by Mariam Alaa
“Do you know me?” I ask him in a low voice and retreat back; a dark shade of red brushing my cheeks.
Just before he takes a look at his watch, attempting to check the time, I can’t help but notice how he stiffened at my question but then I remember how he looked at me like I’m a complete lunatic a few seconds ago which made my doubt myself.
Maybe I was just being too paranoid.
“Listen, I’m kind of really late for something here; how can I help you?” He asks, with an unmistakable annoyance, which was evident in both his voice and face, but once I got out the wallet from my black purse, it morphed to a one full of gratitude and understanding.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion; I just wanted to return this since I saw it fall out of your pocket earlier today,” I reply softly as I hand him the wallet.
He takes a few steps forward. “Thank God.”
He slowly takes it from my hands, making sure not to make any skin contact and pulls it directly to him. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere. Listen.” He flickers his eyes to me before saying, “Thank you for returning the wallet, but I’m really sorry; I have to go.”
Just as he was brushing past me as he made his way from his porch to his black Porsche, that I couldn’t help but notice as I came by, I grab his arm as a means of stopping him from leaving now.
“Wait, please!” He surely notices the eagerness in my voice because he stops in his tracks, giving me a chance to speak.
I pull my hands away from him. “I know I had no right to open your wallet, but while I was searching for your identity card amongst the other cards you own, I found a picture.”
He shifts his legs awkwardly and motions with his head for me to continue, clearly not getting where I’m heading at, so I explain slowly. “I saw the young girl in the picture, and I couldn’t help but notice how similar she looks like me. If you don’t mind me asking, who is she?”
He turned his entire body so that he faces me with a sudden vulnerability and sadness tainting his eyes as he replies, “She was the love of my life.”
“Was? Does that mean s-she…?” I gulped suddenly feeling that I was stepping into a private territory by asking questions I know that I have no right to even ask in the first place.
“She died in a car accident a few years ago.” He looks away, for he was desperate to shield the emotional vulnerability that’s so clear in his eyes that even a stranger like me could notice a mile away before saying that he has to go.
I tug at his arm once more, holding him back from leaving again. “Listen, I’m sorry for your loss; I can’t even imagine how difficult it must’ve been for you to lose her, but just answer me those last two questions please, and I promise I’ll leave.” I eye him with sympathy because I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been be for him to deal with the loss of a loved one.
“Do you know if I’m related to her? Did she ever mention me before? I mean: how do we share the same features? I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life.” Just as I spoke the words out, I couldn’t help but notice how crazy yet real the situation suddenly looks like.
“I wish I knew; she never mentioned her family before.” He taps his feet to the floor multiple times and urges me to ask the last question I have for him.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, confusion lacing my voice.
“I don’t.” His eyes matched my bewildered ones.
“But you said ‘Evie’ when you opened the door; that’s my nickname, so how did you know?” I press on the subject.
“I thought you were her.”
‘Who?’ I thought.
As if he read my thoughts, he looks up at the stars as he says, “I thought you were Evelyn.”
Later that night, I lay with my back on the bed, my arms tugged under my head and my eyes staring upwards at the ceiling. Today’s events rush through my brain and I can’t help but think about them- relive them. I feel so confused.
Never have I ever felt so lost in my life. Whenever I try closing my eyes shut to succumb to my drastic need of slumber, the image of the picture flashes through my mind. Either that or my earlier conversation with Adam about Evelyn, and I can’t help but feel that his actions were rather suspicious.
At first, when he looked surprised that I knocked on his door and when he said ‘Evie’, it drove suspicion into my heart that he actually knows me; when his expression seemed to be confused by how alike we are physically yet didn’t question it aloud, but one can’t always believe nor act on what he feels. There’s a boundary between reality and emotions that we cannot break, and reality is?
Only God knows.
What he told me and the emotions his eyes portrayed when mentioning Evelyn made me close to believing him, but what are the odds that his past lover had the same looks and nickname as mine? I don’t even know which is more relieving: me having some sort of a past connection to him that I, for some weird reason, have no knowledge about or him being truthful about losing his girlfriend, fiancée or wife who, for some other weird reason, looked exactly like me?
All of this thinking started to give me a headache that I thought I was about to drop unconscious, so I decided to head to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate to soothe my mind before I lose my sanity or head to sleep. After I tiptoed downstairs, careful not to make any creak that can wake my parents or brother up since it was midnight by now, and finished preparing it, I slowly returned back to my room.
Just as I was passing by Trevor’s room to reach mine, I heard a sound coming from inside his room.
Isn’t he supposed to be sleeping?
Slowly, I stepped closer to his semi-closed door and just as I was about to push it open, enter to question him about the reason why he’s not yet asleep, I stop dead in my tracks as my eardrums vibrate with the words escaping him.
“No, you can’t- not now. I don’t care! Better make her pissed than finding out the truth.”
Who is he talking about? Why is he even yelling at this time of the night? I shift closer to the door, making sure to stay hidden as I eavesdrop on his conversation.
“Listen, I’m telling you: I went to check up on Evangeline in her room, and I found a picture of Adam and ‘her’ on the floor.”
He’s talking about Evelyn? How the hell does he know Adam? When the hell did he even get the chance to break into my room?
“God knows what she’s thinking right now. Just do it! If she calls you and asks about it, you won’t be able to lie to her!” I jump a little at the sudden rise of temper in his voice.
Who is he talking to? And why the hell does he want a person to lie to me? My heart clenches in pain at the thought of my brother keeping secrets from me. We’ve always been close to each other; what happened?
“Listen.” He takes a deep breath trying to calm down. “Just avoid her till the day before the wedding, okay? Avoid calling her, meeting up with her, and all that stuff you guys usually do. We can’t put her under such stress and confusion the week before her wedding. If she finds out…” He gulps before he continues in a shaken voice, “If she finds out about Evelyn, it- it’ll destroy her.”
Apparently the person on the other line responds, and I can’t help but let out a hushed gasp of horror as the identity of the other person is revealed.
“Goodnight, Lexi.”
Chapter 3
Being clumsy was never considered a merit throughout my entire being. It never had a good timing like we actually see in the movies like trying to distract my mom from entering my brother’s room to check up on him when I knew he was at our school Barbie’s party and wasn’t going to return home until one am or losing my balance and crashing into a mysterious prince.
No.
In fact, it was always the opposite way around. My clumsiness always had the worst timings ever and had no effect on my life other than embarrassing me or getting me into trouble, so you can imagine the horror I felt when my feet slipped on the floor in the corridor and the mug with its co
ntents went flying from my hands, shattering into a hundred miniscule pieces as it made contact with the ceramic, white floor.
It took less than 3 seconds- literally- for the entire house lights to be turned on. Both of my parents came out of their rooms in a rush; my dad holding a baseball bat in his hand while my mom was clutching fearfully onto him from his back with a hand, while wiping her exhausted eyes with the other, and Trevor rushed out of his room a second later with his eyebrows raised mockingly at the mess I made.
Once my dad saw it was just me, he places the baseball bat aside and lends me a hand to pull me up. “Are you okay, Evie?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Once my mom grasped on the fact that it’s just me, she hurried aside to help me, while my brother woke up ‘Miranda’ –our housemaid- by calling out her name and asked her if she could clean this mess.
“Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” My mom asks as she inspects both my hands and feet, checking that no glass pieces managed to pierce my skin.
“I’m fine mom. You don’t have to always worry like that.” I shake my head, chuckling lightly as I remember how she snuck into my room to sleep beside me this one time when I told her I had a headache.
“You may be twenty four, young lady; you may have just graduated your college a couple of months ago, and you may be all grown up by now, but you’re still my daughter. How can you tell me not to worry about you, and what the hell were you doing? Why are you not asleep yet? It is a few minutes past midnight for God’s sake! Don’t waste your beauty sleep just like that; you need all what you can get before your wedding,” my mom rambles, and they all look at me expectedly as she waits for me to answer.
“Well?” My dad crosses his arms over his chest.
My mind is suddenly aware of the reason of why I’m in fact not yet in bed, so I cross my arms over my chest and look at Trevor accusingly as I ask, “Well, why don’t you share with us the reason why you were awake Trevor?”
The thought that I’ve been listening to his conversation all along suddenly seems to drop on Trevor’s mind, causing his eyes widen a tiny fraction or so before acting all confused to what the hell I was insinuating.
“Well, what was I doing, Evangeline?” He eyes me warily, and even though he was trying to act all cool on the outside, I definitely caught the fear swimming in his eyes. Fear of what I heard.
Fear of what I know, and the funny thing is I’m all clueless.
“Since when do you talk to Lexi? Why the hell were you yelling at her, asking her to keep a distance from me? Why would you tell her to avoid me, and how the hell do you know Evelyn and Adam?” I blurt out in livid bloody anger at the act he is trying to pull in front of our parents who were eyeing him weirdly once I claimed that he was awake as well.
I didn’t think that such simple questions could have my parents looking like they are very much about to lose conscious since it wasn’t even them I was questioning in the first place. My mom was covering her face with her hands, and I swear I saw her wipe a few unconscious tears that streamed down her face, while my dad looked at me in horror.
Their facial expressions caused me nothing but more and more bewilderment and a little bit of worry because they didn’t just look as if hearing this question was like pouring a bucket full of ice on them, their expressions were a combination of hatred and extreme fear. Fear as in what you would feel if you were all alone and saw a bloody ragged hand break through the graveyard into the air above the ground at midnight under a full moon.
My brother, though, reacted completely unaffected as he maintained an extremely cool facade like he was expecting something like this to happen, thus he ushered my parents to let him handle this with his hands, and that mere action caused nothing but break my heart even more than it already is. What were they hiding from me?
What are they so afraid of me finding out?
A strong pang of achiness overwhelmed my chest that caused a burning sensation to not only affect me physically but mentally. My mental state now matches one who’s just been clearly lied to because this- this just hurts: knowing that your parents and brother- the ones who are closest to you- are hiding something from you.
“Let me ask you this Evangeline.” Trevor takes a few steps closer as he continues, “How do you know—”
“Okay, why don’t we all just head to bed now and we can talk about this tomorrow?” My dad interrupts.
This?
What is even ‘this’ that we are talking about?
“Good idea,” my mom claims- of course.
They all nod stating how this is probably what’s best for us all now, but they couldn’t imagine how wrong they are. This is what they think is good for them; what about what’s good for me? How can they all agree to let me head to sleep when I knew that they- my own blood- were hiding something from me? They think I can sleep after they have shown me proof that they may be covering something big from me?
“You guys go to sleep; I’m going to change and go out for a walk,” I state, feeling as though I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
“At one am? You’re not going anywhere,” my father demands with a stern look on his face that says ‘I’m not changing my mind’.
“Well, it’s either that or we talk, and one of you tells me what the hell you guys are so afraid of me finding out because there’s one thing I know for sure is that this isn’t the kind of thing that family does: they don’t hide things from each other.”
With that said, I exit the corridor ,not meeting any of their gazes and head to my room to change with regret clouding my vision from the hurtful words I spoke, but the feeling is gone as soon as it came because no one stops me from leaving.
Not this time.
Chapter 4
For the past hour, I’ve been wandering all over the streets of London trying to clear out my thoughts from all this drama that suddenly decided it’ll be fun to ruin my life in the week of my wedding. Because my parents, my brother and I have always been close, especially my brother, the sadness overwhelming my chest hasn’t abandoned me yet.
I know that I was not one hundred percent sure that there’s something they’re keeping from me, but now I know that I should’ve trusted my instincts all along. What’s their deal with Adam? How do they even know him? How do they know Evelyn? If they do know them, does that mean they know me? Did Evelyn know me? Was that the reason why he was confused I appeared on his front door? Is Evelyn my twin? Did Adam lie to me?
While I was wondering about all of these mind-consuming thoughts, something suddenly hits me. Something I haven’t thought about. What if I’m the one who was picked up by the wrong family at birth? What if I’m the lost twin Evelyn could’ve been searching for?
Oh God no! Does that mean those people I live with aren’t my family? Does that mean Trevor isn’t my brother? My dad isn’t my father, and my mom isn’t my mother?
With all this thinking, I haven’t realized where my trail of path led me- Lexi’s house- until I spotted the familiar bakery shop ‘Rockstar Bakers’. It was a weird unconscious habit of mine that whenever I felt extremely down, starting from minor to major causes whether it was because I failed a test or a close relative passed away, it was here that my heart always led me.
Lexi was the only person whom I could always share my emotions with.
My comfort zone.
I remember once, a few years ago, I had a huge fight with Adrien because he wouldn’t let me attend our college’s most popular boy and his best friend- Noah Jacob’s party, stating how parties weren’t my scenery. Since he was busy that night, in helping out with his father’s company, and couldn’t attend the party with me, he literally ordered me not to go, claiming how there’ll be at least fifty drunk teenagers there. When I told him that I was going whether he liked it or not, he warned me that if Noah told Adrien that he spotted me there, we’re done. That was the first time I thought about how controlling and possessive he is, and I wasn’t anywhere near happy
to say the least. Even though Lexi, who didn’t even attend Oxford like we did, was going to the party since her parents gave her their approval, she didn’t when she opened her bedroom door and was met with my tear-stained face.
They were angry tears.
Maybe I was being overdramatic back then, but she was still there for me.
Trying to cheer me up, she didn’t leave me alone that night despite reminding her that the entire college students will be attending this party. I constantly told her that I won’t allow myself to be the reason that’s stopping her from going out and socializing with new people, but all she did was burst into a hysteria of giggles. “Are you kidding? Do I look like I do socializing? Dude, you’re my only friend- literally, so if you aren’t going, who will I have there to have fun with?”
Instead, she took me out to Starbucks, bought me my favorite chocolate Frappuccino, listened to my ramblings from the tiniest, irrelevant, stupid details to the major ones then took me back to her bedroom, switched on Gumball, which was our favorite cartoon, just so she could get me to laugh at least once. That’s how she always knew that I’m going to be okay.
As the memories flash back into my mind, the ends of my mouth start tugging down, for I wonder if her earlier conversation with my brother will have a toll on what will happen now.
When I was just about to knock on the front door with my hands, an alarm rang in my mind that it’s way past one am, thus it would be inappropriate to knock. Even though Lexi is still awake, I know from the millions of times I’ve slept over here that her parents head to bed by ten pm maximum.
My heart starts pounding faster as I slide my phone out of my pocket and call Lexi, waiting for her to answer. It rang one, two, three, four, five, six times before I was sent to voicemail and asked to leave a message.
In the six times I called her, I could see her sitting next to the window with her golden waves hiding her shoulders, wearing her favorite PJ’s and holding her phone each time it rang. Since the lights in her room were switched on, I saw how she ran her hand through the scalp of her hair several times before she started picking at her nails which is a habit I knew she followed without noticing whenever she was contemplating a decision.