The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  I’ve never felt more relieved. I don’t deserve a friend this loyal. But, selfishly, I know I need him. I always have, ever since we were kids.

  The next few weeks pass quickly as we prepare for end-of-term exams. Ollie’s initial surprise at my confession that I’m a clone has morphed into concern. If I’m a Similar, then I, too, can be terminated by Gravelle’s stealth virus. Though I tell him not to dwell on that—even as it hangs over me, a constant threat—I notice he seems even more protective of me than usual. I can’t go anywhere on campus without Ollie popping up.

  I manage to avoid Levi until we all leave for Christmas break, except for one encounter in the library. We’re both returning books we’ve checked out over the semester. I feel an intense pang as I see him standing there at the book return, wearing his signature crisp white T-shirt, even in the dead of winter. I remember how strong and warm his arms are. I feel so vulnerable in his presence, I could break.

  I notice the book on the top of his stack: Brave New World. I start to tell him what I think of that novel, how it woke me up and shook me to my core. But I stop myself, afraid of what I might say instead, without meaning to.

  I walk out the library door into the blustery air. It’s the last time I see Levi until the new year.

  • • •

  Jane invites me to spend the holiday with her, Booker, Ollie, and the twins in the Caribbean, and a small part of me longs to say yes, but I know I can’t. I’m not that Emma, the one who can be casual and free and light, and who can throw herself into a beach-filled vacation with Ollie. I doubt I ever will be again. There’s too much uncertainty. Too many fractures in my battered heart. I wish I could love Ollie in an uncomplicated way, and be like any other girl I know he’ll end up loving, one day. But right now, my life’s too messy. I can’t put this off any longer. I have to talk to my father.

  I haven’t seen him since he accompanied me to school in September. I don’t know for a fact he saw my essay in The Daily Darkwood, but if I had to guess, he’s spotted it, one way or another. And if he has, he knows that I know. I’m a clone.

  The morning of my flight, two days before Christmas, I walk with Ollie along the path by Dark Lake, my hands deep in my coat pockets. The air is freezing and crisp, and Ollie’s hair, wet from the shower, glistens in the light.

  “You’re going to get icicles on your head,” I warn him, teasing. “It’s below freezing out.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he answers, smiling. But he flips his hood up over his ears.

  “So you’re spending the holiday here in Vermont, right?” I ask as we round a corner and the lake becomes visible through the trees. I wonder if it’s completely iced over by now.

  “Yup. Then Booker’s flying out to meet us so we can travel together to Saint Lucia,” Ollie answers, his gaze on the distant horizon. “You sure you can’t come with us, Em?” Ollie asks, turning toward me. I’ve taken my hands out of my pockets to rub them together—even with gloves on, my fingers are chilly—and before I know it, Ollie’s holding my hands in his own. I feel an instant warmth radiating from my hands to my arms. It’s sudden and unexpected. And not unwelcome.

  “I can’t avoid my dad any longer,” I answer quickly. “We haven’t talked yet.” I don’t have to elaborate; Ollie knows what I mean. Of course, this isn’t the only reason I can’t come with them on their trip. But it’s the most pressing, and it’s the only one I can say out loud.

  “Em…”

  “Yes?” I breathe, my mind suddenly bombarded with the image of us kissing. I can’t stop it from filling my mind, as much as I want to. It’s because we’re standing here, so close. And we’re holding hands.

  “No matter what your dad says, or what happens,” Ollie says, “you are still you. I’m still me. This news only changes the facts of your birth—but not everything your life has been since. Not who you are, fundamentally, as a person.”

  I nod, feeling tears pricking my eyes. “Same goes for you. Gravelle being your father only changes the facts. Not the meaning.”

  “Touché.” Ollie laughs, but I can tell what I’ve said has gotten through to him. Why didn’t I tell Ollie about my suspicions from day one? Why didn’t I let him in, so he could help me work through all my complicated feelings around being a Similar? That was such a mistake. Ollie’s been my person since forever. The person who’s loved me unconditionally and stood by me and somehow—in spite of all my flaws—never judged me, not for one second. How did I miss that? How could I forget that?

  “Emma, I’ve been wanting to tell you something for ages. Ever since the night of that stupid masquerade ball I forced you to go to. Before that, even. But then I never got a chance to, and when it seemed like maybe you were pushing me away, I started to doubt myself. And I told myself not to say anything at all—”

  “I know.”

  Ollie looks taken aback. His brow furrows under his too-long bangs. “You do?”

  “You kissed me, didn’t you?”

  “And you kissed back.”

  I nod. “Why now? What’s changed, Ollie?”

  “Everything’s changed!” he blurts, his gray eyes piercing mine in the morning light. There’s something desperate behind them, and hungry. My throat catches and I’m hyperaware that my hands are still in his. “Nothing’s been the same since last year. We play our roles and make our same jokes, and we hang out like nothing’s different. But Emma—I never would have even known about you and Levi if I hadn’t seen that photo, the night of the hazing. Sure, I knew in my gut that something was different. But you never told me. I’m your best friend. In the whole world. We lost each other, and we were somehow lucky enough to get each other back. Shouldn’t that make us close enough to always tell each other the truth? No matter what?”

  “He’s your Similar,” I gasp, feeling my eyes welling over. “How was I supposed to tell you that he and I…”

  “And the fact that you’re a clone,” he keeps talking, clearly needing to get this out. “You kept that from me, all that time?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “No, Em, you’re not understanding.” He’s dropped my hands now and is pacing on the grassy path. “I’m not mad at you. I would never be angry at you for holding back something like that. I know you didn’t do it to hurt me. On the contrary, you did it in part to protect me. But Emma, don’t you see what all this means? We’ve been shutting each other out. Growing apart. Keeping things from each other. You didn’t tell me everything, and I—I didn’t tell you how I really feel. Which is this.”

  My breath quickens, every nerve ending in my body standing at attention. He’s going to say it now, and there will be no going back.

  “The entire time I was there, on Castor Island, you were all I could think about. I’ve loved you for years now, Emma. You know that, don’t you? When I first told you how I felt—back in our second year—I was awkward and immature about it and my words were clunky and inadequate, and it scared you. I get that. It scared me too. We were kids—what did we know about love? We had our whole lives ahead of us. Love was this distant concept, and it always felt like we’d have time. So much of it. I guess it took me being kidnapped and separated from you for months for me to realize how much that love I felt, it wasn’t going anywhere. It was real. And almost dying, thinking I might never see you again… It gave it all an urgency I’d never felt before. Like I’d always just taken us for granted. Because I always thought we’d just be there—an us—and that life would take us in all kinds of different directions, but we’d always come back to each other. And that one day, everything would just fall in place. And we’d be together.”

  Ollie stops pacing now and grabs my hands again. His face is inches from mine, and my body responds to his, leaning into him as he draws me closer.

  “Emma, you are pretty much everything to me. And if we don’t…if something were to happen again… I can’t wait any
longer, for you to know that. I need you to know it now.”

  The world spins, and Ollie’s hand is on the small of my back, and our mouths meet in that gentle, sweet way they did the last time we kissed.

  I sink into him, feeling the heat rising from my toes up my body, and for a few more seconds I’m not thinking about anything, or anyone, else.

  When the kiss breaks, I am reeling.

  I know how I just felt; I can’t deny that.

  But is this what I want?

  Levi, a voice in my head reminds me. Levi’s the one you want. Even if you’re angry at him. Even if the two of you can never be…

  “I can’t,” I whisper to Ollie, wrenching my hands from his and reacting with the force of a freight train barreling into me. “I’m sorry.” I take one last look at his familiar face before turning in the grass and running, away from him, away from everything that just happened. And everything he said.

  I gun it back to main campus, my mind whirling, my heart thumping against my rib cage. I remind myself I’m not that carefree girl who could see myself with him. Loving Ollie, the way he should be loved. I can’t be that girl. I’ll never be that girl.

  I feel like I’ve cut off my own right arm. If Ollie’s hurting right now, if he’s angry, and if he feels betrayed…it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me again. I should have pulled away. I should have been clear with him, that we can’t be an us. That he deserves someone who isn’t in love with someone else. That he deserves someone without so many secrets and fears and demons.

  On the two-hour car ride to the Burlington airport, the kiss plays on a loop in my mind, driving me close to madness. Desperate to banish from my head the image of Ollie’s stricken face as I left him standing there on the shore, I concentrate on what I’ll say to my father when I see him. How will I react? Will I cry? Will I be numb, like I feel now?

  I work on my college applications the entire flight home, trying to be productive for eight hours instead of obsessing about Ollie, and about my looming confrontation with my father. Because that’s what it will be, isn’t it? There’s no having this conversation in a casual way.

  Finally at my house, I let myself in the front door and make sure the security alarm’s not on.

  “Genevieve?” I prompt our household bot. “I’m home.”

  “In here, Emma,” a voice calls out from the kitchen. I park my rolling suitcase in the foyer and steel myself for what I’m about to do. My dad’s home. This is going to happen now. It has to. There will be no more putting it off.

  I step inside our light-filled kitchen. Even close to twilight, the sun streams in through our floor-to-ceiling windows. My dad’s at the kitchen island, typing away on a tablet. Work, I’m sure. He finally looks up.

  “How was your flight?” he asks, crossing from the island to hug me. I let him, though it’s stiff, and I’m trembling. Who’s going to say something first? It’s going to be up to me, isn’t it?

  “Dad. That essay. My essay—”

  “I wish you’d consulted me first, Emmaline.” I watch as my father walks to the sink, fills a glass with filtered water.

  “Consulted you?” The words sound like they’re coming from someone else, not me.

  “Did you consider how political that essay would be? How polarizing? How, with its publication, you may have invited scores of trolls and clone-haters into our lives?” My father takes a sip of his water. I can’t read his expression. All I hear are the words he’s saying to me: words of disapproval. Shouldn’t he be apologizing for lying to me my whole life? Not criticizing what I’ve done?

  “It’s lucky Jaeger Stanwick alerted me to your essay a few days after it was published,” my father continues. “I immediately asked Jane Ward to take it down, and as a courtesy to me, as old friends, she complied. She agreed it compromised your safety,” my father adds. “Thank goodness it wasn’t picked up by any national news outlets.”

  My father took my essay down from The Daily Darkwood? Without my permission? Without even telling me? And Jane was in on it?

  “Emmaline,” he goes on. “Before you berate me. This is a security issue. It’s not only your safety I’m concerned with, but mine as well. I’m the CEO of a highly public company. This kind of information could be used against both of us—”

  “I’m sorry I’ve put your business dealings at risk,” I snap, willing tears not to pool in my eyes.

  “That’s not what I meant,” my father answers, looking hurt for the first time. He’s hurt? After what he’s put me through? “I’m a target, Emmaline. Or I would be, if anyone were to find out.”

  “Is that why you didn’t tell me the truth all these years? Because you were afraid I’d spill the beans? Let the world know what you’d done?”

  My father takes in an audible breath. “What I…”

  “Sorry,” I answer. “I mean what Gravelle did for you. You certainly didn’t refuse his generous gift, though, did you? I mean, you could have given me back. But you didn’t.”

  Those words hang in the air, fraught. I know I really have hurt him now. I meant to.

  “I can’t believe you’d think that I ever could have…” my father says, his voice low. “Given you back, as you so bluntly put it. Emma, when you came into my life—”

  “No,” I choke out. “Don’t. I came home to get an apology, and a real explanation. Not to hear lies and manipulations and half-truths.”

  “I wish you could see—”

  “What? That you’ve never really loved me, because I’ll never be her?” I don’t bother to wipe away my tears. I let them flow, unabated. “Save it, Dad. I’m going to my room.”

  I turn and go, leaving my suitcase behind, forgotten, in the front hallway.

  Holiday

  A few hours later, I venture downstairs. There’s no sign of my father.

  “He’s upstairs in his office,” Genevieve informs me, in that uncanny way she has of anticipating my needs before I voice them. She’s far from personable, but still, even hearing her matter-of-fact voice pipe through the sound system is comforting.

  “Dinner’s in the fridge,” she continues. “Your dad has work to catch up on but will see you later this evening.”

  Genevieve doesn’t say it, but it’s obvious my father’s avoiding me after our tense conversation. I understand his urge to hide. We aren’t that different, he and I. I fix myself the lasagna and salad he’s set aside for me and am digging in when the doorbell rings.

  “Emmaline,” Genevieve’s voice rings out. “There’s someone at—”

  “I heard,” I answer, climbing down from my barstool and padding to the front door in my socks. “Thanks.” It’s almost seven o’clock. Who would be visiting us now? If it were a package, they’d leave it in the garage.

  I peek through the curtain on the window and see a man and a woman, snazzily dressed, standing on the front stoop.

  “Yes?” I say through the intercom.

  “Delivery for Colin Chance. We’re his interior design team,” says the woman.

  I sigh, opening the door for them. They walk in busily with bags and boxes, introducing themselves and explaining that the house is getting an update. New lamps, new throw pillows.

  “Whatever.” I shrug. I had no idea my dad cared about that kind of stuff. Our house is decorated just fine, albeit impersonally. “He’s upstairs, in his office,” I inform them before returning to my lasagna.

  As they bustle about, replacing a lamp and measuring for new window shades, I wonder when my dad will emerge from his study. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed in there all night, to avoid finishing our conversation. I curl up on the couch and try to lose myself in mindless TV, but all I can think about is what I’ll say to him, when I do see him later. If I’ll finally tell him how hurt I am. Because it occurs to me he might be so focused on how all this affects him—he
might not even know.

  • • •

  I wake up the next morning to find I’m still lying on the couch. Someone’s laid a blanket over me and tucked in the edges. Confused, I sit up.

  “Genevieve? What time is it?”

  “Eleven o’clock in the morning. You were extraordinarily tired last night,” she explains. “Your father left you a note. It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  I pad over in my socks, rubbing sleep out of my eyes, and pick up the paper. It’s my father’s monogrammed letterhead. CC, for Colin Chance.

  Dear Emma,

  I had to leave abruptly this morning for a last-minute trip to Tokyo. Unfortunately, business goes on even with the holiday tomorrow. I hope you can understand.

  There’s nothing I can say in this note that will instantly make everything okay between us, but please know that I love you, and we’ll talk in the new year.

  Your Christmas gift is in the living room under the tree.

  Love,

  Dad

  I set down the note, feeling spent. This isn’t the apology I was looking for, and it definitely isn’t the explanation. So that’s how it’s going to be. My dad’s going to continue to skirt the issues of who I really am, of what he’s done.

  If only he would sit down and talk to me like an adult. If only he would show me he respects me enough to answer all my questions. To hear me out.

  I pad into the living room and retrieve the lone envelope that sits under the tree, a forest-green fir wrapped exclusively in tiny silver bells. The envelope has my name on it, but I don’t open it. I slip it into a side pocket of my suitcase.

  “Dash? Any buzzes from Ollie?”

  “No, Emmaline,” Dash responds. “I’m sorry.”

  Ollie and I haven’t exchanged as much as an emoji since I left him standing there by Dark Lake. I feel miserable without my best friend to talk to, and even more so knowing it’s my own fault. Ollie’s right; there has been a chasm growing between us. Now I’ve made it even wider.