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I tell myself they’ve all been together since freshman year. I’m new here, a transfer student walking into a social scene that’s already established. I tell myself to just give it some time. But this kind of isolation is unnerving. No, it’s damn near paralyzing for an identical twin who’s never once known the quiet solitude of being alone.
I call Sienna every afternoon. I call at around five, when I know she’s home from work. She puts me on speaker while she makes dinner for Garth, and I find myself asking her to describe each step of the process in detail. We both love to cook, but this intense interest I have in their supper has more to do with the fact that I want to keep her on the line for as long as humanly possible.
I need to hear her voice. She knows this. She knows I’m lonely without me having to say it. So she walks me through each step as she makes some new chicken recipe she saw onPioneer Woman. She regales me with stories about the most mundane details of our small-town life. She tells me who came in for a cleaning at the dental office that day, tells me who got engaged, who’s getting divorced, and tells me who they ran into when they were out shopping for a new television the day before.
I bite my tongue and refrain from telling her that they can’t afford a new television with a baby on the way, sticking to the pact I made with myself to butt out and stop criticizing their decisions. But damn, old habits die hard.
Sometimes she feels like one half of my body, my brain, and I am the other half of hers. But that’s not how it is. Sienna is separate from me, a married woman soon to have a family of her own. And as much as I tell her in the quiet of my own mind that she needs to grow up, maybe it’s me I’m talking to. I’m the one who needs to grow up, to let go and let her live her own life.
So now when we start heading for choppy waters, like tonight when she starts talking about the big Christening party they’re planning to throw at some cheesy catering hall one town over—totally out of their budget—I change the topic.
I usually ask her about the pregnancy because I want to be there, standing next to her and holding her hand at every check-up, but Garth is there by her side as it should be. But I do love hearing about it afterwards, about the heartbeat that sounds strong and healthy, and about every new weird and fascinating change her body is undergoing.
Tonight I lay back on my bed, resting my hand on my own flat stomach as she describes the fluttery, light feeling of the baby stirring inside of her.
Alone in my room, it’s moments like this when I’m at my weakest. After we hang up I stay there, imagine Tyler’s hand caressing that spot and looking up to my face with wonder in his eyes.
“I love you,” he whispers.
I could have that. I could have the comfort of my old life. We’d live just down the road from Garth and Sienna, be the foursome we’ve been since high school. We’d spend the weekends hanging out together and grilling dinner on Sunday afternoons in our yard or theirs. Raise our children together and be a family.
In those moments I don’t dwell on the money troubles we’d surely have, or the arguments over his gambling. I see things like they used to be. A dreamscape of jumping off the rocks into the river, Tyler holding me close and rubbing my shoulders to ward off the chill after splashing into that water. The air darkens as the scene changes to nights of kissing in his car, of clothes being shed. Heavy breaths between him asking if it feels all right.
I don’t know if I miss him or if I miss the comfort of being in a place where I’m known, where it’s easier.
I’ve never been one of those people who curse small-town life. I’ve never had this pressing urge to bust out of some imaginary cage, but I know people like that. Simon, a boy I used to crush on in high school even when I was dating Tyler, he used to talk about getting out of here like this was ground zero for some deadly, flesh-eating bacterial disease. I could never understand it.
It’s the opposite for me. I’m comforted by the familiar faces I see every time I pop into the grocery store or the diner. I like when people greet me by name and ask after my family. Although people generally avoid that sort of talk now, you know, since the scandal, tragedy, or whatever people refer to the crash as. But things have slowly started to return to some semblance of normalcy. People ask about Sienna, about the baby. They congratulate me on the scholarship and wish me well.
I’m going places, they tell me. But am I? Leaving home, getting that degree I’ve held in such high regard, what will it do for me? I’ve always pictured myself standing tall and accomplished with that diploma in hand, but will it be that way? Will it make me happy or will it make me feel like an alien in my old life?
I imagine myself with one foot firmly planted in my past, and one foot in this new world, the terrain uneven and hard to navigate.
I don’t know where I belong.
Chapter Five
Skylar
“Sienna?”
I stop in my tracks and turn to see who’s calling after me. Yes, it’s my sister’s name, but I’ve always answered to both, same as her.
I can cut my hair in a different style, wear make-up, adopt far-out fashion trends to differentiate myself, but it’s no use. We are identical in looks, mannerisms, the way we walk and the way we laugh.
“Jeez, you’ve got long legs. I’ve been chasing after you for the past couple of minutes.” One of my favorite teachers, Miss Dawson, is flushed and smiling at me. “What are you doing here?”
I have to stop myself from reaching out and hugging her because I think it will come of more like me clutching onto a lifeline. It just feels so good to see a familiar face, especially hers.
“Hi!” I let out on a squeak, my arms stiff at my sides but my smile matching hers.
“Skylar! Damn, I still always get you two confused.”
I shrug, still smiling like a loon. “It’s no biggie. We’re used to it.”
She gives me a quick once over before asking, “So you’re a student here?”
“I just started. Transferred in as a junior in September.”
