by Alice Carina
I kept staring at the TV. A commercial for diapers was on and there were babies everywhere - turning in their sleep and crying at first then laughing and flapping their tiny arms around and I felt so dizzy, as if the images were moving out of the TV and closer to me that I nearly screamed. It was going to happen soon, I was soon going to have a baby staring up at me with similar eyes in the same way the baby on the TV was then looking at me, so innocent and clueless and needing me, crying for me, smiling at me, expecting me to feed it and diaper it and take care of it and keep it alive and healthy and I didn't know how to do any of that and I couldn't breathe.
"Kyle?" I choked out his name. My heart was beating so fast and I could feel the sweat tickling me as it slid down my back under my over-sized shirt that only Bernetta seemed to question because she thought my style a crime against fashion.
"Yeah?" I saw him turn to me through my peripheral vision, but I never looked at him.
"I think we need to talk." I floated outside my body as the words sank into reality.
"About what?" He sounded confused.
I'd rehearsed a whole speech countless times in front of the mirror and watched clips from TV shows of characters announcing unexpected pregnancies, but I never actually saw myself confessing.
"Do you remember that night at the party?" The words numbly left me.
"Oh, no," he sighed. "I thought we were going to just forget about that."
I was silent for a moment. I'd expected him to ask which one of the many parties he'd gone to I was referring to or what night did I expect him to remember from so vague a question, not for him to actually understand or hint that he did. I hadn't rehearsed for that.
"What?" I felt myself slam back into my body with befuddlement.
"You never talked about it," he shrugged, "so I assumed we were just going to ignore that it happened."
"You remember?" I felt myself getting sick as the heat spread through my face, but I tried to hold it in.
"You thought I didn't?" He blinked in surprise, as if he could've used that to his advantage had he known.
"You remember that... that we... that we-you spent a-a ni-ght with m-me?" The words were too thick with embarrassment to squeeze out, but I had to make sure that we were talking about the same thing and weren't misunderstanding each other.
"Yeah, we-"
"The show's back on!" Josslyn jumped down the stairs, "Why didn't you guys call for me?"
I quickly ran upstairs to my bathroom, unable to keep my sickness in any longer.
I washed my face and stood frozen in front of the mirror, unable to understand what was going on. He actually remembered. He'd remembered that whole time and left me drowning in guilt and fear all alone when he actually knew and remembered and deserved just as much guilt and fear. He remembered that he'd been with me, he robbed me off my innocence without it being worth a conversation to him and he cheated on Josslyn and carried on with their relationship as if nothing had happened.
It was a long time before I heard a knock on my door. I walked out of my bathroom just as Kyle was walking into my room, closing the door behind him.
"How could you?" I tried to scream, but my voice was too stuffed with suppressed tears of betrayal and humiliation.
"How could I what?" He sounded genuinely confused.
"How could you sleep with me then go on dating my sister?"
"She's my girlfriend and I was already dating her before, I-"
"But you cheated on her." How could he not see the fault with what he'd done?
"It wasn't cheating," he rolled his eyes at the term. "We'd had a fight that night. Besides, you two are identical twins, so it doesn't count as cheating."
"We're two separate, different people!" My voice finally broke free with anger.
"Quiet down, will you?" He stepped closer to me, throwing a worried look over his shoulder at the door.
"How can you be so calm about this?" I really wanted to know how he'd dealt with everything so peacefully as if nothing had gone wrong.
"It's not like we were having an affair or something, it was just a one-time mistake that we should go back to forgetting and not talking about."
"But you cheated on her and lied to her and now you're just going to keep dating her as if nothing happened?"
"I wasn't alone that night, you know." He snapped, getting irritated with my choice of words.
"That's not fair," I choked. "I thought you guys had broken up, I didn't know. But you knew that you were still her boyfriend and you still slept with her sister. Do you have any idea how sick this is?"
He was silent for a few seconds, looking at everything around my room but me until his eyes stopped at a picture of me and Josslyn on my nightstand.
"I didn't cheat on her," he insisted, almost turning away from me. "She was with Luca that night anyway, so it's not like I betrayed her or something. I know I started it, but you didn't stop me. Call it whatever you want, but I was buzzed and you two look exactly the same that I think most of the time I really believed it was her. I thought that I lost her that night; that I was just another labeled admirer that she was going to forget about before dawn and I couldn't handle that, I needed a distraction from her, and there you were, looking just like her. Then, the next morning, I found out that she actually cared about me, that I actually meant something to her and that we could be something real, no more nonchalance and mind-games." A small smile started to form itself on his face, but he quickly dropped it when he looked at me. "You never said anything, so I thought that we were going to do the mature thing and accept that night as the mistake it was and just move on."
"I-I can't do that..." I couldn't look at him.
"Why not? You haven't said anything all this time, why now?"
Because I'm pregnant and I don't think I can hide it much longer.
"I didn't know you knew." I justified lamely. "We can't lie to her."
"But you did," he pointed out. "You knew and you still chose not to tell her. Why didn't you tell her before?"
Because I was pretending that it wasn't real, that it hadn't really happened, but it did and there's something very real growing inside of me in the most unreal way.
"I thought she would've dumped you by now."
"Me too," my answer hadn't surprised him at all. "But she didn't. Had I known that she wasn't going to ditch me for that guy or that she really cared, I never would've..." He trailed off for a moment. "I really, really love her, Katie, please don't take her away from me."
"I ca-"
"Kyle!" Josslyn yelled from downstairs. "The show's back on!"
"Coming!" He yelled back, already moving towards the door. "She will hate us both if she finds out and she will get hurt and swear off love again like she did before and just let guys use her. I truly care about her and I would never think of hurting her ever again. It was just a mistake, Katie, don't make it into a bigger one." His eyes were pleading. I didn't reply and he left to join her, my twin sister whom he loved.
It's already too big. My hand absently moved over my round stomach.
*
I sympathized with Kyle, I truly did, and had I not been pregnant, I might've followed his lead and just forgot about that night, but I couldn't do that as easily as he had.
I needed to tell Josslyn and I spent days just thinking of what to tell her. I could start off by telling her that I thought they'd broken up; she would surely understand that it wasn't my fault. I would exaggerate Kyle's intoxication, remind her that they hadn't been that serious and visiting on daily bases back then, and assure her that it had been a one-night thing so she wouldn't lose her confidence and give up on relationships like she did after her first boyfriend. I would explain it for the silly, meaningless mistake that it was that she wouldn't get angry and might actually consider staying with Kyle, but, of course, she would have to dump him upon learning about my pregnancy and then he would be just an ex. Then, I wouldn't be pregnant by my sister's boyfriend, but my sister's ex,
and her exes never meant anything to her.
I followed her up to her room after dinner one night and found her smiling while texting on her phone. I prayed that she wasn't texting Kyle and closed the door behind me after walking into her room.
"Can we talk?" My voice came out weaker than I had intended it.
She took one look at my face before dropping her phone and sitting up straight. "What's wrong?"
"I..." Oh, God, I was actually going to tell someone. "I..." I felt my stomach sucking all the air and becoming harder and I knew my knees couldn't hold me up much longer, so I slowly walked over to her bed and sat next to her. "I need to tell you something."
But I didn't say anything, and the silence troubled her.
"What is it? You're getting me worried."
"That's because I'm worried."
"What are you worried about?"
Your reaction, the truth, the baby that's mine but feels anything but mine, mom, dad, everyone at school, the near future that's getting nearer and nearer, my life that's dissolving to give another person life.
"Katie? At least tell me what this is about."
"It's about..." Me, your boyfriend, and a baby that we made and both seem to know nothing about. "Kyle."
"Oh," she chuckled with relief. "You had me really worried there for a second, I thought this was something serious."
"You and Kyle aren't serious?" I blinked at her, almost falling back on the bed with comfort.
"Of course we're serious, which is why what you're worrying about isn't anything to seriously worry about."
"What?" She threw her arms around my shoulders and pulled me towards her, shaking my stomach and my sickness in the process.
"It's so sweet that you're so worried about me. I know Kyle and I have been together for what's usually too long for me and he's here almost every day, but there's nothing to worry about, we're doing great."
I sighed tiredly and dropped my head. "Joss, that's why I'm worried. I-"
"I know, I know," she rolled her eyes, "you're worried I'm going to get hurt again or that this is just a game for us that I might be getting too attached to, but it's not what it looks like."
"But... What about Luca?"
"How do you know about him?" She didn't look guilty or surprised, just curious.
"I saw you with him at the party you took me to. I thought you guys..." I trailed off, not sure what I thought anymore.
"Slept together?" I nodded. "We didn't. He's saying we did, but we didn't," she shrugged. "We just kissed. Can you believe that?" She slid closer to me as if she was about to tell me her deepest secret. "I'd been crushing on that guy more than anyone before, yet I couldn't do anything more with him just because he wasn't Kyle. Really. That was the only reason. I tried, but he wasn't Kyle so I couldn't be with him. I told Kyle about it though when Luca started saying we spent the whole night together, and he said he'd done the same."
"He told you?" I couldn't stop the gasp that shook me.
"Don't worry, it all worked out. We'd had a fight and were as good as over that night. He told me he saw me and Luca kissing and got so angry he wanted to be with anybody else just to get back at me, but he couldn't do it. He said he just kissed her and it was meaningless and he couldn't even remember her, just like what happened with me and Luca. It all worked out for the best actually. By trying to be with other people, we realized that we don't want to be with other people and were able to open up more to each other."
He'd told her that he'd kissed someone else, just refrained from saying whom, and she was confident enough not to care to know. I was just a meaningless mistake to the both of them, just a small bump on their way towards love that wasn't even worth naming. If she knew it was me... Or how far we'd truly gone... It would change everything. She wouldn't be able to stay with him, but she would always hate me for taking him away from her, the one guy she consciously chose and wanted to be with, if only it hadn't taken a night with me for her to realize that.
Her phone buzzed and her eyes turned dreamy as she read through it and a smile lit up her face more than the screen could have. "I think we're both just as equally involved," she continued smiling at her phone for a while then turned to me with the same smile still so bright it nearly brightened my mood. "I trust him, Katie, and I haven't trusted anyone like that in a very long time. I don't think he'll hurt me, he... he gets me, and I get him and we're really happy together."
"That's..." She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. "That's good to hear."
"It's even greater to feel," she nearly started bouncing, unable to contain her excitement. "I really wish you find something like this sometime soon. Everything else will just feel so right and everything you'd been previously scared of would be worth facing."
"What do you mean?"
"I think he could be the one for me," her face reddened and her eyes sparkled with passion. "And I'm not worried or scared about how much I feel for him at all, I'm so in love with him and everything is so right, you know?"
I nodded and said something absently before leaving her to her phone and crying in my bed.
They'd had a fight and both thought their relationship was done and tried moving on with the first person that let them. How was I supposed to know any better when they didn't? He was an ex to her, even if just for a moment, he was a person she'd chosen to put behind her so that she could be with someone else and he'd done the same to her. That should've excused me in what I'd done, in being with him and getting pregnant and not telling her. I shouldn't have felt so guilty and confused and out of options. I should've told her that the girl wasn't meaningless or nameless, that it was me, her own twin sister who was carrying her boyfriend's child. I should've told her that their relationship wasn't stronger than that one night, because that one night was going to haunt us all forever. I should've asked her to break up with him because their love was complicating and twisting an already very complicated and twisted situation. I should've told her that the night they'd decided to spend apart didn't lead to the realization of their feelings, but forcefully parted them forever through me. And I should've told her that while I felt sorry and pathetic, I didn't actually deserve to feel that way, because their relationship and what they'd done to it was so wrong that my wrongful involvement seemed to fit in perfectly.
But none of that seemed to matter as I leaned over the toilet with sickness.
They were in love. My sister who had sworn off love was in love with someone who loved her back enough to lie to keep her when from the start they'd both agreed to never lie. They'd both never given love a serious shot before, she was a player and so was he, they'd both never let themselves feel until they met and suddenly did. She was worried that he'd never care for her and just wanted to cross her name off a list, and he had the same worries. Each by trying to care less cared more than ever before. It was quite beautiful actually, a love story worth telling. They were in love and happy and I was the wrecker of a beautiful relationship.
Josslyn was hesitant and indecisive and Kyle was drunk and upset. It was all my fault. I was heartbroken and humiliated by the failing of my only relationship, I'd misunderstood theirs and thought that it had ended, and I'd always had Josslyn's permission to try my luck with any of her exes, except that Kyle wasn't that. I was sober and thinking and curious and stupid and childish and I had to deal with the consequences but I had no idea how.
I placed my shaking hands over my growingstomach. It was all my fault.
Nice
The house was bustling with movement that made me sicker than I had been the past few days. Mom and dad had been trying to rekindle their romance by going out on a date once every week, and it was a bit hectic every time before they left the house. Josslyn would insist on preparing mom like a teenager with clothes and colors she'd long since outgrown while I had to calm dad downstairs and listen to him complain about how much time and effort it all took and that that was why he'd stopped taking mom out a
nd convince him not to throw a tantrum and cancel. Then, as soon as they left, our friends or Kyle would show up and the house would remain wild with Josslyn's enthusiasm.
I liked sneaking people into our house without telling our parents, not that they would've minded us having our friends over, but it was the only somewhat-rebellious act I could pull off and it made me feel like a part of Josslyn's world when we were in on the same secret for a bit and I liked feeling included.
Josslyn was yelling for me to come help her with mom, dad was storming from one room to another downstairs wondering loudly what was taking so long and if it was worth it, Kyle was waiting behind our house for our parents to leave, and I was sick in the bathroom leaking from every opening in my face.
When I finally emerged from the bathroom, mom and dad had left, but Josslyn was still fretting down the hall. I followed the smell of lavender candles to her room and found her decorating her room. For him.
He hadn't been around since I found out that he remembered. I'd thought that he had the decency to be ashamed of what he'd said and done and hide himself from hanging around the both of us so guiltlessly, but it turned out that he'd just been busy and was going to make it up to Josslyn that night.
I'd known that they'd been enjoying their 'couples' privileges' since I got pregnant, but it was the first time they were going to spend a night while I knew that Kyle remembered what had happened between us. I felt like I was betraying my sister even more, letting her be with a guy who remembered whom he'd cheated on her with and refusing to acknowledge it as such because I looked like her. It was disgusting and shameful but I couldn't tell her. I couldn't break her heart by taking him from her or by admitting to being the one he'd cheated on her with, she would've never trusted anybody ever again, and despite what most people thought, my sister deserved to be happy after all the pain she'd gone through too early on.