that I’m going to slip up and say something and Mr. Teller is going to figure out who I am.
I don’t know why I keep saying yes. Yes to hanging out with Zach, yes to coming over, yes to dinner, now yes to helping Zach’s dad set the table while he peppers me with questions.
Do I like school?
How did Zach and I meet?
They’re normal questions, but something about the way Mr. Teller asks them sounds like he’s reading out of a parenting manual, like this stuff doesn’t come naturally to him. I try to keep my answers short—tight. I’m new at Quincy Adams. I was homeschooled. I leave the time before that out. My last name out. My answers are vague. Filled with blank spaces I babble to fill.
“Do you like drama class?”
Why do adults feel this incessant need to fill the air around them with noise? Does Mr. Teller actually care if I like drama class? I doubt it. This sort of chatter is the worst; I never had to make shitty small talk with Jordan. We were different, but we still had that weird twin thing. We could sit in silence for hours and somehow understand each other anyway. I guess that’s what happens when you share a womb with someone for nine months.
I shrug. “It’s okay.”
“Just okay?” He smiles at me like he thinks he gets it.
I press my lips together in an expression that may or may not resemble a smile and reply, “Yup.” I really need him to stop talking. Stop asking me these questions that are starting to get more and more specific—more and more directed toward things I don’t want to talk about with anyone, and especially not with him.
Zach walks back into the room, presumably to save me from this painful conversation, but before he can say a word, there’s a noise outside in the driveway. Zach jumps a little and turns to his dad.
“Is someone here?” He sounds tense.
His dad puts another fork and knife and napkin on the table. That makes five place settings. I count: Me, Zach, Gwen, him…
Oh my god.
I hear it now: the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming.
Mr. Teller claps his hands, delighted. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before, in the kitchen. I thought it would be nice if we had more family time, so I told your mom I’d shop and cook if she could make it home by dinner, and…”
He keeps talking, but I stop listening.
Zach’s face has gone stark white. “Mom?” He gags on the word. He turns to me, panic clear in his eyes.
My brain fuzzes. A giant glass wall slams down between me and the rest of the world. My head detaches from my body and floats up to the ceiling. A voice says I have to go to the bathroom in a strange, high pitch. It can’t be me—I’ve always been an alto. But then someone who looks a lot like me bolts out of the kitchen and down the hall. It’s like a robot has taken control of my body.
Once I get to the bathroom, I’m breathing hard. In the mirror, my face is wrong. More like Jordan’s than ever. Like our shared features are eating away at my individual ones. I sink down to the edge of the tub and drop my head into my hands, trying to remind myself that it isn’t real, to breathe, just breathe. I don’t want to have a panic attack in the middle of the Tellers’ house.
There’s a knock on the door, and I can’t even summon the strength to tell him to go away.
“May?” Zach’s voice, through the door. “Are you okay? I am so sorry. I had no idea….Can I come in?”
I nod into my hands. My body has frozen in this position.
He waits a second, and then: “I’m coming in, okay?” Through my hands, I see the door open, and then his shoes. He sits down next to me. “Hey…” He hesitates, and then