Duplicity Read online

  I think of Dad calling me a waste of talent.

  I snatch the thumb drive off the desk and flip it into my pocket.

  * * *

  “It’s time to straighten up, son,” Dad says, as he backs my ten-year-old Corolla out of the driveway. I gaze longingly at the silver BMW Z4 in the garage, which used to be mine before I got three speeding tickets and Dad got sick of shelling out bribe money to keep my license active. Still, it was worth the sacrifice. Dad drove me to school for a whole week after.

  “Your mother’s working eighty-hour weeks, you know, with not a day off in between. She deserves to come home to a quiet house. You need to think of how hard this is on her, with all the traveling I have to do right now. Yet she still finds time to go to the grocery and clean and fill your pocket with lunch money. It would be nice if you showed some appreciation. No more ditching. No more skipping assignments, and I’m serious this time. You’re out of this house as soon as you graduate if you don’t have a college lined up, you hear?”

  “Whatever.”

  I slump against the seat and watch the Corolla’s side mirror. Dad starts in about other privileges I’ll lose (iPhone, Internet, my human rights) if I continue doing what I’ve done the past five years, and I tune him out because I’ve heard it all before. Instead I think about third period. Spanish III. Where I sit right next to Emma Jennings.

  “… a total embarrassment for someone in my position. Your mother and I don’t understand why you can’t just…”

  The reflection in the side mirror rolls its eyes. I sit straight up, look at Dad, look back at the mirror, then down at my hands. I’m clenching the seatbelt, but in the mirror, my hand unscrews the bar piercing I have through the bridge of my nose, removes it, and tosses the silver out the window.

  I stare at it until the reflection flashes, and it’s me again—I mean, it’s always been me, but now it’s wide-eyed, white-faced me—and I feel up the ridge of my nose.

  No more piercing.

  “Do you have a test today?” Dad asks. “Is that why you’re so nervous?”

  “Er, no,” I stammer, refusing now to look at the glass in case something else goes missing. “It’s, um, about a girl, kind of. Not exactly excited to—”

  “You and Ginger broke it off already? Could’ve told you that wouldn’t last. Girls like that are only trouble, and she knows we have money—”

  “God, Dad, Ginger was six months ago! This is … someone else. Doesn’t matter, don’t want to talk about it, aaaugh!”

  I jerk back against the seat as my reflection throws both nose rings out the window. It didn’t hurt, didn’t feel like much of anything, but when I grab my nose I find only the holes where they used to be. I must be high. That or it’s one of those stupid dreams where your alarm goes off and you eat breakfast and go to school, only to realize you’re buck naked, and five minutes later the real alarm goes off and you’ve never been happier to actually get up.

  I’m praying that’s what it is. I take a deep breath and run a hand through my hair and sink low so I can’t see the mirror.

  “Brandon, what is—” The sound of crickets fills the car. Dad fumbles with something in his pocket, almost takes the Corolla up a curb, then flips his cell phone to his ear. “Matthew Eriks speaking. Doug! I’m glad you called, did you get my report…”

  That’s how we pull into the school lot. Dad yacking with Doug and me feeling up and down my face. I jack the door open while the Corolla’s still rolling and get as far away from it as the narrow sidewalk allows, but I don’t lose any more metal, and Dad’s turned around before I even have a chance to look back.

  * * *

  By the time I get inside, I’ve convinced myself I forgot to put those piercings in this morning. I’m hallucinating about the mirrors because I’m running on three hours’ sleep. There’s no other explanation for it.

  (Here’s the game, hacker.)

  No other explanation.

  I have five minutes until the bell rings to dismiss first period, so I shove my backpack into my locker and grab my Spanish homework and a pen. It’s the only homework I did this weekend, since Emma and I did it together.

  Before she ruined everything.

  Before she said—

  I grit my teeth and stuff the paper in the trash.

  I take my usual route down maroon hallways; right, left, left, and I’m in The Corner, a small area that opens to the second floor. Sometimes kids throw crap off the balcony, but they’ve known for a while now not to throw anything at me. The sun shifts down from windows in the ceiling. I slide against the wall just outside the light. Press my fingers along my nose until I realize what I’m doing and promptly pull out my phone.

  The thumb drive in my pocket burns like a hot coal. I fish it out and plug the adaptor into the phone to check that the accounts are actually there. I don’t know if I’m more or less confused to see that they are, but I’m not exactly a stranger to doing things I don’t remember, so if zoomfish actually worked, I’ll roll with it.

  200. You game? I text.

  My phone vibrates thirty seconds later. When can we play?

  11.5, I type. I slip the phone into my pocket as laughter drifts around the corner, soon followed by the last two people I wanted to see today.

  Dad’s right about one thing. Girls like Ginger are trouble. Candy pink hair, bangs swept over one eye, dark makeup that makes her green eyes promise you anything you want. And always pushing the dress codes, today in a loose black tentacle skirt whose shorter pieces can’t be longer than twelve inches, atop torn fishnets and knee-high buckle boots, like something out of a pirate fantasy. Her long-sleeved shirt might’ve been school legal if the lace in the front didn’t dip so low.

  I don’t need to look at Beretta to know what she’s wearing. Kid thinks she’s a zombie and bites like one too, and she’s always in something dirt-stained and torn.

  “Well, well,” Ginger says in her babydoll voice. “Look who’s back in The Corner. Thought you’d switched crowds on us. I can totally picture you in Calvin Klein.”

  I shoot her a glare and pull my phone back out. Ginger saunters over, darkening my screen with her shadow.

  “Branching out to corrupt the innocent now, are you?” she says. “Or maybe you’re going soft on us.”

  My phone buzzes. I tap to open the message and then Ginger’s finger is on my nose, where the metal between my eyes used to be. I grab her hand and squeeze, hard.

  “Ouch, Brandon, damn!” She pulls away, then raises an eyebrow. “So if you’re not going soft … did you do any corrupting while you were gone?”

  See you then, says the message from my contact. I think about fifty grand, about the ZR1 Corvette I’ve been wanting, and it must bring a smile to my face because Ginger squeals.

  “No!” she says, hand to her mouth. “You took Emma Jennings’s v-card, didn’t you? Dog!”

  “What?” Beretta shouts, fingers frozen over her smartphone. “And you haven’t burst into flames yet?”

  “Ginge, shut up!” I say. “I didn’t take any v-cards. Emma’s just been helping me with Spanish and econ, okay? End of story. Leave me alone.”

  Her smile softens. “Baby, you haven’t called me Ginge since we broke up.”

  For once I’d like a girl to exist who didn’t overanalyze everything. I’ve never been so grateful to hear the period bell, loud and metallic from the overhead speakers, and I scoop up my book and head for the hall. I’ve almost escaped when Ginger grabs me by the belt loop and swings in front of me.

  “You know, I’ve missed you a lot,” she says, tracing a black fingernail over the R on my shirt.

  “She really has,” Beretta says behind her, fingers flying over her phone screen. “I’m sick of hearing about it, so if you could just get back together so I could hear about something else please, that would be great.”

  “Forget it,” I say.

  Ginger trails her finger down my chest and gives me a twisted little grin. “You remem
ber how good I am at making up?”

  “Almost as good as you are at being annoying,” I snap, pushing her hand away.

  “Oh, come on,” she says, hands on her hips. “I made you happy.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “I won’t pick fights about stupid stuff. Promise. I’ll limit my texts to very important announcements only.” She steps closer. “Everything else was good, right?”

  “We’re done, Ginger.”

  I skirt around her, past giant “Deathrow” Riggs and his Goth group. She follows and grabs my hand. I shake her off.

  “Look,” I say. “The only way you have a chance of spending time with me is if you know anything about trig. I have an assignment due tomorrow and I haven’t paid attention half the semester.”

  She considers this and tries for my hand again. I shake her off. Again.

  “Sure,” she says. “I’ll stop by tonight.”

  “I meant during school, you know like—” She disappears in the other direction. “Lunch or something.”

  I’ll probably need a restraining order by the end of the week. I sigh and consider the door of Spanish III, which has never looked so much like it might open into Hell, until I remember I’m Brandon Eriks and I’m not afraid of anything. I’m a machine, all gears and wires. Like the tattoo on my right arm.

  Gears and wires and not caring a bit whether Emma’s inside already.

  Not caring.

  Not.

  3. FIRST I’M GOING TO FIX YOU

  THIRD PERIOD late bell rings. I sit in my assigned place in the first row, sweating, tapping my pen on the desk like a crazy person and watching the clock. Emma’s seat, to my right, is empty. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe she transferred classes. Maybe she moved to Africa to look after orphans.

  The kid behind me, a hawk-faced jock named Jason, kicks my seat. “Stop tapping, freak.”

  I breathe out and make myself relax. I didn’t care what Emma thought yesterday and I don’t care now. She’d been the nosy one, anyway, who noticed I never turned anything in and offered to help. I didn’t need her help, but I agreed because … okay, because she’s hot. And she never interrupted me. And she talked about dreams in between “Como se llama” and snippets of Don Quixote. How she wants to teach kids to paint, how she wants to run a marathon.

  I think about telling her how I wished I could start school over and pull the grades for MIT.

  I think about telling her I how want a family that actually cares.

  Freaking Emma.

  “Hola, estudiantes, como están?” asks Mrs. Barreto, clasping her plump hands as she beams at us from the front of the room.

  The class drones, “Muy bien, Señora Barreto.”

  “Homework to the front, please. Tarea al frente, por favor.”

  She gestures forward. The class shuffles, papers move up the rows, and I turn and grab a stack of homework from Jason, who murmurs, “Nice hair.” I give him my best “screw-off” look before turning and handing the stack to Mrs. Barreto.

  “Nothing today, Brandon?” she says, frowning as she rifles through the names on the papers. “Where is Ms. Emma this morning?”

  “I don’t know,” I say under my breath, and like the devil’s watching, the door swings open and in walks Emma Jennings.

  One look at her and you know she’s way out of my league. White collared shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows, buttons open to the scoop of her pink sweater vest. Brand-name jeans tucked into tall gray boots. Brunette curls tossed into a bun. Sweet face, the kind that believes in angels and unicorns and miracles, or did until yesterday, I guess. She swallows, tightens her grip on her tablet computer, and hands Mrs. Barreto her assignment.

  “Lo siento, Señora,” she says. “I had to stay late for Mrs. Penz.”

  She doesn’t look at me the whole way to her seat. Or when she collapses into her chair and sends a wave of peppermint in my direction that makes me think of her laughing. I lean away, as far to the edge of my seat as I can considering the stupid thing’s attached to the floor.

  I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t—

  A pencil taps my shoulder.

  “What’d you do to Emma?” Jason whispers.

  I sit forward and thumb through my Facebook account on my iPad. Jason pokes me again when Mrs. Barreto turns her back.

  “What?” I say.

  “How was she?” Jason asks, grinning.

  I snap his pencil in half and straighten just before Mrs. Barreto looks our way.

  “Oh, I get it now,” Jason whispers when she turns again. “You made a move and got rejected. You’re not really surprised by that, are you?”

  Emma makes a small noise that sounds like a snicker. But she’s facing away with her hand clenched in her hair and I can hear the strain in it, and then I remember I don’t care and I switch to my note-taking app.

  “Okay, amigos. Asociarse, por favor,” Mrs. Barreto says, passing out new sheets of work.

  Partner up. I toss the assignments over my shoulder without waiting for Jason to grab them, smirk as I hear them cascade to the floor, and look behind Emma to check my options. I’m in the far row by the door, so I’ve got a wall to my left. There’s a couple kids behind her, but they’re already chatting with their default partners. Emma realizes the same time as me that we’re screwed. She turns to me slow, eyes down.

  Jason blurts, “Emma, want to work with—”

  “Yes!” she says. “Dave, can I switch seats with you?”

  The heavy boy behind her nods, eyes wide, and scrambles to get his things. Then Emma’s smiling and chatting with Jason, and just like that, we move on.

  That’s fine. This is how it should be.

  “Hey,” I say to Dave. He stares at me like I’m a grenade with the pin pulled, his tiny brown eyes shifting hectically between the piercings in my ears, the ink down my arms, the gas mask on my shirt.

  “Um, h-hi,” Dave says, fumbling with a mechanical pencil. I kind of want to talk to him about knives or something to really freak him out, but Mrs. Barreto’s watching, so I just scribble my name on the sheet.

  “How ’bout we just compare answers after we’re done?” I say.

  Dave looks down, relieved. “Yeah, o-okay.”

  It’s a Don Quixote pop quiz. I try to concentrate on question one (Who is Pedro Alonso?) while listening to Jason compliment Emma on everything from her boots to her brains to how glad he is they finally get to work together. I’ve started on question two when Jason says, “You going to homecoming?”

  My pen smears a blot of ink on the page.

  “I … well, I don’t know,” Emma says. “Might be out of town that weekend.”

  “If you’re in town, want to go with me? The guys are getting limos and we’re hitting The Bent Fork before.”

  “Um…” She pauses. I can feel her eyes drilling the back of my head. “Sure. I mean, if we’ll be here, that is.”

  Jason kicks my chair, twice. I think about running my pen through his eye, but I clench it and get up instead, and I’m pushing out the door before Mrs. Barreto can raise a finger.

  I know what she’s doing. She thinks I’ll change my mind, that I’ll regret what I said, that I’ll crack and admit she was right about … about us being good together. But she doesn’t know who she’s messing with, and she can’t win a war I’ve already ended. She thinks she’s in my head, but this is temporary. This is just muscle twitches on a corpse.

  The classroom door clicks as someone opens it. I edge around the corner and into the bathroom.

  And stare, with my pulse on panic mode, at the wall-long mirror over the sinks.

  It’s a mirror.

  It’s a freaking sheet of glass.

  I take a breath and turn on the first sink. My reflection does the same, looking as stupidly terrified. I move my hand to the left. My reflection copies me. I take a drink. It does too. And then I laugh, though it sounds miserable, because I’m finally so messed up that I’m scared o
f myself, and I fill my hands and splash my face. Let the water run while I turn to the wall and tear a paper towel from the dispenser.

  I’m wiping my forehead when the faucet squeaks off.

  My pulse spikes to hummingbird intensity. No way, no way this is possible. Someone else came in while I was washing. Had to. Or I’m still dreaming.

  I don’t want to but I lower the paper towel.

  And turn.

  My reflection isn’t across from me. It’s by the farthest sink, holding a sheet of paper against the glass. You’re not dreaming.

  The paper towel drops from my hand. I want to say that’s exactly what it would say if this was a dream, but the sweat prickling my neck feels very real. I look, and look again, at where my reflection’s supposed to be. My double smirks and lowers the paper. Scrawls on it with the pen I left by the sink, a pen that’s no longer on my side of the glass, but only on his.

  LOOKS LIKE I FOUND YOU FIRST.

  I choke and brace myself on the counter. My heart’s pumping hard enough to lift me off the ground, but as much as I want to move, I can’t. There’s a virus in the mirror and I can’t more.

  FIRST I’M GOING TO FIX YOU, he writes.

  He turns the paper over and adds, THEN LET’S TRADE.

  He plucks out one of my lip piercings and washes it down the sink. He goes for the second and I grab my lip, but the ring vanishes under my fingers and I watch it go down, too, down on the other side of the mirror where things aren’t reflecting as they should. He goes for the bar on my eyebrow. I pry my hand off the counter and spring for the door. I feel the metal slide free as I burst into the hallway and—

  It’s gone. Three less piercings than I had a minute ago, like I’m going back in time.

  There’s a virus in the mirror. A virus. In a sheet of glass.

  “Fixing” me.