Play it Straight

I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS ALL SUMMER

PHOENIX’S POV

It’s official. My twin brother was crazy! All that time our mother said he needed therapy and we ignored her! If she was here today, I’d have apologized for yelling at her whenever she suggested that.

I blinked back at Jackson who was staring at me as well, waiting for me to respond. How could I calmly let him know that he was crazier than a person who was locked up?

“Jackson, I don’t think you understand what you said to me so I’m going to say this again; you go to an all-boy’s academy! I can’t go there cause I am female.” I said it slowly like you would when talking to a child. His smile did not for once fade away.

“I know that. You’ll come with me. It’ll be fun.”

“I can’t go to an all-boys’ school.”

For some very weird and disturbing reason, he found my rejection offensive. That was the first time I was seeing him frown in a long time.

“Why are you so negative, Phee? What’s all this ‘I can’t’ nonsense? Sure you can! Remember in tenth grade when you said you couldn’t jump off that cliff and you did?”

I stared at him incredulously. “You pushed me off that cliff! I was screaming all the way down, praying that I didn’t die before I got the chance to kill you myself!”

“Same difference, Phee!” He waved me off dismissively. “Look, remember last year when Janice came over and she saw you in my T-shirt and thought you were me? You totally look like a boy.”

My brother didn’t know when to stop talking. It was evident that he didn’t respond well to communication with the eyes because no matter how hard I glared at him, his mouth kept on producing words.

“I do not look like a boy,” I said through gritted teeth. “I had on a face cap and she was looking at me from behind.”

“We’re identical twins, Phoenix. You look just like me.”

“A male and a female cannot be identical twins, Jackson. We just look so much alike, just like regular siblings do.”

I started to walk away after grabbing the hoodie I had cast away. The sun had dipped way below the horizon and was making way for the moon now. I was slightly disappointed in myself for even having hope that he was going to come up with some sort of miracle cure for my situation. Then again, I should have known something like that was impossible to get. How was he going to wipe away everyone’s memories?

“Phee! Phee, come on.” He was hot on my tail, coercing me to stop and hear him out for a moment. Every single time I heard Jackson out, we ended up on the brink of death or expulsion or something very, very chaotic. He actually got expelled and in the course of his absence, I had to go through all that s**t last semester.

Against my better judgement, I actually did stop to hear him out.

“I have thought about this all summer long. There is absolutely no way that s**t would have happened if I was there with you.”

I felt my insides turn. The euphoria from winning was slowly ebbing away and my reality was becoming more and more visible to me.

“Jackson, it’s not your fault…”

“I know that.” He cut me off. He looked so guilty, I felt my heartstrings tug. “I know that, but I still think that it is. I shouldn’t have thrown that party with all the club 22 girls, at least not in tenth grade. It should have been a senior year kinda party, you know?”

He and I both knew that wasn’t the main reason he was expelled, but I let him carry on regardless.

“So, I got to thinking: what better way to look after my little sister…”

“I’m older than you,” I deadpanned.

“…While also having fun with her? We may not end up going to the same college, Phee. Duke is calling my name and you want to drop basketball like a hot potato the moment you leave high school.” He said that last part accusingly and I blushed with guilt. We had both planned to go pro together and just after that stunt last semester, I came home and announced that I was not going to play basketball anymore. Jackson still didn’t understand why I had come to that conclusion, and to be honest, neither do I. I just know that I don’t want to be famous anymore.

“This is the only chance we have, Phee. We have to do it. We have to take this chance.”

I bit my bottom lip. I was tempted to bite my finger nails but I had already run through them all and it was taking a while for them to grow back.

“It’s an all-boys’ school, Jackson. I mean, you’ve come up with some crazy shits, but you have to admit, this one is right out insane and would never work.”

“I have thought about this all summer, Phee. Trust me when I tell you, it’s a bullet proof plan. You’ll be with me all the time and I’ll make sure no one finds out about you. We’ll be staying in the same room, we’ll have the same classes and we’ll get to play ball and have fun together. All you have to do is pretend to be a boy for a whole school year.”

He made it sound so easy, but he and I knew there was more to it than that.

“What about the showers, huh? Is it private? Communal? And what about if someone wants us to get naked for fun? What if they pants me? What if I get my period right in the middle of class, Jackson? What then?”

“First of all, it’s a fricking private school with a private bathroom system. No such thing as a communal shower, not even in the locker rooms. Secondly, get naked for fun? Seriously? Do you think we’re ninth graders, Phee?”

“I don’t know what boys do for fun, okay?” I said defensively.

“No one’s going to pants you, not while I’m there. And if you get your period in the middle of class, we can always just say you have an infection or something.”

I contorted my face in disgusts. “Eww. Then everyone’s gonna make fun of me.”

“Then you don’t have your period in the middle of class.” Again, he ignored my laser glare and kept opening his mouth to emit words.

“My room is the single room in that school. I’ll choose you to be my roommate so we will sleep together. You will stick by my side like glue, just like when we were in fifth grade and our teacher wanted to separate us and I grabbed that gorilla glue to make sure we were never going to be apart.”

“That was very dumb of you,” I said suddenly recalling the chunk of my hair and skin that was shaved off because of him.

He grabbed my hands and looked me in my eyes. “You’re going to have fun, Phoenix, I guarantee it.”

“What about my tuition? Who’s gonna pay for it? You think dad would agree with this ridiculous plan of yours? He’ll ship me off to London faster that you can crash his Ferrari!”

“You’ll ask him for it. Tell him you want to take responsibility into your own hands. You’ll pay for it yourself.”

“Your tuition is higher than mine, Jackson Even after we convert it to dollars, it still wouldn’t be enough to pay for it.”

“Flight tickets will cover it up just fine.” I stared at him and he shrugged. “I did the math already, sue me.”

I was getting hotter and it was not the weather. This idea was starting to get to me even though I knew it was the most stupidest thing to actually do.

“What about admissions? I didn’t apply and school starts next week.”

“Phoenix,” he called slowly, his face alight with his mischievous smile. “I have thought about this all summer long.” He had said this statement three times already, but the way he said it this time around had a sinister undertone that sent a shiver down my spine. The way he said it indicated that he had done something already. It was official, my brother was a lunatic!

“What did you do, Jackson?”

“It’ll be best if you don’t know the full details, Phee, but have in mind our cousin Francis is not as useless as we thought he was.”

Oh s**t! He involved Francis. If there was anyone more stupid and reckless and downright delinquent than my brother, it was our cousin. He was right, I didn’t want to know the details.

I didn’t want to go back to Elmbourne. I wouldn’t be able to bear the stares and the whispers and the taunting. Honestly, I thought of doing something to get me expelled the moment I got there. That place made my skin crawl and the thought of going back had me almost ramming my head against a wall. Going to Harrison Park Academy for senior year sounded very tempting. It would be a million times better than Elmbourne especially since Jackson was going to be there. It was a sinfully brilliant idea.

“We’re not going to get caught,” Jackson said reassuringly. I knew that was a lie. We always got caught. But Jackson always took the blame even though he was the one who came up with the idea 99% of the time. But this time around, it was different. Academic records were forged. I wasn’t just playing a little prank on the school’s mascot after he had jerked himself off all over my seat in class. This involved prestigious academies, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from my dad, deceiving the people who would judge whether I’m good enough to go to Harvard or not. I was risking my future just to avoid an entire year of high school in Elmbourne Prep. Seemed very worth it to me.

Looking at him and trying my best to match his smile, I said what I said to him each time he came up with a crazy plan, right before it went crashing and burning to hell.

“Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”