Duplicity Read online

  “You left early.”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Unfortunately, I think there’s some safety thing on the garage door that’ll stop it if I try to close it while she’s there. I drop the bags and lean against the Z’s trunk.

  “So talk.”

  “All right,” she says, and for a minute I think (I hope) she’ll turn and leave. Then, “First, I want to say I’m sorry for what I said in class. That wasn’t fair. It’s not true, either. There’s a lot of good in you below the surface.”

  I—she just—

  What?

  That’s so far off from what I expected that I just stare at her. She’s apologizing? To me? After what I … but she can’t, she should be screaming right now, she should be telling me how worthless I am and how I’ll never let anyone close and how I’m a waste of air.

  I should apologize, too, but my brain won’t click back into place.

  Emma rubs her arms like she’s cold. “Second, I really do want to know what’s going on. I know you made it clear you don’t care, but the last few days have been really … weird. And where are your tattoos?”

  Her gaze drops and I tug my sleeves, like it’ll make any difference, since I just realized I’ve been flaunting clean skin all day. I decide she must want something else, some ulterior motive I haven’t figured out yet.

  “It’s really none of your business,” I say.

  “Isn’t it?” She laughs. Not the happy kind. “That makes total sense, you know, considering I didn’t share anything personal or potentially embarrassing with you over the last few weeks.”

  I smile. “I disagree. Your talent show story was definitely embarrassing.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Well you’re not very good at it, are you?”

  “Ugh, you are so infuriating! You know what I’ve decided?”

  Here it is. I wanted it, I pushed her until I got it, and I’m actually … smiling. I’ve never seen her angry. I want to see how Emma Jennings fights.

  Then I never want to see her again.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re a spoiled, attention-starved brat who can’t make up his mind about what he wants.”

  “Typical rejection backlash—”

  “Is it? This is completely out of line? Tell me, then, that none of the following is true. You whine about your parents never having time for you, but you don’t want anything to do with them, yet you’ll happily drive Daddy’s BMW to school. You complain no one cares about you, you have no routine, your family feels fake, but when I invite you to dinner with my family, when I confess to you how much I care, you completely balk!”

  I don’t like how Emma Jennings fights. But I’m pretty good at this, too.

  “And you can judge?” I say. “You’ve lived in Candyland all your life, spoon-fed everything you’ve ever needed. You have friends who’d die for you, a brother who’d kill for you, you have no idea what it’s like to be alone! I lose everyone I care about. So yes, I’ve stopped caring. And in two to six months we’ll be gone again and it’ll be back to square one. Don’t pretend you understand. You don’t know crap about me.”

  Her expression twists. She whips out her phone, scrolls to something, and thrusts the screen in my face.

  My Z.

  Across the street from her house.

  “You’ve stopped caring?” she says. “Then why were you at my house yesterday?”

  I stare at the picture. This was not how it was supposed to go.

  I look down and say I don’t know.

  The phone lowers, slowly. I wait for her to attack, wait to hear she’s given up as well and I should hurry and jump off a bridge while someone would still notice. But her eyes are soft when I look back, somehow both determined and desperate and … understanding.

  She shakes her head. “What are you afraid of, Brandon?”

  This is what she does. She’s good at prying. Good at asking questions, good at digging for pearls on beaches full of land mines. I don’t know why she should care. No one else does, and when I push them to this, they take the hint and get out. I can’t get Emma out.

  I need to. I said I wouldn’t—

  I lie to her. “Certainly not you.”

  “Then tell me to leave.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me this was a horrible idea, that I’m wasting my time, that you’ll never feel the same. I’ll respect that. I’ll leave you alone. But mean it when you tell me.”

  “I…”

  It’s just one word. Leave. And she will, and that’ll be the end of my suicidal decision to let Emma Jennings into my life. I don’t need her. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.

  I open my mouth, and scowl instead.

  Emma waits.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Can’t what?”

  She’s looking at me like no one ever has, like she can see to my core, like if I lie to her again I’ll get struck by lightning. I swallow.

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  I don’t remember telling myself to say that but it’s out and that’s that. Emma’s phone hits the concrete.

  “Do you mean that?” she says.

  Pause. “Yes.”

  “You won’t change your mind tomorrow?”

  “No promises.”

  But she smiles, in a way that reopens the hole in my chest like a flame through paper and I wonder what the hell I’m doing. I can’t have her. I’ll hurt her again, I know I will—

  She dips for her cell, slides it in her back pocket without even dusting it off, and draws nearer. I brace myself against the Z. She reaches for my arm and draws her finger where the gears used to be, her touch so soft, and the ice I felt with Ginger cracks something violent.

  She says, “I meant every word I said. Until you don’t want me, I’ll be here. If you have to move again, so what? That’s why they invented phones. And you’ll be eighteen next year and you can decide where you want to live on your own.”

  She’s very close, now. Closer than we’ve ever stood. Close enough that all I smell is peppermint and that ice cracks more and I almost—

  “I have to tell you something,” I say.

  She releases my hand and blushes.

  “Oh my gosh, you’re not gay, are you?” she says. “Is that what this is about? I mean, it does explain a lot, I just … I’m so embarrassed, I shouldn’t be pressuring you—”

  “What?! Emma, stop. I’m not gay.” I grab her hand and lift the mall bags out of the trunk. “Come on. I’ll tell you upstairs.”

  She follows quietly, through the kitchen and past the glass doors to the office, where Dad’s gesturing elaborately, two fingers pressed to his earpiece. I lead her up the stairs and drop her hand when we reach my room so I can scan for any surprise mirrors. None. The floor’s just as messy as this morning, collared shirts and pleated slacks flung in every direction. Emma takes in the ejected drawers, the spilled glass, the open closet with its Easter-themed outfits with wide eyes.

  “Wow, it’s like you set off a yuppie grenade in here,” she says, picking up a pinstriped J.Crew and admiring it.

  “It’s bullshit is what it is.”

  I rip the buttons off my blue polo tearing it off. Emma flushes again but doesn’t look away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting back in my clothes.”

  I snatch a Stone Temple Pilots tee out of one of the bags and pull it on. Strip out of the “7 For All Nerdy Guys” jeans. Stupid Tommy Hilfiger boxers—those will have to wait.

  “Brandon, geez, what if your dad comes up?”

  “What if he does? Door’s open,” I say, smirking. I rifle through another of the bags and grab a slashed pair of RUDE’s. “Unless you’d like me to close it.”

  “You know, I really think you need help. Five minutes ago you wanted nothing to do with me.”

  “You said yourself I can’t make up my mind. Better roll with it wh
ile you can.”

  I grin at her. She looks away, smiling at how stupid I am.

  “Put those on,” she says.

  “Fine,” I say.

  I turn away and tug the jeans up. By the time I’ve turned back she’s folded five of the discarded polos.

  “These are really nice,” she says. “Did your parents buy them?”

  “No. That’s what I have to tell you about.”

  I ruffle the gel out of my hair and drop into my desk chair. Emma plucks more clothes off the floor and folds them.

  “Emma, don’t do that. I’ll get them later.” And burn them.

  “I don’t mind,” she says, but puts down her current stack and sits on the bed, cross-legged. “So what’s this big secret?”

  “Um…”

  I have no idea how to tell her. She’ll listen, sure, but getting her to believe me? And there’s no way, no way I’m telling her about my slightly illegal job. Or why I was running it that night.

  I grab one of my new pairs of combat boots. Peel the sales stickers off. Start lacing one up.

  “So on Sunday, after you, er … left,” I say, “I got pretty ticked at myself and broke my mirror.”

  I nod at the closet door where it used to hang. Emma raises a brow and glances at the other broken mirror, but says nothing.

  “On Monday, my um—my reflection moved. On its own. Like, I was in the bathroom, and it blinked. Have you ever seen yourself blink?”

  It’s a few seconds before she answers. “No.”

  It’s a few seconds of me holding the shoelace over the next hole before I say, “I know I sound crazy.”

  “No, continue,” she says, and that’s it. She doesn’t go off on a tangent like Mom. She waits.

  I keep lacing so I don’t have to see her face. “Since then, anytime I’m in front of a mirror, it changes something. Took out my Earl. Washed out my hair dye. Peeled off my ink. Like actually skinned it off.”

  Emma clears her throat. “Okay, I’m really afraid to ask … what’s an Earl?”

  “I think you’re missing the point.” I sigh. “An Earl’s the piercing I had here.” I pinch the bridge of my nose between my eyes.

  “Oh, good, okay continue.”

  “That’s really the only question you have?”

  She smiles, and I realize she’s humoring me. I hook the last lace, shove my foot in and tighten. Start lacing the second boot.

  “It can’t talk,” I say. “But it writes to me. Says everything it’s doing is preparing me for The Trade.”

  “The Trade? What does it want to trade?”

  “You’re actually believing all this?”

  Emma frowns. “Are you lying to me?”

  “No.” Maybe just leaving stuff out. “And that didn’t answer my question.”

  She holds my gaze awhile.

  “No, I don’t quite believe it,” she says. “And I do. I believe you’re using it as a metaphor for what’s happened the last few days.”

  “So then you believe I’ve learned a way to instantly remove tattoos and completely swap out my wardrobe overnight?”

  “No, but—”

  “There’s got to be a way you can see him. I tried to show Ginger, but she couldn’t—”

  “Ginger?” Emma’s eyes narrow. “Your ex?”

  “Again, you’re missing the point.” I put on the second boot, offer her my hand and hope I’ve moved on quick enough to avoid questions about that. “Maybe you’ll be able to see Obran.”

  “Obran? Where are we going?”

  “Just follow.”

  She does, until we reach the bathroom, where she pulls back her hand back. “You know, this is really awkward.”

  “You don’t believe me, so I’m going to prove it to you,” I say. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom.”

  I flip on the light.

  “Oh. Right.” She casts a nervous glance downstairs. “Again, if your dad comes up … door’s open?”

  Always the good girl. I smile. “Not this time.”

  She stalls, then steps in, watching me. I close the door. Point at the mirror and try to keep my heart rate down.

  “Like right now,” I say. “I have no reflection. I don’t see me at all. Obran’s somewhere else. What do you see?”

  Emma looks at me and back at the glass.

  “I see us.”

  “No, no. He’ll come, he always does. Then you’ll see. He won’t like my clothes. He won’t like my boots. He’ll change them.”

  He has to change them. I’m baited like a bag of weed in a high school hallway. Besides, something will happen. I have no reflection right now, so he has to come back. I think of the crunching glass, of something coming for me, and I shiver and wonder what I’ll do if that happens again.

  “You haven’t been changing for me, right?” Emma says, touching my arm. “I don’t care about any of that stuff, you know.”

  “For the four hundredth time, no. Plus, tats don’t just wipe off. Skinning takes months, even by laser. Explain that to me.”

  “I … well, how do I even know they were real?”

  “You really think I put on the same giant temporaries every day?”

  “Could be those nylon things.”

  I turn and pull my shirt up so she can see the skulls on my back.

  “Is that nylon?” I say over my shoulder.

  Silence. I jump when her finger traces the lines, and it sends goose bumps down my spine when she follows the drops of ash-dark blood. She rubs part of it and the goose bumps sink deeper, sink into my nerves when she pulls away, and I remember the first time I saw her, the first time I wanted her and thought that’s all I wanted her for—

  And the first time I realized it wasn’t.

  “I didn’t know you had this one,” Emma whispers.

  I tug my shirt down and examine the glass. Still no Obran.

  “He’s not coming,” I say.

  “Maybe it’s because I’m here?” Emma’s palm brushes my jaw and forces me to look at her. “Calm down. You’re shaking.”

  “He has to come,” I tell her.

  “Brandon.”

  “He has to—”

  She kisses me.

  And I forget about the mirror.

  I play nice at first, because she plays nice very well but the longer she plays it, the more jet fuel pulses through my veins, the more I need her and I feel myself slipping and I don’t care. I pull her close. Her body curves against my chest and she sighs, the vibration thrilling in my mouth, then her hands slip around my neck and there’s no space between us.

  Of course I want more. Her kiss is fireworks and engine fuel and I’m not thinking past that, and she gets bolder, and the jet fuel in my blood roars wild. I slip my hands under her shirt. Slide them up her sides. Sneak my thumbs under the band of her bra where they meet soft, soft skin, and she whispers my name, and that’s what drives me over the edge.

  I press her up against the door. Kiss her mouth, her jaw, her neck while my hands slip around to the clasp on her bra.

  “Brandon,” she gasps. She says something else about Dad, but then I’m kissing her again and she doesn’t stop me. I flick the clasp on her bra and—er, I flick the clasp and it … what the hell kind of clasp is this? Like there’s a virgin supermagnet holding it together, but I can’t see what I’m doing and I laugh into her neck at the stupidity of it, and she giggles until I drop my hands and yank up on the bottom of her shirt. She grabs my wrists or I would’ve had that sucker off in two seconds.

  “I said, I think I hear your dad,” she says by my ear.

  “He’ll stay in his office,” I whisper. I kiss the skin behind her jaw light as I can, my body boiling with the need to be closer. Her turn for goose bumps. I pull lightly on the bottom of her shirt, asking this time.

  The office door creaks.

  Emma gives me a you-said-he’d-stay death glare.

  “Brandon? You home?” Dad calls.

  The first stair squeals. Emma flips
off the light.

  “He won’t check if it’s dark, will he?” she whispers, her hands like vises on my wrists.

  I don’t answer because I just remembered we’re in a room with a mirror.

  Crick. Dad’s footsteps draw closer, but I swear I heard something else echo off the bathroom wall. Emma leans her head against my chest. Creak. The floor? Dad’s socks brush past in the hallway and fall silent.

  “Your heart is going like, a million beats a minute,” Emma murmurs.

  Clink. Like a coin dropping on a counter.

  Or glass on tile.

  “Do you hear that?” I whisper, not daring to breathe.

  Crinkle. Clink.

  Ting.

  “Hear what?” She lifts her head. “I think your dad’s going back downstairs.”

  Crack. CRACK.

  Five more seconds, and I’ll turn on the light. Obran can’t come now. He can’t. He won’t. He’s not real, Emma said so, and I close my eyes and try to believe that.

  “Emma, remember when I told you it wanted to trade?” I say.

  Five (smash!)—

  Four (like ornaments on concrete)—

  “Yes, but you didn’t tell me what,” Emma says.

  Three (like a steamroller over a car)—

  Two (dead silence)—

  I whisper, “I think he wants to trade places.”

  One.

  I lurch for the switch.

  9. OPPOSITE DAY

  WHEN I WAS SIX, I stuck my finger between a plug and a light socket. That’s what it feels like when I overreach the switch and hit the mirror.

  Except this is so much worse. This is like being plugged in, like channeling lightning through my teeth and my chest and my fingers, and I try to pull back and I try to yell but I can’t. Something jerks me, like it’s pulling my stomach through my arm, and it gets really cold and then—

  Then I can’t feel anything at all.

  I open my eyes to darkness.

  Emma?

  I can’t move my mouth. I touch my lips, but my nerves tingle like an army of ants, numb. I reach to my side, feeling for anything to get my bearings. My hand gropes air. Light flickers like a TV screen coming on, so bright I have to cover my eyes. I blink until I can put my arm down.

  And I’m not really religious but I start praying.

  What’s around me is and isn’t my bathroom. The light doesn’t hit it right—everything shines in grayscale, just the edges, like chairs in a movie theater. Silver lines the silhouette of the toilet, the cabinet next to me, the shaggy bath mat. No color. Only hints of texture, as though anything in shadow doesn’t exist. And everything’s in reverse. The toilet’s on my left instead of my right. The faint palm trees on the shower curtain bend east instead of west.