by Gemma Weir
The rest of the weekend was much of the same with Carrigan and my parents going to a party or something, leaving me to slob in my pjs and eat the ice cream Mrs. Humphries brought me; that sad, sympathetic look even more obvious in her eyes.
Monday morning and a new school week comes much quicker than I’d like and I dutifully style my hair in Carrigan’s signature style and apply my makeup, just the way she likes it. Then I dress in my St Augustus uniform and head downstairs.
Mrs. Humphries slides a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me the moment I sit down. “Thank you,” I say quietly, as Carrigan sashays into the room, her face identical, but as usual just a little more polished and perfect than mine. It’s always been that way. She’s always been that little bit better than me, the important one, and I’m just imitating her because I don’t have any other choice.
She doesn’t sit down to eat. She just waits impatiently for Mrs. Humphries to finish making her usual wheatgrass and Goji berry smoothie, or whatever the green juice she has instead of breakfast each day is, her toe tapping against the floor.
“Finally,” she hisses, when Mrs. Humphries hands her the glass to-go canister. Grabbing it, she looks to me, her lip turning up in disgust as she eyes the half-eaten plate of food in front of me. “We’re leaving. Now,” she demands coldly a moment before she turns and walks away, the sound of her heels tapping against the floor as she leaves.
Sighing resignedly, I push my plate away wishing I could finish, but knowing that if I try to, she’ll only come back and scream at me until I go. It’s pointless to argue. “Thank you,” I say, my voice quiet as I take my backpack from Mrs. Humphries and walk out of the kitchen.
Greg is standing at the car door, his hand rested on the top as he waits stoically for me to arrive. Offering him a small smile, I slide into the car next to my sister, lowering my backpack to the floor at my feet.
She doesn’t speak to me, her attention entirely focused on the cell phone in her hands.
“Where were you on Friday night?” I ask cautiously.
“Sick,” she replies immediately, not even glancing up from the message her fingers are busily typing out.
I want to call her out on her obvious lie, but what’s the point? Because I know she won’t tell me what she was really doing, or who she was with. Exhaling wearily, I let my head fall back to the seat and stare out of the darkened windows at the scenery as we drive the familiar route to school.
When the imposing metal gates come into view, I feel the all too familiar pressure settle on my shoulders. No matter how many times I come here, it never gets any easier and it never will, not while I’m living this strange double, invisible life.
Greg pulls to a stop outside the school steps and Carrigan preens, fluffing her hair and straightening her blazer a moment before her door opens and she slides out without a backward glance in my direction.
Just like every other day, Greg climbs back into the car and circles the block, waiting until a second before the final bell rings before we approach the school again, pulling to a stop in the same place we dropped Carrigan. I drag in a breath and wait. When the door opens, I climb out and strut away from the car, just like she would.
Entering the school, I eye the corridor, finding it almost entirely absent of students. No one is looking at me, so I drop the Carrigan act and curl into myself, lowering my head and hunching my shoulders forward as I scurry through the hallways until I reach my homeroom.
It says something about the quality of the kids in my class that in three years no one has noticed that I’m not my sister yet. The school’s policy of identifying students by their surname has definitely helped, but surely someone should have figured out that Miss Archibald is in more than one set of classes.
My parents don’t exactly bribe the school, but some hefty donations have been made in our name since the news of the inheritance hit. All of the teachers know that there are two of us, but they either don’t care that my parents don’t want my existence public knowledge, or Principal Irvine has convinced them all to overlook it. The only one of my teachers who ever comments about me skipping classes is Mr. Harper, my English teacher. The rest happily accept my absence and late papers without penalizing me.
The ironic thing about this whole situation is that even though I take most of Carrigan’s tests for her, I’m still maintaining a perfect 4.0 of my own, despite regularly missing my own classes to attend hers.
The teacher takes attendance, then the bell rings and we all head for our first periods. I receive a few calls of hello and a few flirty smiles from the guys, but they don’t comment when I hang back, because it’s what I do every day. When I finally step out of the classroom, the halls are emptying and no one notices the blonde moving unobtrusively toward her next class.
Hiding in plain sight has become one of my special skills. I’m invisible because no one knows to look for me. I don’t think there’s a single person in this entire school other than my sister who actually knows my first name.
Walking through the door of my classroom, I sink down into my seat, three rows back, three rows in and pull my books and the assignment I finished the day after it was given out onto the desk in front of me.
School is easy for me. I don’t consider myself super smart, but having no friends, no one to distract me and a complete lack of social life makes it easy for me to read ahead in all of my books and have a basic understanding of whatever is going to be taught before the teacher even opens their mouth. Considering how many of my own classes I miss, it’s a good job that I do find it easy to retain information.
I can feel the key to the darkroom in my blazer pocket and its presence offers more comfort than anything else in this school. Trying not to use the only space where I actually exist as Tallulah is getting harder and harder, but I fight the urge and dutifully listen as the teacher explains something I already understand. As the bell rings and kids surge to their feet, eager to pack away their laptops and books, and enjoy a moment to chat and relax between classes, I hear the familiar chime of a text message coming from my ancient cell.
Closing my eyes, I exhale sadly, already knowing exactly what the message will say before I even reach for my phone. My next period is history, but Carrigan’s is AP chemistry, a class that in the last eighteen months I’ve attended more often than she has.
A wave of rebellion crashes over me, dousing me with righteous indignation. Why should I do this for her? Why, when she disappeared this weekend and left me to deal with her life, should I drop my lesson and go to hers instead? She wouldn’t do it for me, no matter how much money was at stake.
Sliding my laptop into my backpack, I hug the bag to my chest and bite my lip. I know there’ll be hell to pay later, but right now, the excitement over not doing what’s expected of me, not playing by my parents’ rules is more than I can resist.
I wait for the classroom to clear before I move to the door, a smile tipping at the edges of my lips. Then I step into the emptying hallway and walk like I normally do, only I don’t head to the science block, nor do I go to History. Instead, I walk slowly, my face the image of Carrigan’s, my head held high as I make my way to my darkroom.
By the time I reach the door, the hallways are empty except for a handful of stragglers all rushing to get to their classes. But I won’t be missed. My teachers aren’t shocked anymore when I skip classes, so no one will question why I’m not there.
Glancing over my shoulder, I look to my left, then check again to my right to make sure no one is watching as I slide the key free from my pocket and push it into the lock, turning the handle and stepping into the room. All of the pretense of calm confidence dissolves once I’m inside and the lock twists into place.
I allow a wide smile to spread across my lips as a squeal of excitement falls from my mouth. My cell phone beeps again signaling another text, but I don’t even check it before I hold down the button to turn off the phone and drop it back into my backpack.
Fal
ling down onto the couch, I grin maniacally as I twist my fingers into position and wave both middle fingers at the door, my sister, and this fucked up pretense.
Mr. Ford slaps his hand against the top of the desk, drawing our attention. His beady eyes scan the room as he pushes his pretentious rimless glasses up his nose with one finger, a glass full of iced tea with a slice of lemon held aloft in his other hand.
“Today we will be discussing the principles we have been learning for the last four weeks. I’ll be grading all of you on your ability to competently discuss and analyze the chemical hypothesis and then perform a practical application,” he says, his voice a monotone drone.
Sighing, I lean back in my seat, watching the rest of the class from my position in the back row. Wats, Olly, and I claimed these seats during freshman year and have kept them ever since. Back then we thought it made us cool. Now we just enjoy having a wall to lean against and the best view.
My eyes fall on Carrigan’s white blonde head and I spot the cell phone she’s typing on hidden beneath the desk. Tsk, tsk, Little Miss Perfect shouldn’t be using her cell in class. After she left on Friday night, Dad and I got into it yet again about me marrying her. All he sees when he looks at her is dollar signs. He doesn’t care if I like her, or if I want to tie myself to her for the next however many years. All he cares about is the money.
I’m sick of arguing with him about her and her family, but no matter how many times I say it, he refuses to hear that I have absolutely no intention of ever marrying that evil little whore. I don’t know Carrigan well enough to see what’s the truth and what’s the act, but from what I do know of her, I wasn’t expecting the wide-eyed fear she’d shown me when I’d teased and taunted her. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was shocked by the way I spoke to her.
It’s stupid to think that the shy fear I saw in her was anything more than an act, but something about the way her lower lip had trembled when I’d suggested she put on a show for me seemed almost… real. In fact, the way she behaved the entire time she was at my house was strange. She acted like she’d never been there before, which is ridiculous considering I’ve lost count of how many times her flowery, vanilla perfume has stunk up the place.
Thinking about it, she hadn’t even been wearing her signature scent that night. Instead, there’d been a subtle hint of roses that lingered after she’d left. Maybe if she’d always been that timid little doe, I wouldn’t despise her quite so much.
“Miss Archibald, please put your cell phone away, the rest of us are ready to start the class,” Mr. Ford hisses derisively.
“Sorry, sir,” Carrigan says sweetly, looking up at him and flashing him a perfect smile.
As the teacher returns to the front of the class, my eyes stay focused on her. She almost looks flustered, something I’ve never seen Carrigan Archibald, heir to a small fortune ever seem before.
Her fingers tap agitatedly against her desk, before she lifts them and runs them through her hair. She pulls her perfect blonde locks into a ponytail at the back of her head before releasing it so her hair falls back down her back again.
As I watch, she slyly pulls her cell out again, tapping at the screen, her eyes guiltily moving from side to side as Mr. Ford rambles on about today’s project and the grading scale.
“Why are you staring at the fucking harpy?” Wats asks from my side, leaning forward so his head is almost touching mine.
“Does she look twitchy?” I ask, not looking away from Carrigan.
“Maybe,” he says after a moment.
“She was weird this weekend at dinner, now this. She’s normally so fucking still and annoyingly perfect. This is strange.”
“Who cares?” Wats says, flopping back into his chair, his body language relaxed and unaffected. “Maybe she’s taken too many diet pills, or that stick she’s got shoved up her ass has ridden up a bit. Since when do you give a fuck about her anyway?”
“I don’t,” I say on an agitated sigh. “But something is not quite right and I want to know what it is. My dad isn’t backing down on this bullshit about me marrying her. Maybe I can use this odd behavior as ammunition to get him to finally accept it’s not going to happen.”
Mr. Ford drones on about something I don’t care about, but I can’t take my eyes off Carrigan. She’s fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing those long legs of hers. There’s something agitated, maybe even nervous, about the way she’s behaving. She’s obsessively checking her cell phone and her eyes are darting about like someone’s going to jump out and stab her or something.
“What the fuck?” I whisper beneath my breath, my eyes narrowing as I watch her hands curl into fists at her sides and a red flush fill her cheeks.
“Miss Archibald,” Mr. Ford says, calling on Carrigan to answer a question.
From my seat behind her, I can’t see her face, but I notice the way her entire body freezes. How her shoulders tense so hard they rise up almost to her ears.
“Miss Archibald, would you like to offer up your opinion on the equilibrium concentrations?” Mr. Ford asks as he moves along the rows of seats until he’s stood in front of her desk.
For a moment there’s utter silence. I watch as she deliberately slides her cell phone into her blazer pocket, then her hands jump from her sides and cover her mouth, before she launches herself upright and bolts from the classroom.
A titter of laughter follows her dramatic departure. My lips part and my brow furrows. What the hell was that? I suppose her being sick could explain her strange fidgety behavior, but something feels off.
Mr. Ford clears his throat, his eyes moving from the door Carrigan just ran through and back to the rest of us still sitting in the room. “Err, well, err,” he says, clearing his throat again.
His eyes fall on me, then to Wats on my right and Dover Hallmark on my left. “Mr. Lexington, perhaps you could go and check on Miss Archibald and escort her to the nurse’s office.”
“Of course, Mr. Ford,” I purr politely. Normally I’d be pissed at being sent to play nursemaid to that stuck up bitch, but I want to know what she’s playing at and following her now is the perfect opportunity.
Pushing out of my seat, I stride down the classroom, not rushing from the room but moving quickly enough that I’m in the hallway a moment later. Scanning the empty corridor from left to right, I sigh and start to walk in the direction of the closest bathroom. If she really is sick, then that’s where she’ll be.
When I reach the heavy wooden door, I push it open, not caring if anyone else is in there, but the bathroom’s empty, the doors on the stalls all ajar. I take a moment to appreciate how much nicer the women’s bathrooms are than the men’s—which always smell like piss, no matter how expensive the tuition here is.
Releasing the door, I spin around, wondering if she’s gone straight to the nurse’s office. I turn to head in that direction, only walking a few steps down the corridor, when I hear her voice.
“Yes of course I texted her.” She whisper-hisses, her voice angry.
She pauses for a second, but no one else replies, then she speaks again. “We had a test; she should have been there. I’m going to kill her.”
She pauses again, and I creep closer to the stairwell that branches off to the right of the hallway, moving silently so she doesn’t hear me approaching. Peering through the partially open doorway, I find Carrigan pacing to and fro, her cell phone gripped tightly to her ear, a scowl etched firmly across her lips.
“She’s so selfish. She doesn’t care,” she hisses, anger and poison leeching from every word.
I don’t know who she’s speaking to, or about, but this bitter, haughty look and tone is so much more familiar than the scared deer-in-the-headlights act she tried to pull on Friday night. Stepping away, I move backwards to the wall opposite the door and wait, my arms crossed across my chest.
For a moment I’d been intrigued. For a moment I’d considered that maybe I’d been wrong, that the girl who pranced about like she was a pr
ize show pony was the act and that maybe the nervous, quiet girl who had literally trembled after a few cruel words might have been the real person.
But who you are in the quiet moments when you think no one is watching is the real person, and that’s this version of Carrigan. Manipulative, entitled, mean.
Five minutes later, she emerges from the stairwell and as soon as she spots me, her body language changes. Her eyes hood and she smiles; that fake, demure smile that repulses me.
“Arlo, darling, are you waiting for me?” she asks, her tone all sweetness, with a hint of seduction.
“Mr. Ford wanted me to escort you to the nurse’s office,” I say coldly.
“I’m actually feeling a lot better now, but I’m so touched that you were worried about me,” she says, gliding over to me and hooking her arm through mine so effortlessly that I don’t even have time to flinch away from her touch.
The feel of her hand on my skin repulses me. In fact, everything about this woman repulses me. Pulling my arm from hers, I take a large step away from her, then gesture ahead of me with a wave of my arm. “Let’s go, some of us have class to get back to,” I say, letting all of the coldness and disgust I’m feeling seep into my voice.
For a second she looks startled, then she blinks and all that’s behind her eyes is cold, hard, nothingness. Carrigan Archibald is just like her parents. Everything about her is a strategic maneuver to get her closer to her inheritance and all that money.
I don’t speak again as we make our way to the nurse’s office, nor as I follow her into the room and wait until Nurse Hannigan is busily cooing and fussing over her. Then I turn around and leave.
Pulling my cell from my pocket, I type out a quick message to Watson asking him to grab my stuff from chemistry. Hitting send, I pocket my cell again and instead pull out my cigarette case. Slowly, I saunter along the hallways until I find my hidden alcove opposite the old darkroom. Since I saw Carrigan sneaking out of the room the other day, I have this intense desire to know what’s in there, to know what interest a disused room could possibly hold for Little Miss Perfect. This is the first thing I’ve found truly interesting about her. In everything else she’s obvious, predictable, and boring; but this sneaking around, hiding in a forgotten room alone, that’s intriguing.
