prooves.” He sticks his tongue out making Liana giggle.

“You–” Before Felix could reply, Leo spokes.

“If you guys don’t stop right now, none of you will manage to get out of this car.” The deep serious and scary voice spoke making both of them shivers through their spine.

“I–Inside then!!” They unison said, get out of the car after turning off the engine.

“Finally.” Enzo sighs.

The line is not too long and there are not many customers either. Everyone stares at them, especially Liana. In their mind, they all have the same question like ‘who’s that girl?’. Adam nudges his friend with smirks, “I told you there are not many customers.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He walks towards the counter.

“Let’s go, little one. They will order for us.” Leo said when saw Enzo give a sign to him. He didn’t wait for her response but pulled her gently with him to the empty seat.

“D–Does… they k–know what I–I want?” She nervously looks around, aware that people are looking at her. Their eyes held question, judgment, and attention to her.Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

Leo just reply with a hum. He realizes this girl notices what happened in their surrounding. Her tiny hands gripped her skirt too tightly. He is afraid if her nails dug her skin through that fabric. So, he grabs her hands and intertwined them with his.

She looks at him confused and shocked. “Ignore them, little one. They are just one of the nosy stupid people.” Leo whispers.

“I–I can’t.” Liana nibbles her lips.

Of course, she can’t. She is too anxious right now. She’s not in the right mind. Her smartwatch beeping like crazy making attention even all over her now. Leo tries everything to make her calm, like rubbing her hands, kissing her head multiple times, and saying comforting words.

He never found people with this bad social anxiety. He just needs to cover her from all that stare. Waiting for Enzo seems like a torturing time for him. When saw them back to their table, he let out a relieved sigh.

There’s no need to tell him. He volunteered to sit beside Liana making her between those two. “Little baby? Love? What happened?” He rubbed her arms.

“A–Attention.” Her shaky voice answers.

Enzo looks at his brother who pleaded with him for help. It was the first time he saw Leo in panic mode. But of course, he didn’t show it. His face might be blank but his eyes showed everything.

“Aww, baby. Calm down for us, yeah? No one can harm you here. Shh, ignore them. Act like they didn’t exist in this world. Just us. Okay?” He kisses her head, rubbing his nose on her sweet smell hair.

When he felt her slight nod, he shows her the food. Leo notices she needs both of them to calm down fully. He too focus on the girl until he didn’t realize his food was in front of him.

A french fries are being thrown at him making him glare at that person. “What? I just want to see you here or not.” Felix shrugs his shoulder and back to eating.

Liana eats her french fries slowly while secretly gazing at everyone at the table. She remembers they want to tell her something but what is it? She puts down her french fries and clears her throat.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Enzo immediately asks.

“W–What did… you guys w–want to t–talk about?” She timidly asks.

The twin’s exchange look. Enzo turns to her, “Baby, do you by any chance… have ever felt you are not yourself some time? Or feel weird?” He asks.

The question makes her frown. “W–What you m–mean, Enzo?”

“Do you know what is little space?” Leo asks.

“I–I do.” She nods. “I–I always read it i–in the novel.” Liana fiddling with her fingers.

“That’s it, baby. That’s what we trying to tell you.” Enzo’s hand holding hers. “You have little space without knowing. Even we don’t realize it. Mat did.”

“W–What… I h–have it?” Liana points at herself.

He nods. “You toddler headspace. You act like it. As if, it is not yourself. You are not stuttering or shy anymore. If you are in that headspace, you become braver, joyful, and talkative.”

Liana couldn’t believe she has that kind of headspace. So that explains why she always felt something wrong with her or memory loss. How can she and her family didn’t notice this?

“You didn’t know about this, aren’t you, peanut?” Adam asks with food inside his mouth.

“N–No. I don’t.” She shakes her head.

“You remember when you woke up with us at your side, the day before that, you fell in toddler headspace. I think you accidentally slip in because Matthias spoils you with everything.” Enzo explains.

“H–How did… I–I act?”

“Like a toddler. You can’t bathe yourself or eat by yourself. Well, you can. But it’s just someone watching you out.” Leo said with a smile when remember how he enjoyed taking care of her.

Bath!?

Her mind was full of questions and scenes. Did one of them give a bath to her? “Little one, you don’t need to worry. I’m the one who gives you a bath and I didn’t even see anything. I respect you and I don’t want to take advantage of it.” Leo said when he can see her panic reaction.

“That’s right, baby.” Enzo agreed.

The embarrassment was too much. Now, they see a weird side of her. A childish side. How can she be stupid? She can’t rely on or depend on them as if she showing how weak she is.

“I–I’m sorry…” Tears formed in her eyes.

“Oh, baby, what’s wrong?” Enzo quickly pulls her to his lap.

“I–it must be… h–hard taking c–care of me. I–I’m such…. a-a b–burden!!” She bursts into tears. “No women a–act like t–that!! I–I felt s–stupid!!” She hits her thighs making the twin react.

Leo harshly grabs her wrist. “You don’t hurt yourself like that. Understood!?” He gritted his teeth showing his stern glares. It only makes her whimper. “You never be a burden to us. Never.”

“Whoever says that to you, he or she wouldn’t live long,” Enzo said with promise in his words.

“Honestly, peanut. We enjoy your toddler space.” Adam gives her a reassuring smile. “It’s not that we don’t like how you are right now. But we trying to say is, being different from others, is special.”

“Yeah. You just find comfort in your toddler headspace making you feel safe. There’s no need to be embarrassed about it. Sure it tiring to handle your toddler headspace but at the same time, we kinda enjoy it. Especially these two dorks.” Felix smirks before biting his french fries.

Liana doe teary eyes looking at them. “See. None of us found it disgusting or a burden. Even Mat loves it since… he loves having a daughter.” Enzo smiles.

The words that come from them make her feel warmth and comfort. She snuggles more in Enzo’s chest while her hands hold Leo’s hand. What did she do deserves this kind of friend. She wishes, they wouldn’t leave her and stay with her forever. Look like she has to pray for that every night, every day.