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I’m in my bed, blinking at the ceiling. My tongue is a cotton ball. When I sit up, a serious headache pounds in my temples.
It’s raining outside, a thousand drops tapping at my window. After shutting my eyes for a few seconds, they snap back open. How did I get to my bed? The last thing I remember is sitting in the van, seething, staring at James, telling him with the intensity of my gaze that I needed answers. Real ones. My body quaked with rage and I felt ready to explode, sickened by what he put us through.
Now, I’m in my room and I don’t even know how I got here. Was there something in that bottled water he insisted I drink? Anger tightens my chest. I’ve allowed him to make me a pawn in his cruel game, and now he thinks he can make decisions for me. Even if they involve drugging me and turning me into a monster.
Well, I’ve had enough.
I go in my small bathroom, determined to take a cold shower. As I undress, I’m surprised when I notice the bandage around my forearm. I’d forgotten about the cut. I make a fist and release it. The pain is gone. Oso said to change the dressing, but I don’t have gauze or surgical tape. I look in the medicine cabinet and all I see is a box of SpongeBob Band-Aids. They’ll do. In one swift motion, I rip the bandage off.
“Ouch.” I stare at the tiny hairs stuck to the white tape, then look at my arm. Wow, the cut looks almost healed. Oso really did a great job patching me up. I wonder where he learned to administer first aid so well? Maybe he’s a doctor, like Dad. He always fixed my skinned knees and elbows and—no matter how bad the scrapes, even the time I fell off my scooter and left half my knee smeared on the asphalt—they never left a scar.
Aydan is a programmer for Sylica Rush. Clark is a welder. Oso could very well be a brain surgeon for all I know. I wonder what James and Blare do? Thinking of them reminds me of the wicked pinpricks in my index finger. I examine it. Black blood is crusted around it. It looks nasty. I curse under my breath. Why didn’t I ask Oso to dress it, too? The last thing I want is an infection.
I run warm water over my hand, expecting it to sting, but I don’t feel anything. I rub the dry blood away to reveal a ring of small white dots wrapping all around my forefinger. I stare at them confused. They’re completely healed over which seems impossible after the way those freakin’ spikes from hell speared my finger. It certainly hurt more than what these scars lead to believe. I stare at them for another moment, then shrug. I guess self-harm turned me into a wimp. Who knew?
After a quick shower, I use four Band-Aids to cover my wound. It looks silly, but at least I can say I’ve followed Dr. Oso’s directions. I put on skinny jeans and a form-fitting black top, then shuffle out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
“How do you feel?” Mom asks when I enter. Her eyes are shining.
I frown. “Um, I have a wicked headache.” I start digging for acetaminophen in the junk drawer.
“Judging by the state Xavier delivered you in, I’m not surprised.” Her tone is preachy. That gets my attention. Since she stopped caring, I’ve come home in worse conditions than last night. I’ve had a few wild nights here and there. She can’t possibly be pulling the reproachful parent card now, can she?
“Uh, hi,” a deep voice says from behind me.
Startled, I look back toward the foyer and drop the bottle of pills. Luke stands there in all his blondness, wiping his hands on frayed jeans.
The pill bottle rolls to his feet and he picks it up. “Here you go.”
I snatch it and give Mom a look. I hope it says it all.
Him? Here?
So fast? So wrong!
How? Why?
“Honey, Ma—” Mom catches her mistake. “Luke came to talk to us last night. I tried to call, but your phone went straight to voicemail. He had a proposition for us, so I asked him to join us for breakfast, so we could talk.”
“A proposition?” I say as if I’m waiting to hear a death sentence instead. I can’t deal with this right now. Not after last night.
“Yes. And I think it’s wonderful.” Mom looks at Luke and beams as she sees herself in his eyes. I look back and forth between the two. Seeing them together is unsettling. He looks like a male version of Mom.
“Why don’t you tell her about it?” Mom tells Luke.
“Um, I thought we were just having breakfast.” Luke has the look of a snared rabbit. “Maybe you two should discuss it by yourselves.” His blue gaze sparkles with innocence, even under the faint light of this rainy morning. His eyes look achingly familiar, the way Mom’s used to look all those years ago, the way they do now.
My gaze keeps jumping from one to the other. Mom radiates, hangs on Luke’s every word, and I can’t help but wonder why she’s never beamed this way in my presence. She loved Dad, and I look just like him. His same black hair, brown eyes, tan skin. Why didn’t she ever see the sun setting in my eyes? Why doesn’t she love me the same way?
My heart breaks with a thousand emotions, and my mind reels with just as many questions. I want to understand, but it makes no sense. I want to know if it would have been different if I looked like Luke. If he hadn’t been abducted by that man. If Dad hadn’t died. If all four of us had been together. If anything had been different, would I still be the last one to cross her mind when she wakes up in the morning?
But Luke and I are different. So different. And suddenly, it hits me. He’s my brother. My twin brother and we look nothing like each other. I look just like Dad and he looks just like Mom.
He’s not like me.
There’s no droning in my skull.
He’s my twin brother and he’s nothing like me. Nothing like me!
I’m the only monster in this place, and suddenly it all makes sense. Even if Mom doesn’t know what I am, she must sense it. That’s why she can’t love me. Something in her nature, some deep-buried instinct in her gut prevents her.
Who could love a monster?
I’m gasping for air. They’re staring at me as if I’m crazy, as if ... as if ... they know what I am.
“I—I’m not hungry.” I turn and leave.
It takes all my strength to walk to my room and gently shut the door, when all I want to do is slam it against their ... sameness. I collapse face first on the bed. The pillow chokes my sobs, shoving my pain and disappointment back into my throat.
My pillowcase is soaked in tears and my eyes tired and dry by the time a knock sounds at the door. I sit up, ready to tell Mom to leave me alone, but the face that pokes through the crack is not hers. It’s Luke’s.
“Is it okay if I come in?” he asks. “You can tell me to go to hell if it’s not.” He smiles sheepishly.
I bite my lower lip, hesitating for some odd reason. I do want to tell him to go to hell and take his proposition with him, but I’ve never been able to resist Luke, and it’s nice to finally know why. I’ve heard twins always share a sort of connection, even after they go separate ways. I think it’s true. It feels true.
He sits on one corner of the bed, occupying a space too tiny for his tall frame.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a quiet whisper. “She ...” he points toward the door to indicate Mom, “took me by surprise last night. I thought I’d be the one surprising you guys, but,” he raises his eyebrows, “she just overwhelmed me with ...”
He doesn’t know what to call it, but I do. The word he’s looking for is joy.
I straighten. “She’s been waiting for you for a long time.”
“Yeah,” Luke says in a breathy, bewildered sigh. He swallows, shakes his head. “Listen, I understand how hard this must be for you. I never expected her to ... go along with my idea so easily. And not just that, but to take it to a whole new level.” He laughs an uncomfortable laugh, stands and paces the room, shaking his head from side to side.
Luke’s eyes take in the room: the corner where my dusty computer equipment litters the overcrowded desk; the bare walls from which I ripped the music posters of bands I used to like and the wads of tape left behind. The room is in twilight, windows covered by black curtains. A lone lamp with a dirty t-shirt and a bra hanging from its shade offers the only illumination.
I squirm, feeling exposed and bare like a newborn. Luke clears his throat, looks at the worn rug by the foot of the bed and stuffs his hands in his jean pockets.
“I know this is too much to take in all at once, so I’ll leave. You need to talk it over with her and make sure you guys agree. I ... I don’t want to get in the way of ...”
“Why don’t we talk it over? You promised to tell it to me straight, remember?” I say as I start picking up clothes from the floor and shooting them into the dirty bin. I’m trying to look like I don’t really care, like it’s not a big deal and this part of my life isn’t caught in a whirlwind, too.
“I don’t think it’s ... my place.”
We exchange a quick glance, smile at the personal joke. I remember telling him it wasn’t my place to mention he was my brother. I was wrong.
“Mom and I don’t really ... talk, not since...” I can’t finish. The pain of losing Dad resurfaces too easily, like a huge whale starving for air. I inhale. “Really, it’ll be better if you tell me about this idea of yours.”
I plop on my desk chair and shake the mouse to awaken my cyber haven. The three monitors come to life, adding a bit more light to the room. I turn my back on Luke and pretend to check my email.
“O-kay.” He clears his throat. “I told you they don’t want me living by myself since I’m only sixteen and all. So, I thought maybe I could start by spending a few weekends with you guys. You know, to get to know each other and see if there’s something there.”
My hand rests on the mouse and the cursor blinks, blinks, blinks. “That sounds ... reasonable.” Then I want to know. “So, I take it Mom loved the idea and ran with it. How far did she take it?” I think I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. I swivel the chair and face him.
Luke sits on the bed again, his back turned, facing the opposite wall. “She wants me to move in. Right away.”
I hate that I can’t see his expression. I don’t know how he feels about the idea. Hell, I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about it. I didn’t have time to give it much thought since we last talked about it. This is all happening too fast. My life as I know it is disintegrating like sandcastles in a windstorm. If he moves in it wouldn’t just be awkward, it would be yet another aspect of my life becoming unrecognizable.
Suddenly I’m protesting, unable to hide the irritation in my tone. “But that wouldn’t work. Where would you sleep? This house’s a shoebox.” I need control over something. I can’t let James, Mom, Luke, turn my whole life over on its head.
My anger echoes against the walls, and its irrational quality slaps me as it bounces back. Luke is graceful enough to ignore it, maybe even understand it. Who knew he could be such a stand-up guy when I always figured him for an ass?
“What if there was enough room? How would you feel about it then?” he asks, finally turning to face me.
His calm question takes me by surprise and throws a bucket of ice water on my anger, an anger that I realize is misdirected. It’s not Luke’s fault. He’s the victim here, taken away from his family before his mother even had a chance to hold him in her arms. I was born last, strong and wailing at the top of my lungs. Luke was first and had to be whisked away and put on a respirator. It seems impossible, considering how tall and muscular he is now.
Then that man used his doctor’s badge to gain access to the NICU and steal Luke from under everyone’s nose. And most ludicrous of all, he raised him as his own, with no one the wiser to the twisted criminal living in our midst.
A criminal. What does Luke think of that? He seems well-adapted—not like someone who was raised in a dark basement, but you never know. Before I can help myself, a question I should keep to myself flies out of my mouth. “What was he like?” I hold his gaze even though I want to crawl under the desk and hide behind my high-performance CPU.
For a moment, he just stares at me, face expressionless, but twitching a bit with the effort of keeping it blank. He looks like someone trying to choose his words very carefully. “He ...” Luke stops, then stands and begins to pace along the bed. “It’s hard for me to reconcile the man I know with this ... new person.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You may not want to hear this, but he was a good father. We had a good thing going, just the two of us. I had no reason to doubt his stories about a mother who abandoned us shortly after I was born.” He huffs bitterly. “But she wasn’t even real. No matter how good he was. None of it was real.”
My throat burns as if the air between us is charged with fire. With his head bowed low, he reminds me of a lost child, and I wish I hadn’t asked him anything. Then he looks up from the floor and gives me a quick sideways glance that makes my body tense. His eyes flick quickly away, like he was just trying to figure out what I thought of his story, to see if I was buying it. Is he lying? I bite my bottom lip. I dare not ask and can only hope I’m wrong. Who am I to pry? We all have secrets and mine are big enough to rival half the world’s.
I steady myself with a deep breath. “I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ... Look, about your proposition, maybe you and Mom should decide.” I can’t think straight anymore.
“I disagree. Don’t take this the wrong way, but your opinion matters more to me than anyone else’s.”
My eyes must betray my surprise. Luke’s fair face blushes. His golden lashes fall over his eyes, disguising his embarrassment.
“I’ve known you since pre-school, Marci. And ever since I first saw you, I’ve felt this ...” he chooses his next word carefully, “affinity to you.”
“Humph, and you showed it by being an ass to me half the time?” I cringe at my own comment. He’s opening up and this is what I tell him?
Luke chuckles. “What can I say, I’m only human.” He puts a hand on his chest and smiles that disarming smile of his.
I straighten my already straight mouse pad and smile a little.
“I know Karen is supposed to be my mom, and how could anyone deny it? It’s creepy how alike we look.” His eyebrows meet above his nose in a puzzled expression, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way about their resemblance. “But I don’t really know her and she ... makes me uncomfortable. Please don’t tell her I said that.”
“I won’t.”
“You, on the other hand, it’s like you were always there. Even when you weren’t. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like I could ... sense you.”
“Yeah,” I say in a quick exhale of breath. If he only knew how many times I guessed he was about to walk into the gym, the classroom, the cafeteria. “Must be that twin link people talk about,” I offer lamely. I flinch. God, he’s being so open, so honest, and I’m so used to giving people scraps, hiding who I really am for fear of being dubbed insane. I wish I could do better by him. But who am I kidding? It’ll never get better than this with me. Surely monsters are no more articulate than the mentally imbalanced. Funny how I always thought I was simply crazy—“lock her up, hide the key, bring the electroshock” kind of crazy—and, now, it turns out it’s way worse.
How, with this knowledge, could I ever allow anyone to get close to me? How, when I could end up hurting them, the way that monster at Elliot’s was about to hurt that poor woman?
I put a hand on my chest, feeling a strange lump there, fearing my ribcage might split open the second the shadows overtake me.
My hands begin to tingle. I need to get out of here.
Outside.
Rain.
Splashing my face.
I walk to the closet, take out a jacket and slip it on. Luke’s eyes follow my every move. Under the bed, I find my ankle boots, zip them up and buckle them securely to my feet.
“Look,” I say, pocketing the keys to my motorcycle, “whatever you and Mom decide is fine by me.” I’m trying very hard to keep my voice level, uncaring. It’s not easy. I can still hear a tremor and a trace of regret in my words. I’d like to get to know my brother, try to have a real family. Maybe he could give us that much. But what else am I supposed to do? I never knew the nightmare I was keeping at bay. And now that I do, I can’t risk hurting anyone if it finally manages to overwhelm me. “It’s not like it’ll affect things all that much. Mom already loves you. You’re perfect in her eyes. I’m still the same screw-up. That’s not gonna change—”
“Marci.” He says my name in a don’t-call-yourself-that tone.
“It’s fine. Mom and I have never gotten along. I was never ... enough for her, especially after Dad died.”
A shadow falls over Luke’s blue eyes, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Ernest Dunn or if he’s struggling to reconcile himself to the idea that his real father is also dead.
“Anyway, I have other plans for breakfast. I’m sure you and Mom will get along fine without me.” I turn the door knob, knowing I should just walk out without a backward glance, but I can’t help it. I look over my shoulder and the expression in Luke’s eyes makes it infinitely harder to walk away. It’s an expression I’m very familiar with: the perfect picture of someone I’ve just let down.
What else is new? Welcome to my world.