The Shadow Twin

LIES

Chapter 5: Lies

MARIANA'S POV

Nina grabbed my arm and pulled me through the auditorium doors before I could do something I would regret.

"Whatever that was outside, you can deal with it after," she whispered, steering me toward a row of seats near the middle. "Come on, it is starting."

I sat down. My heart was still going too fast and my eyes kept drifting back toward the doors. Olivia had not seen me. I was almost certain of that.

She had been too busy with her phone, too comfortable, and completely unbothered by the world around her to notice me standing thirty feet away staring at her like she had just appeared out of thin air.

Which she basically had. There was no way Olivia was a student here. There was no way she had gotten into St. Aldrich on her own, she had not even applied until she found out I had been accepted, and she had not gotten in, my mother had told me that herself.

So what was she doing here, standing outside the freshman assembly in clothes that cost more than our mother made in a month, laughing with girls who looked like they had never seen a slum in their lives.

I knew the answer. I just did not want to say it out loud yet.

"You are not listening to anything I am saying," Nina said.

"Sorry." I pulled my eyes back to the front of the auditorium. "What did you say?"

"I said the girl you were staring at outside, do you know her?"

"No," I said.

Nina looked at me sideways but did not push it. The auditorium was almost full now, the low hum of conversation filling the space from floor to ceiling. Up on the stage there was a podium, a microphone, a row of chairs occupied by what looked like faculty members in formal dress.

A woman in a grey blazer was at the microphone running through housekeeping announcements in the tone of someone who had given this speech many times and found it only marginally interesting.

I tried to focus. I tried to think about something other than Olivia's face outside those doors. I told myself I was probably wrong, that lots of people had auburn hair, that from a distance I could have mistaken a stranger for my sister.

I had been exhausted and stressed and running on very little sleep. It was a reasonable explanation.

I almost believed it. Then the woman in the grey blazer said, "And now, to welcome our new students on behalf of the wider St. Aldrich community, please welcome your upperclassman representative, captain of the rugby team, Sebastian Grant."

The auditorium erupted. To me, there was nothing polite about the applause. It was the kind of noise a crowd made for someone they had been waiting for, loud and slightly unhinged.

People around me were on their feet. Nina was on her feet. I stayed in my seat and watched the figure that walked out onto the stage and felt the floor drop out from under me.

Holy molly!!!! It was the man who had almost run me over yesterday.

He reached the podium, adjusted the microphone and looked out at the auditorium with the calm of someone who had stood in front of large crowds so many times that it had stopped meaning anything to him.

Then applause died down, and people sat down vack. Nina sat down beside me with her eyes fixed on the stage like she was watching something religious.

"That is him," she breathed.

"I know," I said.

"Have you seen him before?"

"Unfortunately."

Nina turned to look at me but I was watching the stage.

So Sebastian Grant was his name. The rude, grumpy, self-satisfied person who had nearly hit me with his car. And then, he gave me directions like he was doing me a personal favour.

Wonderful!!!

He spoke well, I would give him that. His voice carried without effort and he said the kinds of things people in his position always said at these events, about ambition and community and what St. Aldrich stood for.

I was not particularly interested in any of it. I was thinking about Olivia, when my thoughts went back to the administration office and what was going to happen when those two things collided.

He was wrapping up. I could tell by the slight pause before his final point.

"Before I close," he said, "there is one matter I need to address directly."

Something in his tone changed. The easy confidence was still there but underneath it now was an edgeness. Around me the auditorium went a little quieter.

"It has come to the attention of the administration that a discrepancy exists in one of this year's scholarship applications." He looked down at the paper in front of him, then back up at the crowd. "I am going to ask the student, "Mariana Vitale”, in question to come to the stage."

My stomach turned, it was as if am going to puck. The sound of my name coming through that microphone and bouncing off the walls of the auditorium was one of the strangest things I had ever experienced.

Around me heads started turning and searching for the person. But Nina turned her face towards me. I sat completely still for a moment and then I stood up because there was nothing else to do.

I made my way to the end of the row and walked down the aisle toward the stage. My legs were steady. And honestly, I did not know how.

I climbed the steps and stood at the edge of the stage. Sebastian Grant looked at me and I looked back at him and I watched the moment he recognised me register on his face.

He said nothing about it.

"Olivia Vitale," he said into the microphone.

My head turned sharply toward the auditorium. So did everyone else's.

"The scholarship is currently being processed under the name Mariana Vitale," Sebastian continued, his voice completely level, "was applied for and submitted using forged documents under a false identity. The scholarship was intended for and belongs to Olivia Vitale." He paused. "Will Olivia Vitale please come to the stage."

The auditorium went completely silent. I stood therein front of everyone. And I know that my life was about to end before it even starts.