Newt Run

 

  Hey. Sorry it's taken so long to respond. Things have been crazy here. Coming back was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. While I was in Newt Run it was easy to pretend that my life didn't exist, but it was here waiting for me.

  I kind of hate myself right now. I know, all my guilt issues again. Boring right? But I can't help it, any more than I can help doing the things that make me feel guilty.

  I hope you won't take this the wrong way...

  Damn. I just spent 15 minutes writing about everything that's going on here, everything I've been dealing with, all the shit with my ex-boyfriend (yes, he's my ex now, I finally got up the courage to break up with him. But I'm a wreck. Somehow it didn't make things any easier.)

  Anyway I deleted all that and now I'm starting again. I mean I don't know if you want to hear any of it. It can't be easy for you and the last thing I want is for you to think I'm using you as some kind of emotional support. You did ask me to tell you everything, but I don't know. I don't want to feel any worse about myself than I already do.

  I almost deleted all of that too.

  I didn't really understand your last email. You met a girl who looks like me? Sounds weird, but you know I don't even have a sister let alone a twin.

  Are you alright?

  I'm sorry, I have to cut this short. Things here are crazy, like I said. I have a show coming up in a week and I am so not ready for it at all. I have no idea how I'm going to get through it.

  We'll speak soon ok?

  xoxo

  Kelly

  I can't help laughing. It's so obviously her, the characteristic mixture of concern and self-pity, and her casual disregard for the only thing that really mattered, the fact that I've met her double. Reading the email again, I ask myself what I ever saw in her, but the answer is so painfully obvious that I drop it in favour of finishing off what's left of the bottle of whiskey on the table.

  I watch the snow falling past the window, monotonous as static, and then reach for my phone. She picks up after the second ring.

  "Hello?" she says.

  "Hi."

  I'm surprised by how drunk I sound, even to myself. I make an effort to straighten up in the chair, rubbing my eyes and setting down my glass of whiskey before starting again.

  "How are you doing?"

  "I'm sorry, who is this?"

  I laugh.

  "Isaac. The asshole from the other night."

  "Oh," she says. "How are you?"

  "I'm fine."

  "So... what's up?"

  "Are you busy? I checked my jacket and there's money in it this time. I'd like to buy you a drink."

  There's a pause.

  "Actually I could use one," she responds. "Do you know the Eft and Dragon? It's in Northside"

  "Heard of it."

  "Can you meet me at Norfolk in about an hour?"

  "That's fine."

  "Alright then," she says, and hangs up.

  The bus takes longer than it should because of the snow, and it's so busy that I'm forced to stand, crammed along with dozens of others in the center aisle. Almost all the other passengers are students, heading to Northside for cheap beer and the promise of something real, or what they've been told is real, by Pit Boy and the other slush rappers who've spent the past decade turning the district's so-called authenticity into a commodity. I pass the time by staring at my boots and the boots of the girl next to me, the slow wash of dirty water in the grooves along the floor. At Norfolk everyone piles out into the cold and I stand at the curb to wait. The impact of hundreds of feet has transformed the snow into a brown, gritty hash, dotted with rock salt and dirt and the burnt ends of cigarettes. Across the street a drunk emerges from an alley to piss against the wall of an abandoned building. I check my phone but there's no message from Hazel or any sign that she's called. Time passes and the snow continues to fall. Eventually, I'm able to make out the headlights of the next bus approaching through the storm. It pulls up at the side of the road and Kelly or Hazel gets out along with a few other people, almost all of them girls. At first I take them to be her friends, but they walk off without a word, and finally she's left standing on her own.

  "Hey," I say, approaching her.

  "Sorry. That took longer than I thought it would."

  "No problem."

  We start walking.

  "You've been to this place before?" I ask her.

  "No."

  "Me either. Taylor knows it though. He's up here all the time."

  "Who's Taylor?" she says, and it's only now that I remember this girl doesn't know him, or that she wants me to believe that she doesn't.

  "He's a friend of Kelly's."

  "The other girl?"

  "The other you."

  "Can we not talk about that tonight? It's fucking weird, and I'm trying to convince myself that it's ok for me to be meeting with you like this, even though – "

  "I'm insane?" I finish for her.

  "I was going to say even though you're some broke guy I met on the street."

  "I'm not broke."

  "We'll see."

  Despite the snow, it doesn't take us long to reach the bar. I hold the door for her and follow her inside. The air is thick with voices and a tinny rock ballad blaring from a set of outdated speakers. The hardwood floor is slick with tracked-in snow and spilled beer.

  Hazel shoulders her way through the crowd. When we reach the counter I order a couple beers and pay for us both.

  "I told you I'm not broke."

  "So it seems."

  "You sounded a little upset on the phone."

  "It's a long story."

  "What else are we going to talk about?"

  She looks down the length of the bar and ignores the question.

  "You know that friend of yours, the one who looks like me?" she asks, after a time.

  "I thought we weren't going to talk about that."

  "We weren't."

  "What about her?"

  "I look exactly like her?"

  "Yes. But actually I'm still not convinced that you aren't her, and all of this isn't just some sick game you're playing."

  "Who would do that?"

  "I don't know. A psychotic person I guess, but it makes more sense than there being two of you."

  "Does it?"

  "Yes. Anyway, what about her?"

  She doesn't answer me, clearly distracted, and then suddenly she is reaching out and grabbing the arm of a man walking past.

  He's around my height, with an average build and a brown mass of hair above a tall forehead. Another man stops with him, shorter than the first, and dressed in a red, loose-fitting jacket.

  "Leaving?" Hazel asks, taking her hand away.

  "For a minute," the taller man says, and glances at me; my stomach turns over. The man's face warps sickly, and for an instant I could swear that I recognize him, that I've known him all my life.

  "This is C," says Hazel, and just as quickly the feeling passes: the man in front of me is a stranger, and I nod at him, trying to clear my head. He nods back before turning to Hazel.

  "By the way, our mutual friend says hello."

  "Auld?" she asks.

  "Yeah," he says, his voice low. "I'll be back in a second alright?"

  She shrugs and the two of men disappear into the crowd. Hazel is looking at me.

  "You alright?" she asks me.

  "I think I know that guy, or I might have seen him before or something," I say, struggling to recall the feeling.

  "It's a small town," she concedes.

  "How do you know him?"

  "C? He's a friend of a friend," she says distractedly. "There's a table opening up over there."

  She gets up without waiting for me to answer, and I have no choice except to follow after her.

  "It's a small town," she repeats, after she's taken her seat. "But don't get me wrong. It's interesting."

  "I thought you'd be bored here, coming from the capital."


  "No. I'm not bored."

  "You were going to tell me something?"

  "It's not important."

  "Again, what else are we going to talk about? You want me to tell you about myself, my family? My failed love affairs?"

  "Definitely not."

  "So?"

  "So it's just this dream."

  "What dream?"

  She sighs.

  "I keep on having it," she starts, her eyes darting from one invisible point on the table to another. "More and more often. Especially since coming here. It's not easy to explain. In the dream, I'm at home, but it isn't my home. I mean it doesn't look like my home – it's an apartment I've never seen before, but at the same time I know that I belong there, that I've lived there for years, and as I walk down the hall I pass by a mirror, and as I do..." She stops, taking a long pull of beer, and looks away. Her face has gone pale, and she bites down on the edge of her lip.

  "You pass the mirror," I prompt her.

  "I pass it and see my reflection," she continues. "It's my reflection. Nothing is changed. It's me. But I'm dead. The girl in the mirror is dead, a dead girl staring out at me, through my eyes."

  She tries to laugh.

  "It's the same thing every time."

  "That's a bad dream."

  She shrugs.

  "It's a dream. But when you said that I look like your friend, exactly like her, I thought... I don't know what I thought. But that's why I had a drink with you, the first time."

  "I thought it was my charm."

  She laughs shortly and we finish our beer. I ask her if she wants another one and she nods.

  "I'm starting to feel a bit drunk," she says, but she doesn't sound drunk, and her eyes when she looks at me are clear.