Duplicity Read online

  “Oh my gosh, Brandon Eriks!”

  And just like one of those dreams where you’re buck naked, everyone turns. Deathrow. Amber. Sniper. Nervous groups of freshmen who usually keep their eyes on the floor. No one’s ever stared at me this long without looking away (except small children in grocery stores), and I set my eyes on Ginger’s bubblegum hair and press toward her. She snaps a picture on her phone and weaves away from me, laughing, staying just out of reach.

  “Ginger, sweety, come here,” I snarl, grabbing for her arm. She squeals and hides behind Deathrow, who turns to me with arms crossed. I glance up, then make to go around him.

  “Leave,” he says, three octaves below a normal human’s voice.

  Deathrow isn’t someone you pick a fight with. I force a smile and back away, searching for my backup plan. Across the room, Sniper raises an eyebrow at me, and I wave him over.

  “Man, you’re a bigger freak than I thought,” Sniper says. “You can’t still be with Ginger, right? She says you’re after Emma.”

  “Will everyone shut up about her? I’m not after Emma.” I breathe in, glower at Ginger (who’s peering around Deathrow’s massive trench coat), and scratch my neck. “And I’m definitely not after Ginger. You should really ask her out.”

  Sniper frowns. “I don’t know, I get the feeling she doesn’t like me.”

  “Don’t be such a wuss. She’s just playing hard to get.” I wink at Ginger and now, now she looks ticked. “Don’t worry, by the end of it you won’t like her either.”

  I clap Sniper on the shoulder and start for the hallway, well aware of the whispers and chuckles that follow me. Like they know I’ve lost control. Like they know I’ve been hiding something all along. The windowless door to Spanish looms between smug grins, and I hear poser poser poser magnified in my ears and I jerk open the door and then—then I accidentally meet Emma’s gaze, the first time we’ve really looked at each other since Sunday, and I can’t hear anything anymore. Two seconds of surprise, that’s all I get before her eyes narrow. She crosses her arms and dares me to say something. I shift my attention to my desk.

  I want to tell her the rumors aren’t true but I don’t know anymore.

  It’s only fifty more minutes until fourth period.

  And I really need to take a leak.

  6. THAT STUFF’S PERMANENT

  MY PHONE BUZZES five minutes in. A text. From Ginger.

  WHAT DID U SAY TO SNIPER?

  I wait until Mrs. Barreto dims the lights and loads a presentation on the giant SMART Board screen before replying.

  That the meaner you are to him, the more it means you like him.

  Her next text is an illegible collection of special characters. Only good thing that’s happened today.

  I settle back in my chair. I should be watching Mrs. Barreto go through the new verbs for the week, but my eyes keep shifting to Emma, who has her head propped on one arm and is typing notes as diligently as ever. Her hair’s down in spirals of honey-spun chocolate.

  I start thinking dangerous things. Like how today might’ve been different, how the whole week might’ve been different, if I’d kissed her instead of telling her to blow off. I wouldn’t have run zoomfish, for starters, which means Obran wouldn’t exist and I could jet to the bathroom right now without fear of abduction. Or maybe Obran would exist, but I could tell her about him and she would actually listen.

  Which is exactly why I can’t have her. Because after all this, I’m still thinking about me.

  Like she can hear me, Emma turns and looks right at me, copper eyes ready for war. This time I don’t look away. She examines my face, my hair, the tattoos down my arms, with enough intensity that I can practically feel her hands making the motions, and then I start thinking how that would feel, and that’s the way wrong direction. I force my gaze back to my iPad and close Notes Plus in favor of Angry Birds.

  Except Emma’s still in my head:

  “You’re not even trying.”

  It’s last week after school. School library. I’m dying a slow death by Spanish conjugation.

  “It’s been two hours,” I say. “It’s Friday. All the words look the same right now.”

  “Hablamos looks nothing like hablo. C’mon, we’re almost done. It’s just one more page.”

  “You know what your problem is?” I snap the textbook closed. I can tell Emma wants to save the worksheet I’ve smashed inside it, but she holds back. “You’re too serious about this stuff.”

  “College is three years away. Two for you. It’s time to get serious.”

  “I would feel more serious about it from the top of Flanger’s.” I shove my pen in my pocket and stack my iPad on my Spanish textbook.

  “The stadium?” Emma says. “There’s no game tonight. It’s closed.”

  “I know,” I say. I scoop up my book and tablet and wait for her to catch on. “You coming?”

  “Brandon, if they catch us in there—”

  “They don’t have cameras on the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  I chuckle at how scandalized she looks. “No one thinks back on their life and says, ‘You know, I wish I did more homework.’ They think back and say they wished they’d seen the city from the stadium roof.” I nudge her textbook toward her backpack with my finger. “So. You coming?”

  Emma looks at me like I’ve completely lost it, then at her book. Then her sunshine smile flashes into place and she slams it closed, just like that, not even bothering to save her worksheet so it’ll be wrinkle-free.

  “Show me,” she says.

  It was supposed to be a study break. Harmless, meaningless, anything-but-more-verbs-please break. I blame the stars. There were a billion of them that night, whispering at Emma to put her head on my shoulder. Witchcrafting my arm around her waist.

  Frack, even that isn’t working as a distraction. If I don’t go now I’m going to bust a kidney.

  I rock in my chair, agonizing as Mrs. Barreto instructs us to open the day’s reading assignment from the class Web site, then per usual, hands out paper worksheets for our answers. I glance at one, toss the rest of the stack over my shoulder to the satisfying sound of spilling paper and Jason’s whiny protest (“Seriously, man?”), and slip out the door.

  I refuse to go to the closest bathroom after yesterday. Instead I make for the gym, where the giant mirror stands separate from the urinals, and the light switches are in the locked coaches’ office. Foolproof. Not that the locker room isn’t without other threats. I’ve won and lost more than one fight against certain punk jocks, but the chances of them being there during the minute I need is slim. I think.

  I pass the glass lobby by the central staircase and the empty cafeteria. Cross in front of the open gym doors to the tune of squeaking sneakers and shouts to pass the ball. The locker room waits behind a solid tan door on my right. I push it open, avoid a trio of laughing jocks who clearly don’t recognize me, and pause around the corner from the sinks. The fluorescent light off the tile is comforting, but I don’t hear anyone else. Wait—water’s on somewhere in the back, one of the showers.

  It’s absolutely stupid I have to consider any of this. Twenty-four hours and one freak in the mirror and I’m jumpier than a freshman girl, and for a minute I feel a crazy sort of defiance that if I just don’t believe it, everything will undo itself. I’ll walk to the urinals like a sane person. No evil twin’s going to suck me through a mirror.

  Though in this case (and I feel the smirk in my lips), Obran’s more like the good twin.

  Not funny. I have to pee.

  Except I don’t walk out all confident because I’m a coward, of course. I creep around the wall and examine the paper towel dispensers across from me. Glance down the side I’m leaning against to check the sinks and the stained countertop. Beyond that stand four maroon stalls, the square opening to the showers, and three urinals. Over the sinks, no thicker than a quarter inch from this angle, gleams the glass.

  The door behind me, the e
ntrance to the locker room, opens. My heart does a jacked-up flip when I recognize the voices, and I curse under my breath, dart past the faucets without looking to my right, and skid to a stop at the middle urinal.

  “Yeah, that’s what Ed said.”

  Bernie Reynolds. Big linebacker with a mop of thick black cornrows and an insatiable need to pound on things smaller than him, which is most of the world. But it’s the second voice that has me praying for a miracle.

  “Think he’ll be back in time for the homecoming game?”

  Tanner. Senior, star running back, pride of Ponderosa High. Not a huge guy, maybe a couple inches taller than me, but has like thirty pounds more muscle. He’s fast, too: broke the school record for the forty-yard dash with his 4.4 second time. Also has the attention of USC and the University of Florida. He’s supposedly a nice kid, but I’m thinking Tanner Jennings might make an exception for punks who toy with his sister.

  They’ve stopped in the locker room, debating what impact their quarterback’s absence will have on the next game. I finish my business and lean against the wall, listening, waiting, praying they’ll leave before shower guy finishes so I can jet back to class without drawing anyone’s attention. They don’t leave. The water squeaks off. I consider closing myself in one of the stalls, but that’s a level of lameness I’m not willing to dive to yet. I start across the room just as Bernie and Tanner round the corner.

  Tanner glances at me, and for a moment I think we’ll pass each other without incident. Then Bernie smiles and says, “Nice ink.”

  And it clicks for Tanner. His eyes narrow and he steps in my way.

  “Eriks.”

  I hate this. I want to shove him out of my face, even if that leaves me bloody, but I’ve hurt Emma enough this week so I don’t. I look at him like I don’t know him.

  Then I make the mistake of looking at the glass.

  Neither Bernie nor Tanner reflect on the other side. Only Obran, who’s bent over the middle sink, laughing hysterically. Impossible impossible impossible is all I can think, and it’s like watching a horror movie, like watching someone go alone into the room with the killer, and you don’t want to see but you have to—Obran straightens, wipes his eyes, and scratches absently at his wrist. Picks at the skin around the scorpions with his thumb.

  Tanner shoves my shoulder.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you,” he says.

  “Yeah, I know, what do you—arg!”

  A bear trap snaps around my wrist. At least that’s what I’d swear if I didn’t know better. My skin feels like it’s dissolving, and I tighten my fist and swallow the expletives bubbling in my throat as I jerk my head at the mirror. Obran’s peeling back the top layer of skin along my scorpion tattoo, the ink lifting like it’s printed on rice paper.

  “Dude, it’s a simple question. Don’t get so pissy,” Tanner says, eyeing my fist.

  I exhale and try not to look like I’m in the most agony I’ve ever been in in my life. My left arm shakes. I hold my elbow to stop it. Droplets of blood squeeze under my fingers.

  “Sorry, something cut me back there,” I say, pressing the words through my teeth. Only five feet separate me from the lockers. I sidestep to get there, but Bernie gets in my way and raises a brow. I glare at Tanner, jaw tight. “Can you repeat the question.”

  “Are you changing for my sister?” he says. “Yes or no.”

  “No, I—”

  I think I invent an expletive with what comes next. Obran’s reached my shoulder and torn the rest away in one sudden rip that I swear takes my arm with it. He marvels at the clean skin, turns his wrist to admire all sides, and goes for his right arm. Nails dig into the back of my hand. The whimper it elicits from me is very unmanly.

  “Dude, relax, I’m not going to slam you,” Tanner says, backing away. “I might’ve if you’d said yes. But I don’t want you around Emma, so we’re done here.”

  They give me weird looks and circle around.

  I leap for the locker room and wheel around the wall, my arms boiling from the bone out, worms of crimson trickling down both shoulders. I collapse onto a wooden bench and sit there, waiting to die from the pain, but eventually it fades and I turn my arms to assess the damage. Both tats have melted to blurs. I pass my thumb along my forearm, wincing, and my skin wipes clean under the blood.

  Eight hours and nine hundred dollars, gone before you can blink.

  Maybe I’ve been searching for the wrong thing. I keep thinking viruses, but maybe that’s not it at all. I grab a towel, wipe the blood off my arms, and stuff it in the trash before pushing out the door. I pull out my phone. Ask the Internet what it thinks about evil mirror twins, but all it gives me are YouTube videos with really bad acting and pictures of babies screaming at their reflections. No wiki articles on how to get rid of one.

  New search term: what to do if you break a mirror. New results, one suggesting I turn counterclockwise three times, break another mirror in the light of the next full moon (while naked), or walk backward an entire day.

  Any of these rites can be used, it says, but typically the resulting curse is self-created.

  I think about that a minute.

  Then I think the World Wide Web is full of shit.

  7. YES, I NEED IT FOR CLASS

  I GRAB A BLACK HOODIE out of my locker on the way back to class. It’s one thing to show up with different hair and missing piercings. Quite another to return from a bathroom break without two very prominent tattoos. Not that I really care what anyone thinks, but the friend requests have slowed and I don’t want to give them another reason to shove me back into the spotlight.

  By the end of the day, I have seven signatures on my loser sheet to turn in. Principal Myer himself picks it up at the lobby and commends me for conforming. I decide that tomorrow, I’m going to miss one on purpose.

  I get two steps out the door when teeth close around my still-tender arm. For the biter’s sake, I’m glad my sweatshirt absorbs most of the pinch.

  “Off, Beretta, geez!” I say.

  I have to flick her five times in the forehead before she lets go. She socks me in the shoulder and dances away.

  “Hungry!” she says.

  “Eat a freaking Twinkie!”

  “But I like biting you.” She grins. “Plus, Ginger said I should, because you sicced Sniper on her.”

  I jog down the first set of cement stairs, staying to the edge of the sidewalk. The parking lot’s busy already, people walking and driving and milling like an ant pile, but my Z’s easy enough to spot on the outskirt. I stop dead. Maybe a little too easy to spot.

  “Oof, what?” Beretta says, running into me. “Oh.”

  Blonde Rachel Love lounges against the hood of my car, chatting with one of her leggy girlfriends. I’d rather let Ginger pierce my tongue than talk to Rachel, ever, anywhere, so I feel for the keys in my pocket and hit the alarm. The BMW screams bloody murder. Rachel shoots up like a cork.

  “C’mon, Beretta.”

  I grab her hand and stalk forward. She grumbles something about being used and how boys are only good as snacks.

  “Hi, Brandon,” Rachel says, twirling a lock of gold around her finger. She and Ginger are like the Heaven and Hell of dress code violations. It’s warm for September, but I don’t know if it’s warm enough for the short pleated skirt that’s showing off her fake-tan legs or cold enough for knee-high Eskimo boots. A breeze comes up and she zips her white Gap sweatshirt, just a bit, not enough to cover the dip in her low-cut tee.

  “Stay off my car,” I say, and to Beretta, “Get in.”

  Beretta gives me a look like I’ve told her the zombie apocalypse has started and hops into the passenger seat. Rachel follows me as I tug open the driver’s door, then leans over the windowless side after I close it. I do not, do not, look down her low-cut tee. More than once.

  “I really like your car,” she says. “Will you take me for a ride sometime?”

  “Same answer as this morning. No.” I fire the engine. Ra
chel backs off, hands up, and purses ruby-red lips.

  “I guarantee I’m better than that little gremlin,” she says, glaring at Beretta. “If you’re finally switching to high class, you need the right girl, too.”

  “Gremlin?” Beretta shrieks.

  “Buckle up,” I tell her, and turn back to Rachel. “You know, I heard you’re the ‘right girl’ for a lot of guys. Your current flavor of the week not paying up?”

  Her jaw drops. She yells something, but by then I’ve kicked the Z into first and it growls over her protests as I squeal a U-turn out of the lot. I get a honk from a minivan but soon I’m on the main street, weaving in and out of traffic. Beretta fidgets against the leather and smiles at me.

  I didn’t exactly think this far out.

  “I don’t know what just happened, but this is awesome,” Beretta says.

  “Um. Did you drive in today?”

  “No. I’m actually supposed to be staying after for a group assignment, but this is so much better!”

  I slow the Z. “Crap. I’ll take you back.”

  “No, really, this is fine!” She sits straight up, clinging to the seat, then relaxes back and pushes her hand through her hair. “I mean, this is cool. Like, what do you usually do now? Are we going to hit a party or something?”

  I snicker. “What do you think I do after school?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.” She flips her phone out and starts snapping photos of the inside of the car, the hood, the trunk, me wondering what the heck she’s doing. “Need to document this,” she says.

  “Document what?”

  “The rebellious human male in his natural habitat. Surprisingly did not fall for slutty female bait, so when hunting your type in the future, I’ll be sure to use something more tantalizing.”

  I make a slightly illegal U-turn and snort. “Like what.”

  “We’re going back?”

  “Yeah. You said you had a class assignment.”

  She crosses her arms. “Ginger said that you said homework is overrated.”