Part of me thinks, I can fix this. Three more weeks, and I can fix this. Break up with Bode, reclaim my life, move on and numb the sting that my clone—my self—hates me. That she’s…the better Lucille.
I can barely make myself think it. But that’s what she’s doing. Taking my classes, dating Bode, friends again with Cass, at Dad’s right now being the dutiful daughter while I’m here, at a party with a boy, neither of which my parents or best friend knows about. Like I’ve slipped through a crack and suddenly all the time I spent thinking I was getting to be more like myself feels like fiction, and instead I’m less. Still left out and separate, just telling myself a different lie.
I take a sip of beer to stifle a bitter laugh, because at least we’re acing Life2’s test, right? At least we’re excelling. Proving they were right to want me. But if that was ever going to feel like an accomplishment, it’s soured now. Three more weeks, and I can fix this. Sure, great. Except “fixing this” starts with sending her back. And while that always felt like a simple given, in ways I can’t explain it feels far less simple now.
“You were right,” I say. “We should’ve stayed at your place and watched a movie.”
“Definitely. Or—” He cuts himself off.
I look up. “Or?”
“Your house.” Marco fidgets with his cup, making the plastic dent and undent, clicking it in and popping it out again and again.
I can’t do this. I stand up and chug the rest of my beer. My throat stings from the carbonation. Liquid sloshes in my gut. “Time for a refill,” I say, and head back into the house before he can stop me. In the kitchen, one of the guys hanging out around the little keg fills my cup back up. I take a long drink as Marco joins me. My stomach is too full. My head’s already started to spin. I set the cup on the counter and grab Marco’s hand.
“Come on,” I say, and tug him out of the kitchen toward the living room and stairs.
“Lucille,” he says, but I don’t stop.
The hall at the top of the stairs is narrow, with half the doors closed. It’s quiet, no music, no conversation. I try the first door: locked. The second: closet. The third is a bedroom. Probably Marco’s friend’s. The bed’s messy and there are dirty clothes on the floor. A poster of the Wasp hangs on the wall over his dresser, another of Black Widow is taped to the ceiling above the bed.
I pull Marco in, close the door behind me, and kiss him. I need this. I need out of my head.
He pulls back. “Lucille. What’s—”
I move in to kiss him again, but he lifts a hand, puts it between us.
“Stop,” he says.
I back up a—wobbly—step. “Why?” I ask. “You’re supposed to want me. That’s basically the whole point of this.”
“Of what?”
“All of it. Her, them, the whole thing. I’m supposed to finally get to be the right Lucille. The version people want.”
“What are you talking about? I do want you, Luce, but I—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What? Luce?”
“Yeah. Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Jesus,” he breathes. “Fine.” He pushes away from the door and moves farther into the room, away from me. He still has his half-empty cup in one hand. “What is going on with you? Last night, we— Then at your house today, it’s like…”
My cheeks are hot. Not just my cheeks, my eyes too. And I swear to god if I start crying, I’ll— “What?”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me.
“It’s like what?”
“Like I’m your dirty secret!” he shouts. Really, shouts it. “You went backpacking with me. For days. And yet you won’t let me walk you to your door! Let alone let me meet your mom. Are you going to tell me there’s nothing weird about that? Nothing wrong?”
He waits, but I don’t answer.
“What’s wrong with me that—” He stops himself, shifting his eyes away from me. To the carpet, the wall, the ceiling. Looking anywhere but at me. And my heart—a heart, my heart, suspended in blue goo—breaks.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” I say. “None of this is working.”
“What isn’t working?”
“Everything.” And I yank open the door and leave the room.
Back in the kitchen, I grab my cup, dump it in the sink, and shove it at one of the guys—watching me, wide-eyed—by the tap to refill. He does, hands it back, and I swallow as much of it as I can, coughing as I force the beer down. My stomach feels too tight, my face is hot, but I don’t care.
A group of people share a bottle in the living room. I ask to join and they hand it over. It’s worse than the beer. Like drinking cough-syrup-flavored fire. I hand it back and turn away. I think I hear Marco in the kitchen saying my name? I don’t know. A Rihanna song comes on, someone turns the stereo up, a few others start singing, and I move on. Back through the living room, thinking, Go outside. Go home. Go.
I hit the entryway just as someone’s coming through the front door, and I stumble out of the way. “Whoa,” the guy laughs, reaching out, grabbing my arm. To steady me, I guess. But I shake him off, then round the corner, using the wall for support, and follow him downstairs.
My feet feel, they feel, they don’t.
I’m loose. Taffy muscles. Taffy joints. Wax-paper skin.
The basement ceiling’s low. Popcorn ceiling. Paneled walls. Old carpet. A thousand percent sure it’s gritty. I can feel it through my shoes.
“Lucille!”
Remi. Smashed with three other people on a dumpy old couch. They’re passing a bong between them. “Join us!” he says.
Perfect Lucille. Uptight Lucille. Stretched-thin, straight-A, stick-up-her-ass Lucille. Lucille Harper, Overachiever. Lucille Harper, Turned Down by Her Own Boyfriend. Lucille Harper, Second Place to Her Own Fucking Clone, flops down on Remi’s lap, listens to the instructions, and puts her mouth to the glass.
Then I’m coughing, my lungs squished flat. My thoughts go oblong.
“Remi! What the fuck?”
Marco grabs my arm, pulls me up off Remi’s lap. The girl next to Remi on the couch reaches for the bong before I drop it.
“Dude, what?” Remi says.
I sway next to Marco. Who still has my arm. Who says…something. Don’t know. Don’t care. The room’s a comforter. A duvet. Warm and small. And constricting.
“…seemed fine to me,” Remi is saying. “Sorry. Okay? I’m sorry.”
And I’m moving. Feet following my upper body. Upper body following my arm. Arm held by Marco. He pauses at the bottom of the stairs, loops his arm under mine, around my chest.
“I think—”
“What?” Marco asks. Breathy. Next to my ear.
The stairway spins.
“I’m going to throw up.”
He groans. “Awesome.”
Then we’re hurrying. Up, up. Through the entryway. Out the door. Fresh air, dark sky. Cement stairs, sidewalk, grass. I lean over and lose it.
Marco grabs my hair. Rubs my back. When I’m done, he sits me on the bottom step of the porch and crouches in front of me. Eye to eye. “Stay here. Got it?”
“You’re mad.”
He huffs a sigh. “Just. Don’t move.”
Then he runs back into the house.
She’s there right now. Dad’s apartment. In my bed. I picked those sheets. Purple sheets. Purple floral comforter. Texting Bode, probably. Being the right me.
I lean my head against…something. Railing? Cold, hard. Uncomfortable.
“Come on.”
I open my eyes. Marco offers his hand. “We’re going. Come on.”
I reach for his hand. Noodle arm. Taffy fingers. He leans down and helps me up.
He b
uckles me into Taylor’s SUV. “Taylor says if you throw up in her car, she’ll gut you.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
He closes the door, goes around, gets in, starts the engine, drives. Drives. Stops. Cuts the engine. Gets out. Opens my door. Unbuckles my seat belt. Helps me out.
“No.”
It’s my driveway.
My house.
“No,” I say, pulling back. “I can’t—I’m not—Lucy—”
“Please, Lucille. You’re wasted,” Marco says. His voice hurts me. Not an angry voice. A sad one.
Up the stairs, on the porch, he rings the bell.
Boris. Losing his shit, charging through the house, barking, barking, barking with his big fat lungs. Then the porch light. The click of the dead bolt. Mom.
“Lucille?”
“Ms. Harper,” Marco says. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”
“What’s going on?”
“She drank too much. And smoked some weed.” Marco, ashamed. Marco, devastated. Marco, meeting my mo—
I throw up again. All over my mom’s peonies.
“For fuck’s sake, Lucille,” she groans, and grabs me. Roughly. Yanks me inside. “Thanks,” she says to Marco. At him. “Whoever you are.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I’m—”
“Not the time,” she says, and slams the door in his face.
Marco. My mom. Lucy. I’m supposed to be—
She drags me through the entryway. “What were you thinking?”
“I—”
“Rhetorical, Lucille. Clearly, you weren’t. Jesus. Does your dad know where you are?”
I gag. “No.”
She half carries, half pushes me up the stairs, down the hall, into my room. I check my pocket for my phone. “Clean yourself up,” she says, and leaves.
I pull my phone out. Call Lucy.
“Lucil—”
“Out,” I say. “You have to get out.”
“What?”
“Dad’s apartment. I’m home. With Mom. She’s calling Dad. Get out.”
“WHAT?”
“Now. Leave the car.”
LUCY
Leave the car. And do what? Walk?
Then I hear it. Dad’s phone rings, shrill and grating through the apartment’s walls. Three rings, four. A pause as he misses the call. Then it starts up again.
I go. In my jersey shorts and an old T-shirt, keys and phone in hand, sneaking down the hallway, through the dim kitchen-slash-living-room, flip-flops snapping at my heels. I pause and take them off to go barefoot.
The ringing stops again. I hear Dad’s voice, muffled, then louder.
I reach the door, unlock it, heart pounding. (Cue Life2 text in three…two…one…) I slip out into the hall and ease the door closed behind me with a hushed click.
Then I run.
Down the hall, the elevator, through the lobby. Outside, I stop.
Does she expect me to hide out in the courtyard? Curl up and sleep between the bushes? I slip my flip-flops back on and call her. It goes straight to voicemail. I’m so mad it takes every argument I can conjure to stop myself from charging straight back upstairs and telling Dad the truth.
Fuck Lucille for this. She gets everything. Freedom, control, this life, the “official” life, a life. While I get…“I.” Fundamental issue there. That pesky “not an individual” thing. My phone buzzes again in my hand. The text reads: Drastically elevated heart rate. Report.
I write back: Nightmare.
This is just fabulous. I have no money. No car. And it’s 1:02 a.m.
I could call Bode. And say…what? Hey, I need a ride across the city in the middle of the night for reasons I can’t explain and, oh, what? Yeah, that is my car, but I’m not allowed to use it because my Original—you know, Lucille? The girl you still think I actually am? Yeah, her. She’s a self-centered piece of shit who royally fucked me over, and my alternative is sleeping outside. Oh, yeah, and by Original I mean she’s the “real” Lucille and I’m a fucking clone.
I sit on the sidewalk next to my car, cross-legged, staring at my phone in my lap. I have five numbers: Lucille’s, Bode’s, Life2’s main number, Dr. Thompson’s cell, and…Cass’s.
I put it in there after school on Friday. After a week of loaded but friendly smiles and stilted but hopeful conversations. I hadn’t been avoiding her, exactly. But I wasn’t going out of my way to talk to her either. Because every time I imagined talking to Cass, even our fake conversations revolved around that night in the park. And every time I thought about that night in the park, it was in third person: She felt like this. She shouldn’t have said that. She wishes it’d been different. I couldn’t own that fallout because it wasn’t mine.
I hesitate, my thumb over the button. Then call.
It rings three times before she answers, groggy, confused. “Hello?”
“Cass?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“It’s Lucy.”
“Lucy,” she repeats. “Whose phone are you calling from? What’s going on?”
“I, uh…need a ride.”
“Wait. What? Start from the beginning.”
“I…” I let go a slow breath. “God. This is so shitty. But, I can’t. I need a ride. From my dad’s to my mom’s. But I can’t tell you why.”
Silence.
For so long that I pull the phone away from my ear to see if she’s hung up.
Then she asks, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m okay. Nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong, exactly. It’s just…” I roll my eyes. “A logistics issue.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a platypus.”
Quiet again. It’s our (their) word, like a promise. She and Lucille came up with it when they were little, a way to say “trust me and have my back, no questions asked.” Like anyone actually drops “platypus” casually into a conversation, but they both liked the word, so it stuck.
“Text me your dad’s address,” she says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She pulls up in her mom’s car at 1:47, rolling to a stop behind mine. I stand, open the passenger door, and climb in. “So,” she says, leaving the car in park. “You’re really not going to tell me?”
I sigh. “I really can’t.”
Her eyes narrow behind her thick-lensed glasses (the ones she hates, the ones she only wears in dire circumstances once she’s taken her contacts out). There’s a dark smudge under each eye, makeup she didn’t wash all the way off. “Can’t. Not won’t?”
“Can’t. In this case, semantics matter.”
She stares out the windshield. Everything is tinged orange from the streetlights. “Fine,” she says, and finally shifts into reverse, backing away from my car before pulling out into the street. “Late-night drama.” She glances at my lap. “Second phone. Aren’t you just an International Woman of Mystery all of a sudden.”
“International? I wish.”
She laughs, but it’s not funny. It was just a thing to say. “Where are your glasses?”
I reach for my face. A reflex from memories of years of wearing glasses. “Put my contacts in.”
“Before I picked you up in the middle of some covert ‘logistics issue’ at two a.m.?”
I shrug. And there’s a beat. A skinny blip in which her acceptance goes brittle.
“For real, though,” she says. “You’ve been MIA for months. And now?”
“And now I call you for a ride in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah. That. Why didn’t you call Bode?”
I look at my phone. Nothing new from Lucille. “Because I can’t tell him why either.”
“And you worried he m
ight not be as amazingly understanding about it as yours truly?”
“Yup.”
She smiles over at me. I lean my head against the window.
“So,” she says, “can we talk about our stuff? Or is that a secret too?”
“It’s not a secret. I just don’t know how to talk about it.”
“Easy. You form thoughts in your head and use your breath, vocal cords, and mouth muscles to project them into the world.”
“Yeah.”
“That was a joke, Lucille.”
Lucille.
How jarring. Such simple proof that she’s talking to “me” instead of me.
“I know,” I say. “But I meant it, I don’t know how to talk about it.”
Cass sighs. An annoyed sigh. Because I’m avoiding this the way she and Lucille avoided it all summer. “She—” I start, then shake my head. “I should’ve told you about my parents. Right away. But things between us…” I search for the right way to say this. “They were weird. I stopped knowing how to talk to you about stuff.”
She sighs again, sad this time. “I really want to say that’s not fair. I tried. You know? Again and again, I tried. To include you. To invite you. And you checked out! Like you were so jealous of my being with Aran you’d rather ditch our friendship altogether than deal with it.”
It’s a jab. And even though it’s Lucille’s hurt, I still feel it. “I know,” I say. “But it felt…”
“Like pity?”
“Yes. And then you told Louise about my crush on Bode and—”
“Wait. What?” She pulls over, shifts into park, and turns toward me. “What are you talking about?”
It’s late. I’m tired. And I have to concentrate too hard on using the right pronouns. “I heard you. After we fought. I came to find you, and I heard you and Louise talking about my ‘pathetic’ crush on him.”
“That’s not—I don’t think that’s what we said.”
“Maybe. But it’s what I heard.”
“Well,” she hedges, “I mean, it kinda worked out…didn’t it?”
I laugh, off-kilter and jagged. Here I am, having this heart-to-heart with Lucille’s (not my) best friend about an event I wasn’t present or even alive for, about a shitty thing Louise said about Lucille (me but not me) that’s basically nullified since I’m with Bode now, supposedly satisfying that crush, except I’m not “me,” not Lucille at least, which means she’s still the one on the outside. And, honestly, I’m pretty focused on hating her right now, and that stab of empathy isn’t helping.
Half Life Page 18
