Duplicity (5 page)

“No,” I say. “Look. On this side of the mirror, you're here, and I'm here, in the passenger seat. On the other side of the mirror, I don't know where you are, because I'm—
it's
—sitting in the driver's seat, jacking my shine!”

She looks at my ear again, then at my hands, locked on her bare waist. She doesn't see it. She
has
to see it. I squeeze her hips.

“I know I sound crazy,” I say, “but when I look in the mirror my reflection moves like … like that's a window, not a mirror. He wrote … in the bathroom at school…”—Frack, she'll probably drive me straight to the loony bin after this—“He wrote he was going to ‘fix' me. Now any time I'm in a room with a mirror he takes out my metal, and he can do stuff on this side, too, like switch off the water or turn the rearview—”

Ginger puts a finger to my lips. “Okay, I get it, you're still stuck on Barbie.” She sighs and fetches her corset.

“You're not listening. Someone hacked my laptop and said this would happen.”

“Hacked
you
?”

“Yeah, said I'd be meeting ‘my own worst enemy' and I thought it was a code but—”

She laughs, bitterly. “Okay, stop. I can take a hint. You want to move to Emma's crowd and you can't look like one of us anymore. Kinda cute you feel guilty enough to make up a story.”

“I'm not making this up!”

“Babe, just stop talking and zip me.”

I do, biting my lip the whole time, and the last earring slips from my left ear. The double starts on my right. How could I be doing it to myself if my hands are on Ginger? But that's the thing, isn't it? It hasn't done much more than take out my metal, and that's hardly life-threatening. So I could be doing it, I guess.

It could be worse. I could be hallucinating that my double's trying to kill me, for instance.

I stop with the zipper halfway up. Is that possible? So far it's done nothing to hurt me, at least not physically. But I can feel the metal slipping out like a worm, so technically I could feel anything else the double might do.

Then let's trade,
it wrote.

If I'm writing to myself, what the hell do I want to trade?

“Hey, make up your mind,” Ginger says, thrumming her fingers on her knee.

I spin her around. “I'm not making this up.”

“I believe you believe it's real,” she says, frowning.

“I'll prove it to you. Take out this spike.” I point to the third bar on my ear. The side mirror flashes. My double reaches for the same one.

“Feel the metal on both sides,” I say. She does. “Now take it out.”

“All right, Brandon, whatever.”

Another slip of pressure, and she holds the spike before my eyes.

“Now what?” she asks.

I'd expected it to disappear. I blink, glimpse the mirror, see no reflection.

“Um…” I've got nothing. My stomach twists like it's wringing out poison. Am I doing it? Am I doing all this to myself?

“It's supposed to disappear,” I say, feeling like an idiot.

Ginger shakes her head. “Whatever you're on, I want some.”

She shoves the earring into my palm and contorts her way back to the driver's seat. I turn the metal over and over and finally put it back in, my heart going like a drum solo. I'm the only one who can see him. Maybe Ginger's right, as scary a thought as that is. But I feel that same spike slip out two minutes later, despite keeping a death grip on the seat belt the whole way to Taco Bell.

Pluck, pluck, pluck
. By the time I've devoured two double-decker tacos, all my piercings, including Ginger's favorite, have disappeared.

 

5. SOMETHING'S DIFFERENT

GINGER WON'T TAKE ME HOME
despite my threatening to tell Sniper she wants to see him naked. I even try begging (not proud of that) and complimenting her shoes and her driving skills, but she thinks I'm being sarcastic, which is mostly true, and we end up back in the school lot. I don't have time to hot-wire a car because Principal Myer sees us there and escorts me to class, this time under the guise of asking how my parents are doing. Or trying, at least. I don't really know how they're doing so I can't really answer him.

I try not to look like I'm on speed in speech class, though I can't sit still and kids keep looking at me when they're supposed to be listening to Cherie Lamplight's boring debate. A redheaded kid, I think his name's Bill, eventually whispers, “Hey, didn't you used to have like, your face pierced?”

I snicker, even though that makes Mrs. Evans look up, because seriously?

“
You're
on the honor roll?” I say.

But I keep touching my face, biting my lip where the rings used to be, running my tongue through my teeth. Obviously my subconscious wants to get rid of them, but why? They're some of the only things that are mine. I've had the piercings in my ears the longest, got them as a freshman in Albany, New York, along with George, the only kid I'll ever label a best friend because he was just as messed up. My lips and nose were next, all five in tiny Ayer, Massachusetts, the first half of my sophomore year, with Bev and Eric. Those kids knew how to party. And how to hack. Finally, my eyebrow (on the night I thought I'd bleed to death; don't ever let Ginger near you with a needle) and my tongue (also Ginger's fault, but at least done professionally) here in Parker, Colorado, where I spent the other half of sophomore year and now my junior.

Things with memories.

I think of Emma's bracelet.

Seventh period bell rings. I dodge The Corner on the way out and pace in the grass, watching car after car pick up my classmates, some families smiling, some arguing, some saying nothing at all. But at least they're here.

I wait an hour before phoning Dad to remind him to pick me up.

*   *   *

“Brandon!”

Mom's home. Her yell comes from below in the kitchen, her footsteps now stomping up the stairs. I crank Nirvana's “Smells Like Team Spirit” on my laptop until the surround sound rattles the walls. I
still
can't find that blasted virus. I've checked every new virus database and online threat from the last two months and no one's got a problem like mine.

Which confirms it's just my messed-up head.

(Right?)

My door whacks open. Mom stands in all her fury, strands of hair escaping her bun like Medusa, suspicious eyes darting to every corner of the room. Pencil skirt, heels, ruffled white blouse. iPhone glued to her hand. She shouts something, maybe about the noise. I shrug. She starts for the computer and I click off the audio.

“You just remember those speakers are a privilege. Keep it down when I'm talking to you or I'll rip them right out—” She sees my face. Peers around again like something might drop on her head. “Something's different.”

I disguise a laugh as a cough. This moment, right here, pretty much sums up my life. I lean back in my chair and wait.

“Your, um.” She circles her hand in front of her face. “You took out all the…?”

“Just for a couple days.”

“Oh.” She morphs back into war mode. “Brandon, do you know who called me today? In the middle of lunch with the President of Virtua Tech?”

“Your BFF Principal Myer?”

“Ha, ha.
Yes
, Principal Myer called, and I had to excuse myself so I could apologize for my son skipping class yet again, and do you know how awkward that is?” (I almost protest that I didn't skip but then I remember Creative Writing from this morning. It doesn't seem possible this day is
still
not over.) “The President is considering my consultation for a multimillion-dollar engineering project. How do you expect me to convince him I'm the best fit for the job if he finds out I can't even get my own son to school on time?”

“Good question.”

Mom opens her mouth and promptly closes it, fists clenched. She glowers at me a full minute before saying, “Yes, well, things are changing. First off, your father is working from home the rest of the week to make sure you're up and out of the house on time. If you don't go straight to school, you'll be taking the bus until further notice. Second, you're to pick up a progress sheet at the attendance office tomorrow.”

I shoot upright. “What? One of those loser sheets?”

“Careful, Brandon. Think of what that means since you'll be carrying one all week. You'll need a signature from each of your teachers that you came to class, on time, and handed in your work. Missed signatures equal detention, where Principal Myer assures me you'll have a few uninterrupted hours to catch up.” She grins, eyes sparkling. “We should have done this years ago!”

“But I've
been
handing in my work, for three weeks! This is the first time I've missed!”

Her phone chirps. She taps the screen. “Yes, Principal Myer mentioned that…” She reads something, one finger to her lip. “But he's afraid, with your track record, that you're slipping. He just wants you to succeed.”

He, not she. I pound the desk and make my laptop jump. “This is so lame! I've been good the last few weeks, I've been—”

“Yeah, okay honey, good night.”

She closes the door behind her, still entirely focused on the phone.

*   *   *

Six forty-five
A.M.
My door squeaks open. I remember I forgot to lock it just as cold air pours from my shoulders to my shins.

“Up!” Dad says, tearing off the sheets. “I've been yelling for fifteen minutes!”

I shake my head and sit, blinking, while Dad balls up my blankets and leaves with them. I had a horrible dream about someone hacking my computer and my reflection moving and taking out all the piercings in my face. And possibly worse, it had ended with the revelation that I'd be toting around a slacker sheet at school. I rub my eyes. Roll my tongue through my mouth.

And freeze. I check my ears, my nose.

No metal.

YOU'RE NOT DREAMING.

I shoot out of bed and rip open the bathroom door.

My reflection stares back at me, pale and untrusting, but mimics every move. I reach for a towel. It follows. But still no metal in my face, and when I check the drawer for my extra spikes, it's empty. Mom must've thrown them away.

It's okay. It's okay, I'm fine, I just went a little crazy yesterday but I won't take any pills today and I'll be fine.

I stall a minute before clicking the door closed and turning on the shower.

I check my back in the glass while the water heats, where three skulls grin at me, one on each shoulder blade and one in the center with a dagger stabbed through it, running drops of inky blood down my spine. Down my right arm is the tat that peels back layers of flesh and muscle, revealing the gears and pistons beneath. Up my left, tiny scorpions crawl from a slit in my wrist, a slit that's covering a scar, each one growing larger as they scurry into a wider gash on my shoulder. I smile. Dad never bellowed as loudly as the day I came home with that first one, and almost achieved orbit when he realized I'd used a fake ID to get it. For an hour I actually had a father who cared what I'd done to myself.

One glorious, earsplitting hour.

Steam curls over the top of the seashell-bordered curtain. With one last glance at the mirror, I step into the water.

Stupid loser progress sheet. I did everything to avoid earning one. Three weeks of good behavior should be plenty for a pass on yesterday's ditching. I squeeze a glob of shampoo into my hand and scrub it through my hair. Now I'll have to linger after class, wait for everyone else to leave, and sneak the form by each teacher before the next class trickles in. So unfair. I'm not even failing! C's and a few B's, thanks to Emma's involvement. I do fine on most of my tests. I just have no motivation to—

Dark lather dribbles down my chest. I stop scrubbing. Pull down my hands. The foam drips from my fingers like tar, coiling around the drain in ribbons. Like ink.

Like hair dye.

I watch it and wish I could be anywhere but here. The vapor around me thickens.

How?
I snatch the shampoo bottle and twist off the top. Smells the same as always. I've used it for months without a problem. I drop it back on the shelf, breathe in, and inch forward into the stream.

Black curtains down my body, shadowing the porcelain floor of the bathtub. I push my fingers across my head in disbelief, and slowly the color thins to charcoal, then silver, then clear. I try to pull together any logical reason the dye would wash out that doesn't involve that …
thing
. Because now Ginger's theory doesn't work. Even if I subconsciously wanted to, permanent hair dye doesn't just wash out. Bleaching takes at least half an hour.

Shaking, I turn off the water, reach for the curtain, and slide it aside.

A haze covers the mirror, but I know exactly what I'll see even before I wipe a patch clear. I uncover a smear of glass and see only the wall and the towel rack behind me. I clear another circle.

Movement by the sink.

The
other
sink.

My double's leaning against the door, fully dressed in my outfit from the day before, tussling a hand through honey-brown hair. At least I assume it's my reflection. Without the piercings, the wristband, the never-seen-a-comb mess of black on his head, he doesn't look much like the sulky, unapproachable loner I've worked so hard to impersonate the past three years. Even worse, if I ignore the tattoos, he looks …
normal
.

And that's just going too far.

I hit the glass.

“What do you want?” I say.

My double smiles and draws a finger through the mist on the mirror.

I'M PREPARING YOU.

“Preparing me for
what
?”