by Dawn Klehr
And I’m just not sure I can do that. No matter the cost. Right now, our plan is the only thing that makes sense. One action to right the wrong and give us a new life.
Like Mom always used to say, “Two birds, one stone, my love. Two birds, one stone.”
2
One Year Earlier
Becca
You make the rules,” I told her.
They were four little words. Four very telling words that pretty much summed up my sixteen-year relationship with my twin sister, Brit. Four words that would play on an endless loop in my mind in the months that followed because they would become my final concession. And also the last words I said looking into her eyes—those green and almond-shaped pools of mystery that went all glossy when she was up to something.
She most definitely was.
That autumn day had started out like any other. I braided my hair in a long tail to keep it out of my face and dressed in a freshly starched pale blue button-down, khaki skirt, and Dad’s tweed coat—the one he was wearing when he found out he’d been accepted to Princeton’s graduate program. I considered it a uniform of sorts. Or armor, depending on the day. But that was a secret I’d never divulge.
“I swear to God, Bee,” Brit said from her perch at the vanity table in our bedroom. “I’m going to burn that damn thing. What do you think—wearing that is going to bring you luck? Like it’s some kind of good omand or something?”
“Omen,” I corrected her, even though it still wasn’t the right word. My twin was incredibly obtuse at times. Still, I always knew what she was trying to say. A fact that frightened me to my very core.
“Whatever.” She dismissed me with a flip of her wrist. “Is that why you wear it? Hoping the good juju will rub off ?”
“No,” I snapped, insulted. I most certainly was not superstitious. Far from it—I didn’t believe in luck. Most people got what they deserved based on their work ethic and decision-making capabilities. It was as simple as that. “I like the history of the coat. That’s all. Plus, it’s warm and goes with everything. Why do you find that so offensive?”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t”—Brit laughed—“if Dad ever went to Princeton. But since he got Mom knocked up and never made it to the Ivy League, I’d say anything you’d associate with that smelly coat is bunk. And it makes you look like a freak.”
As if that ever bothered me before.
What Brit failed to understand is that while she had clout among the masses at our crowded and neglected high school, I also carried weight inside those walls. Albeit my status was strictly reserved for kids in the Accelerated Student Program (ASP)—a small group of students enrolled in specialized courses since we had already surpassed most mainstream classes, especially in math and science. It was the only group in school that really mattered, in my opinion. Because the tide would eventually turn, and the people my sister worked so hard to impress would all be answering to us in the future. So being called a freak was hardly a concern.
And that bothered the hell out of my sister.
Downstairs at the breakfast table, my mother’s assessment of my wardrobe was in line with Brit’s, but she at least faked it. Mom had once been a girl just like Brit and they had a bond I never quite understood.
“Morning, girls,” Mom said without looking in my direction. “Don’t you two look nice today.” She ran her hand down my sister’s long wavy hair, which was perfectly tousled to give the impression she was relaxed and carefree. In reality, it took Brit over an hour to make it look that way.
I ignored them like I usually did, sat at the table, and began reading my physics material for the following week. Dad peeked out from his newspaper—the archaic, paper variety—to give me his signature wink. The one that said, we are superior to their kind.
Brit slurped her coffee, staring at me over her cup as I ate my granola and continued to read. It was her way of telling me to hurry up. We had things to discuss before school—more like, she had orders to hand down. Orders I didn’t want to hear. So I took my time, until she kicked me under the table.
I went to the refrigerator and grabbed the lunches (plural) that I’d made the night before. If I didn’t, Brit would end up stealing half of mine, so I now made two. Lunch money was just the latest luxury to go in our slide toward the poverty line. Of course, Brit said, “It’s okay, Dad. We can brownbag it. It’s healthier anyway.” Meanwhile, she was the one with her hands in his wallet—or pants pocket, or seat cushion, or dresser—slowly building up her beer funds for the weekend.
“Are you ready for tonight?” she asked when we got into my car. The car I’d paid for with my tutoring money. Not that she cared. The passenger side was full of dirt on the dashboard where she constantly propped her feet, and fingerprinted windows from her grimy digits drawing in the condensation. I’d given up on cleaning her side and strangely found comfort watching her sit there in her own filth each day.
“I’m ready,” I told her, having already agreed to her plan to get rid of my secret boyfriend. A guy, she said, who wasn’t worth shit.
“Just act normal.” She reapplied her lip gloss. “It’ll all be over soon enough.”
My chest clenched a little at those words, but I pushed away the thought. She picked up on it, though. The next moment, she was leaning over the seat and I was trapped in one of her confining hugs.
I went limp on contact, like I usually do when anyone touches me unexpectedly.
I don’t like to be touched that way. Unexpectedly. In certain situations, I can fake it. A hug for my aunt in greeting. A grateful handshake for a professor after a compelling lecture at an ASP event.
And sex. Then I don’t mind it. After all, touching is the nature of the act. Even the unnecessary moves—the grabs and strokes and holding—make sense in the moment because they’re leading up to something.
But an unwarranted hug, or brush of the leg, or squeeze of the arm?
No.
Just no.
That makes me queasy.
“It’s for the best,” my sister said in my ear after the unwarranted contact. “You know I’ve always got your back.”
Brit loved exercising her self-appointed position as HBIC (Head Bitch in Charge). To me, she was simply HB. My sister was the type of person who got off on power, especially over boys. This latest situation I’d fallen into was her favorite type of problem to fix.
We’d argued about her plans, and I’d made a damn good case for her to just drop it, but in the end Brit prevailed. That was nothing new. She was going to pay him a visit after school. It was as good as done.
At first I wasn’t worried, because I was prepared. To survive my childhood with Brit, I’d always had to be one step ahead of the game. This time was no different; I was ready.
Once we got to school, I parked at the far end of the lot, where the risk of a door ding was at its lowest. We walked to the side door of the building, where I immediately caught his stocky body against the wall, lurking in his normal spot. I tried to shake him off with a curt nod and pushed Brit inside the door to keep her from noticing. I would not be joining him today.
“Jesus, Becca,” Brit said.
“Sorry.” I kept shoving. “I’m going to be late for class.”
“Nice try.” She moved out of my reach. “We still have ten minutes.”
“But I need to talk to my teacher before the bell.”
“You have issues.” She painted on her smile and waved to the clones as they shuffled by us. “Seriously, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t break the curve for every flippin’ assignment.”
I let it go because my distraction served its purpose and there was no point in engaging any longer. Wiping my sweaty palms on my skirt, I nodded. “You’re right. I’m just nervous. We have a lot going on today.”
She softened then. As much as Brit loved to give me grief, she loved
to comfort me as well. Hugs and kind words; gentle pats on the back and teen-pageant smiles. I find it odd that there’s such a fine line between love and hate. With my sister, that line was razor-thin.
“Don’t worry,” Brit said. “I’ve got this. Give me your keys. I have Kelser last period and can talk him into letting me out early. I’ll get the car and meet you here right after the bell. Don’t be late. Then I’ll drop you at home and go take care of our little problem. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, handing her the keys. “You make the rules.”
She twirled the key chain around her index finger and grinned. That was just the way she liked it.
3
Johnny
After the bell dismisses History class, Becca meets me in the hallway. My gut sinks when her eyes follow Travis as he walks out the door. A predator and its prey.
When she turns to look at me, however, her eyes warm and shine the brightest green. She tips her head to the side in greeting and her strawberry-colored hair falls haphazardly around her shoulders. Our tutoring relationship became a little more interesting six months ago, and we’ve been together ever since. But I still get mental around her. It doesn’t help that I haven’t seen her since yesterday.
Last night she was volunteering at the hospital, but the night before we went to the movies. Becca indulged me; she’s not into movies. After, we had sex in her car. It sounds cheap, but it wasn’t. I love—make that adore—the girl. Though she makes me completely crazy. The way she gives one minute—her time, her attention, her body—and then withholds it the next. It keeps me coming back for more, and has me agreeing to almost anything. When she’s in my line of sight, everything but Becca blurs and goes fuzzy.
It does for her, too. I know it does, even if she won’t admit it.
It’s a chemical reaction, she’d say. She always has some sort of logical explanation for the illogical. Like when I told her I loved her for the first time and she said, “No you don’t.” She was absolutely serious.
“You’re feeling a chemical reaction,” she continued. “Though we may call it love, it’s really only a reaction from the estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and oxytocin in the body. That’s what neuroscience tells us. Or the feelings could simply be from some biological need all humans have to pass along their genes. And I won’t even go into the psychology of it all.”
I just laughed. It was all I could do. Then I conducted my own chemical experiment, crushing my lips into hers, letting my body tell her how I felt.
That shut her up for a while.
“Hey, Beautiful Mind,” I say now, crossing the hallway to her.
She rolls her eyes. She hates when I call her that, which is exactly why I still do it. Though I don’t mean it in the John Nash schizophrenic way; I mean it in the brilliant mathematical way. I’m pretty convinced my girlfriend is a genius.
Johnny Vega—dating the school’s valedictorian. Who would’ve thought?
I put my arm around Becca and pull her to my side. She’s bony and her skin feels like ice. This is all taking a serious toll on her. I’m sure she didn’t sleep last night either. It’s been this way for weeks now. I just hope when it’s all over, we can go back to normal. Whatever that might look like.
“Are you okay?” I whisper in her ear. She blinks and gives me a quick smile.
“I’m fine,” she says as she squirms out of my arms.
And that’s Becca. She pretends not to feel. She tries to be logical and clinical and cold. But she hurts. She hurts harder than anyone I know, and that’s including my dad—who lost his other half too.
Last year, Becca lost her twin sister Brit in a car accident.
It was the same accident that took my mom; the accident that brought Becca to me. When we first started talking, I was in pretty rough shape. But Becca? She was worse. Her parents were making her go to Twinless Twins, a support group based on some specific twins-related psychology. It was about the saddest thing I’d ever heard. I’ve since discovered that psychology might actually be my thing, but it’s Becca’s nemesis. It’s one of the sciences that she believes holds no weight. I can’t imagine the kind of shit she pulled in that group, but know it couldn’t’ve been good. I think she lasted three weeks. On her terms or theirs, I have no clue.
Becca looks up and those green eyes zero in on me. She knows I’m analyzing her. She doesn’t like that, either. So she backs me up against the row of lockers and kisses me.
She brushes her lips across mine, slowly, gently. Her tongue slides along my bottom lip ever so slightly. And before I can run my hand up the back of her neck to hold her in place, she slips away.
It’s one of her distraction techniques—one of the better ones. For someone who says she’s never had a boyfriend, she knows what she’s doing. I’m completely wrapped around her little finger.
Mr. Swanson walks by and clears his throat.
“Uh-oh,” Becca whispers. “The Enforcer.”
That’s one of my girl’s many—shall we say—quirks. She doesn’t like to use people’s names, other than mine, anyway. She prefers her self-designated titles: The Enforcer, Pack Leader, Hall Monitor, Socio, Daddy Issues. She likes to keep a nice healthy distance from anyone and everyone because, in her mind, it helps her stay in control.
For Travis Kent? Well, she refers to that asshole as The Opponent. I guess it’s because she considers all of this some kind of fucked-up game.
Once I asked how she would label herself. Broken Girl, she answered.
I’d have to agree with that.
I pull Becca back to me, not willing to lose our connection so soon. My arms snake around her and my hands settle on the small of her back. I have to fight the urge to let them drop lower. Becca has no idea how hot she is, and that only makes her more appealing. I nestle into her neck, breathing in her clean, soapy scent.
For once, she lets me.
The two of us stand there in the hallway, wrapped up in each other, as the whole world continues to go on around us. Unaware of the pain that threatens to break us every day, or the strength we gain from it. Oblivious to our plan to make things right.
Tonight, everything has been arranged down to the minute. Yes, it’s rash and cruel and twisted. But nobody will get hurt. And we need this, Becca and me. With each day that passes without Mom and Brit, we both die a little. Soon there’ll be nothing left of either of us.
When I finally release her, Becca’s eyes droop like they do every time she’s worried. We’re taking such a big risk tonight. It could be the end of everything, and I know she feels it too.
“Come on, Vega.” She bumps my hip. “Pretend you’re a gentleman and walk me to class.”
I grab her hand, trying not to think about anything but this—walking with my girl in school. Just like any normal couple. We reach her class as the warning bell goes off, giving me two minutes to get to the other end of the building.
“Better get to class,” I tell her. “I can’t be late.”
Becca nods. She knows this. We can’t have any missteps.
“Okay, see you tonight.”
“Here, take this,” I add, shoving a granola bar into the chest pocket of her button-down shirt. “I like my women with a little meat on their bones.”
Then I break into a run down the hall. And for the rest of the day I get lost in my head, mapping out every detail of tonight’s plan.
Becca would call it proper planning.
The authorities would call it premeditation.
4
Becca
On the drive home that day, music blared from my cheap car speakers and Brit bit at her lip. She gnawed and chewed at it until tiny translucent pieces of skin flaked off, leaving little speckles of blood in their wake. She was scheming.
She drove exactly twelve miles over the speed limit, leaving a residue o
f cake-batter-fragranced lotion on the steering wheel from her over-moisturized hands. I knew I’d eventually become nauseated by the scent.
While she was lost in her own thoughts, I turned the radio to NPR. It was another discussion about downfall of our great city, one that must have brought them high ratings because they went at it from all angles. People were all too happy to listen. We’re peculiar creatures in that way—it’s like sad, tragic, and depressing news gives us an excuse or reason why our lives are so disappointing. We can’t get enough of it.
The story piqued my interest too, but for different reasons. It was all about crime. Apparently, if you wanted to get away with murder, Detroit was the place to do it. And according to the “expert” on the radio, the facts were indisputable. I only caught the last three of them:
Fact: 91% of Detroit crimes go unsolved
Fact: 70% of all murders go unsolved
Fact: 40% of the area’s streetlights are currently out of commission
In summary, Detroit was dark and dangerous. These were facts that would stay with me for quite some time, though I had no idea how important they’d become.
Brit and I didn’t talk at all during the drive, though my sister still managed to reach for me when we came to the railroad tracks. We lifted our legs and slapped the roof of the car with our linked hands as we crossed. We’d done this a million times before.
It was for luck, according to Brit. Yet despite doing our little ritual all those times, we were the most doomed twosome you’d ever meet. There’s no such thing as luck, just as I said.
Still, those were the moments I liked best with my sister. The quiet times when we didn’t need to talk were when we said the most to each other. I’d always been terrified of my feelings. I rarely showed emotion. Not because I didn’t feel, because I felt too much. My feelings were too intense, and I worried that if I chose to acknowledge them, they’d consume me whole. It was easier to push them down. They were for the weak, anyway. Over the years, I’d learned to manage my emotions, contain them. I’d learned to place logic and reasoning and control above all else.