******************************After the Confession 1 – ZPOV******************************

The next days were… I don't have a word to describe it. Awkward? That isn't really it, but it's the closest one I can find. We were pretending and we were no good at it. Okay, so we were good enough to fool Mom and everybody else. But we couldn't fool ourselves, or each other.

I knew exactly what Cody was feeling and I knew that he knew what I was feeling. Even though I didn't even know what I was feeling. Confusing, isn't it? All of my thoughts were like that these days. Confused.

I knew Cody didn't want to talk about it and I was pretty sure I didn't want that either, so we didn't mention anything that might have become touchy. Unfortunately, there was no way to keep myself from thinking about it, so I spent a lot of time on that.

By 'it', I mean many things. The way I felt about my twin brother. The fact that this was no longer my secret. The way he had reacted to my 'confession'. The silent question of how I – we – were going to deal with everything. My brain was busier than it had ever been before.

So, I was in love with my brother. I had accepted that a long time ago. It had not been easy, sure, but I was okay with myself now. There were many gay guys out there, and even though I was a little bit more than just gay, I knew it must be bearable.

The part that really troubled me was that Cody knew. I had never meant him to find out. I had planned on suppressing it and wait for it to go away. A long, long time after that, so I had thought to myself, maybe I would have told him and we would have laughed about the crazy things puberty can do to you. It had always been a 'maybe', remote future. That was over now.

His reaction had caught me completely off guard. Yeah, I had not meant to tell him, but I had had countless nightmares about him finding out. In my imagination, he had always been disgusted, told me he didn't want to be my brother anymore. That would have been hard, but I would have been prepared.

I had not been prepared for what had actually happened. He'd said he didn't hate me. He'd said he still loved me and promised we would always stick together. But his words weren't important, after all. Important was how he hadn't flinched away from me, how there had been no lie in his eyes. The memory still made my heart go all 'wooh'.

And the question… I couldn't seem to find an answer, no matter how hard I tried. There was no answer to be found. There was no solution in this case. This was unexplored land, and when you had come to accept that you were in love with your brother, common ethics sort of lost their meaning.

Cody acted like nothing had happened and I felt that he tried to make it easier – but not for himself. For me. Cody knew what it was like to love someone who would never love you back, and he had this incredibly gentle nature that made him care about everybody. And I wasn't just anybody to him.

I was so grateful that I couldn't bear violating his attempt. But there were things I couldn't help, and I knew he noticed. My body was a traitor, and so were my heart and soul. He noticed my face lighting up whenever I saw him. He noticed the goose bumps on my skin as we touched. He noticed the dark rings under my eyes that came from not sleeping.

All these things made him feel bad, guilty. I could have slapped myself every single time.

******************************After the confession 2 – CPOV *******************************

I had never been very good an actor, or a liar. Now, just like that, my entire life had become a big, fat lie. I hated it.

Not that I blamed Zack. Well, I did blame him sometimes, in the dark hours in our bedroom when I couldn't sleep because his silence that indicated he was awake rang louder than his usual snores. But I knew I shouldn't have, and I felt guilty for it. It was his fault no more than mine. All we could do was to wait until this nightmare was over.

Did I say nightmare? That was wrong. It wasn't a nightmare. Of course it was weird, awkward, and just… trouble. But it didn't feel nearly as wrong as it should have. This scared me, almost more than everything else: That it had not been like I knew Zack had expected. That I was not disgusted. That I didn't hate him. It was scary.

We were acting all day, and that was bad enough. Nighttime was even worse. At night, I was all alone with myself and my brother who I knew to be wide alert but who preferred to pretend like he was sleeping. He couldn't fool me, though. His breath came too fast and he lay too still.

I was quite good at distracting myself from things. I had plenty to think about all day, and I chose mostly things that were so complicated it was impossible to think of anything else at the same time. At night, I had to face the forbidden thoughts; there weren't enough mathematical problems in the world to cover all that time.

I never had rings under my eyes like Zack, so I guess I must have had much more sleep than him; most of my dreams were nightmares, though. There was not one particular dream that returned over and over again, but many, completely different from each other – monsters, dead family members and the kind where nothing happens but somehow you have a strange feeling of panic.

After a while, Mom realized something was wrong. She started nagging us to tell her what our problem was, and lucky Zack came up with some convincing lie; I think it was about promotion and how he was scared to fail and I was worrying about a possible B in Spanish. She bought it.

It took some time, but about two weeks after that fateful day, it got better. I could sleep, and I could take part in a conversation effortlessly. Now and then, I would even think about Zack and me without any unwanted feeling. I guess you might say I was over it.

Zack wasn't.

He stole Mom's make-up to hide the rings. He used his amazing lying and acting ability to go back to picking on me like he'd used to. He started turning his head for girls again. But he didn't sleep. His gaze was apologetic when he played a prank on me. He cared about the girls even less than usual.

One day, we were at the park with Max and Bob. While Bob was getting ice cream for the three of us and Max was having a fight with another girl, our hands touched accidentally. He jumped and folded his arms over his chest almost casually.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of compassion, and from that compassion I drew the courage I had been looking for during the past two weeks. I reached out and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. He didn't flinch this time. I took it as a good sign.

"Cody?" He said and turned around, shaking my hand off him. "What is it?"

It was so hard to make myself go on. I would just let it go…

"Don't say it's nothing. I won't buy that." I raised one eyebrow, and then sighed.

"I just realized that this is… not the place to talk about what I wanted to talk about." My sentences always become a bit strange when I am nervous. Being my twin brother, Zack knew me too well.

"You're nervous." He stated. Then he smirked and asked: "Are you nervous because of what I'm thinking could be making you nervous?" Obviously, he was experiencing the same issues.

"What are you thinking?"

"You know."

"Yeah", I sighed, answering both question and statement. "We need to talk, and we both know it."

"Not here," He agreed.

"See," I said.

He laughed. "So we'll talk. Later."

That was when Bob came back with ice cream for four and I went to save Max from being eaten by that girl (and the ice cream from melting before being eaten by us). When we came back, Bob and Zack were already fighting about who was going to have strawberry and who chocolate.

************************************Sydney – ZPOV*************************************

In the end, Bob and I decided to share both flavors so each of us would be able to judge the quality of the new parlor's ice cream as accurately as possible. We were done long before Cody and Max, so I quickly leaned over and stole some of Cody's pineapple ice cream with my bright yellow plastic spoon.

When he glared at me, I grinned widely and patted my stomach. "De'ishous!" He rolled his eyes and took a step away from me, shielding his cream with one hand. In an attempt to annoy him, I jumped forward, causing him to turn around and –

- run. Right into a bunch of girls who were standing just a few yards away from us. They looked about ayear younger than us, even though it was obvious that they had spent hours in front of a mirror putting on make-up so they'd look older.

Cody stumbled back and he would have fallen if he hadn't been caught by a pretty brunette. She had large brown eyes and a stunning smile and, as much as I hated to admit it, she was really cute. Cody blinked in confusion and smiled back at her a little awkwardly. It made me want to puke.

Suddenly, I felt as if I had been set on fire. Jealousy was ripping through me with such force it nearly knocked me off my feet. I couldn't stand looking at them, but I couldn't seem to take my eyes off Cody's face either. Why did he have to be so beautiful? Why did she have to be so cute? And why the hell did I have to be so jealous?

I turned my head away with a sudden, harsh gesture, mumbled something to Bob that could be interpreted as anything and hurried back to the crowd before the ice cream parlor to hide in it. On one hand, the others couldn't see me now, but on the other hand, I was having a hard time controlling my arms and legs, which kept trying to hit the people around me.

Instead, I smashed my hand against my own forehead, again and again, until the pain in both body parts was strong enough to deal with that inside me that was already fading away, anyway. I waited until I had regained full control of myself before I stepped out of the crowd again.

I was both nauseated and relieved when I saw that Max and Bob were alone. I walked over to our tree and joined them on the floor, successfully keeping my fingers from tugging at the grass. They didn't ask me where I had been; probably they assumed I'd seen somebody and talked to them.

"So," Bob asked after a while of talking to Max and letting my get away with just 'hm's and 'yeah's, "What do you think of that girl?"

"What girl?" I asked innocently although I could feel new emotion rising.

Max rolled her eyes. "Cody's girl. Sydney."

So that was her name. Sydney. Stupid name. Cody's girl. More stupid name. "Oh." I said. "Her." When they continued looking at me as if waiting for something else, I told them: "I've seen her once. I haven't heard her speak one word. How am I supposed to know what I think of her?"

Bob looked at me like I had suddenly grown antennae. "Who are you and what have you done to Zack Martin?" He finally managed to ask. I just shrugged. "I fed him to my friend Bigfoot," I told him.

"Bigfoot doesn't eat people…" Max said.

I shrugged again. "Mine does!" She shook her head and murmured "Boys…," which brought her a punch from Bob. "Who's the one who knows who or what Bigfoot eats?"

"I am just capable of opening a book now and then," Max snapped and punched him back. "You know, that couldn't hurt you two, either!"

Bob and I yawned and made the same bored gesture with one hand. Max gave each of us a poisonous look before turning her back on us demonstratively. Bob looked at me with a strange expression.

"So, Zack," He tried again, "Don't you think she's hot?"

I forced a grin on my face as I said: "You bet she is! Young Cody's lucky! We've taught him so well…" Bob seemed pleased with that and gave me High Five.

"They grow up so fast…" He sighed and I laughed, hoping he wouldn't notice how forced the laugh was.

***********************************Sydney – CPOV*************************************

I came back to the others about fifteen minutes later, without Sydney. I had bought here another ice cream – vanilla flavor – and we'd had a great time. She was very sweet and a bit naïve, which I found incredibly cute. Strangely, she actually seemed to think I was funny.

So obviously I was in a very good mood when I returned. Bob and Max jumped immediately when they saw me and started to ask me questions, but I didn't pay much attention to them. I was too focused on Zack, who got up far too slowly and was nowhere near as enthusiastic as he was supposed to be.

"Did you kiss her?" Bob asked eagerly. I answered by glaring at him. Bob sighed. "There still is so much you need to learn, boy…" He said. Zack nodded and added: "I think there is more work left than we imagined…" "Naw," Bob shook his head, "He's a hopeless case!"

Now Max was the one glaring at Bob. "At least Cody doesn't start hitting on a girl right after he meets her!" She snapped. "He knows that a relationship needs time to grow!" Then she turned around and smiled at me. "So, are you together?" When I shook my head, she sighed.

"Cody, you really ought to get better at that speed thing!" She told me.

Zack cocked his head to one side. "Didn't you just say something about 'grow-time'?" All three of us looked at her in confusion.

"You need to find an appropriate compromise." She said and, considering her tone, I wouldn't have been surprised at all had she added a London-like 'duh'.

"And how much time of growing seems appropriate to you before getting to second base?"

She shrugged. "A couple of dates?"

Zack grimaced, and then said: "Sorry, that doesn't work for me!" Bob nodded in agreement.

Max rolled her eyes again. "Why am I not surprised?"

Zack grinned smugly, but when his gaze met mine, I sensed a great tension lurking behind his smile. He quickly looked away, but it was no use. Every single one of his movements was tense, deliberate, and unnatural.

We stayed at the park for about one more hour, then Zack and I went back to the Tipton and Bob came along. Without talking about it, both of us chose to take the stairs to avoid the silence in the elevator, so when we reached our suite, we were gasping.

Mom wasn't there, no note. Probably she was just off to the supermarket to buy tonight's food. Considering that she could be back any minute, I took a chance as soon as we could breathe normally again.

"So," I said very intelligently. "We have to talk."

"I remembered." He sat down on the sofa, pulling me next to him. "So?"

"Zack…" I began hesitantly, not knowing how to phrase this; "We can't go on like this, right? I can see that … it is eating you, and that's eating me. What are we going to do about this?"

He looked at me blankly. Then he made an odd little sound and leaned back into the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know," He finally whispered. "I've been thinking about it all the time, and not only for the last two weeks. I can't see a solution. I am sorry for making you feel bad; I wish you hadn't found out. You shouldn't have to suffer…"

I frowned, even though he could not see that. "Don't you be sorry," I told him. "How is something like this ever anyone's fault? Besides… Apologies is not what I want to hear right now. What we need is a strategy!"

"Well, first things first, we have to make sure nobody figures out. Maybe I'll go get myself a girlfriend." His voice changed at the last word, becoming hard and bitter.

"Zack?" I asked and he looked back at me. "Are you… alright?"

"Sure," he answered. For a while, there was no sound but the low humming of the refrigerator. Eventually, he opened his mouth again, trying to sound casual. "This girl, Sydney… You do like her, don't you? Like her like her?"

"Yeah…" I said carefully and looked at his feet so I didn't have to see his face. "I guess I do. She's sweet, and smart, and… oh, Zack, who do you think you're kidding, you so don't want to hear this!"

He glared at me. "'Course I wonna know if my twin brother is serious about a girl! I mean, I know you – you get in a relationship, it could last for years! Maybe you'll even get married!" His tone was perfectly normal, and so was his gaze. I was really impressed.

"Let's not get carried away," I interrupted him. "This is absurd. We're not even dating!"

"Yet," Zack said jokingly. "By the way… you did remember to ask for her number, didn't you?" When I nodded proudly, he seemed honestly relieved, and again I couldn't help but admire his acting. I was absolutely sure I couldn't have done this.

There as another minute of silence. Then I said: "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything," He answered and I knew he was serious. What was the point in hiding something from me now that I knew his one secret?

"How long?" I tried to make it as short as possible, not giving my voice a chance to tremble. "You know – before…"

He didn't answer at first, and I was already afraid that he didn't understand my question or didn't want to answer it. Finally, he said: "I don't quite know. I mean, it was not like waking up and BOOM…. About four months, I guess, though."

I swallowed. That made four and a half months now. Poor Zack. How come I had been oblivious to his feelings for me for all that time? What kind of brother was I?

Mom came back right then and the rest of the day was over before I knew it. When I went to bed, I briefly thought that we still hadn't come up with anything, but I was too tired for any more worrying.