The Shadow Twin

GONE

Chapter 2: Gone

MARIANA'S POV

Nobody moved for what felt like a very long time.

Ethan was the first one to speak. "Mariana, this is not what it looks like."

I almost laughed. I looked around the room slowly, at the clothes on the floor, at my sister sitting in his bed with the sheets pulled up, at the guilt written all over his face, and I almost laughed.

"Then what does it look like?" I asked.

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

Olivia was the one who answered. "Oh come on Mariana, do not act so surprised." She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, completely unbothered. "You had to have seen this coming."

"Really? Okay, that aside. How long has this being going on," I said. I was not asking Ethan anymore. I was looking straight at my sister.

She shrugged one shoulder. "Seven months."

Seven months. I did the math without meaning to. Seven months ago I had helped Olivia move furniture in her room because her back was sore. Seven months ago Ethan had surprised me with dinner and told me he was proud of me for working so hard. Seven months of all of that while this was happening behind my back.

"You are my twin sister," I said.

"And?" Olivia tilted her head like I had said something mildly interesting.

"And nothing." I looked at Ethan one more time. He was staring at the floor. "I have nothing to say to either of you."

I turned around and walked out. Ethan came after me. I heard his footsteps behind me and I stopped in the middle of the living room but I did not turn around.

"Mariana please just let me explain, it just happened, I did not plan for any of this."

"Seven months is not something that just happens," I said.

"I know, I know that, but you and I have been so distant lately and Olivia was just there and…"

"Do not." I turned around then and the look on my face must have stopped whatever he was about to say next because he went completely quiet. "Do not tell me it is my fault. Do not do that."

He pressed his lips together.

"We are done," I said. "Do not call me." I walked out of his house and I did not stop walking until I got home.

My mother was still up, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea going cold in front of her. She looked at my face when I came in and whatever she saw there made her sit up straighter.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Nothing." I went straight to my room.

I did not cry, honestly I wanted to but I hold It back with everything in me. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall for a few minutes and then I got up and pulled my old backpack from under the bed and started packing.

I was not thinking about Ethan. I was not thinking about Olivia. I was thinking about the letter on my desk and the fact that if I stayed in this house one more day my mother would find a way to take it from me.

I packed my documents first. My acceptance letter, my ID, my birth certificate, the small folder of paperwork I had been collecting for months in preparation for university.

Then clothes, and the money I had saved in the box under my mattress, counting it quickly and folding it into my jacket pocket.

Minutes on, my mother appeared in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Packing."

"Packing for what, where do you think you are going at this hour?"

"St. Aldrich." I zipped the bag and straightened up. "I am going to sort out my scholarship and then I am enrolling."

Her expression hardened. "Mariana, we already discussed this, that scholarship belongs to…"

"It belongs to me." My voice did not shake. I was surprised by that. "My name was on that letter, I sat the exams, I did the work, it is mine and I am not giving it to anyone."

"You are being incredibly selfish right now."

"Maybe." I picked up the bag. "But I am also leaving so it does not really matter."

She stepped further into the doorway, blocking it. "I am your mother and I am telling you to put that bag down."

I looked at her for a moment. This woman who had spent my entire life making me feel like an inconvenience, who had sat across from me earlier that evening while I told her the best news of my life and immediately turned it into something for Olivia.

This woman who maybe might have known about Ethan and my sister’s relationship, but said nothing. Instead she supported I guess.

"Move please," I said quietly.

Something in my tone must have told her I was serious because she stepped aside.

I walked through the door, down the hallway, out of the front door and off the porch. The air outside was cool and the street was quiet. I did not look back at the house. I walked to the bus stop three streets over and sat down on the bench to wait.

My phone buzzed. And as I pulled it out, it was Ethan. So I just turned the screen over.

It buzzed again. Olivia this time. I turned it face down on my knee and watched the road.

The bus came twenty minutes later. I got on, found a window seat and put my bag on my lap. As the bus pulled away I watched the streetlights of the slum pass one by one until they were gone.

I pressed my forehead against the glass window and closed my eyes.

I was not going back.