Twisted Twin

I yank my hoodie zipper too hard and the metal catches skin.

“Shit.” I suck my thumb into my mouth before the blood can drip on the sink, then stare at myself in the mirror while the zipper hangs crooked across my chest like it gave up halfway.

Behind me, Payton’s side of the counter looks stupidly clean. Her face wash lined up with the labels turned out. Her mascara standing in a little white cup. A pale pink lip gloss beside the faucet like she just floated out of here five seconds ago, all fresh and glowing and impossible to hate if you don’t know better.

I wipe steam off the mirror with the heel of my hand.

Same wavy blonde hair. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same chin.

That’s the part that gets me.

We have the exact same face, but somehow hers always looks finished. Polished. Like people know what to do with it. Mine just looks tired. Mine looks like I slept in it. Mine looks like somebody smudged it with a dirty thumb.

“Paige!” Mom calls from downstairs. “If you’re not bleeding out, come eat.”

I look down at my thumb. Tiny cut. Barely anything.

I grab Payton’s lip gloss and shove it into the drawer harder than I need to, jerk my zipper loose, and head downstairs.

The kitchen smells like syrup and bacon and coffee, which should be good, except it’s too much this early and it sits heavy in the back of my throat.

Payton’s already at the island in her cheer hoodie, one knee tucked under her, like she belongs in a commercial for healthy families with good lighting. Mom sets a plate in front of her without even asking if she wants eggs.

She already knows.

Dad’s coffee mug is by the sink.

My plate’s still empty.

On the counter between us are two report cards.

Mom taps the top one with one pink nail. “Payton. Six A’s.”

Payton smiles, all small and humble, which is almost worse. “Chem almost killed me.”

“But you did it.” Mom brushes her fingers over her hair, smoothing down nothing. “I’m so proud of you.”

I pull out my stool harder than I mean to. It screeches across the tile. Nobody looks at me except Biscuit, sprawled by the back door with his head on his paws.

Mom finally glances at my report card and her mouth tightens for half a second. “We’ll talk about yours later.”

There it is.

Not good job on the B-minus in art. Not how are you doing in algebra. Not even a fake it’s okay, you’ll pull it up.

Later.

Like it’s a mess somebody has to clean when they have the time.

I reach for the bacon. It’s gone cold at the ends.

“Big day,” Mom says, too brightly. “Lake trip starts tomorrow. I don’t want either of you forgetting anything this year.”

Payton groans. “Maddie already texted me like six times about matching flannels.”

Mom laughs like that’s adorable. “Well, do you have one?”

“I have, like, three.”

“Of course you do,” Mom says.

I stab a piece of bacon with my fingers and take a bite.

The junior-senior trip to Grand Rock Lake. Three days in cabins and woods and forced bonding and school supervision that means nothing after dark. Mr. Reynolds calls it a leadership retreat every year, like putting teenagers near a lake and hoping they don’t get drunk behind a canoe shed builds character.

Payton’s been weirdly nice all week.

That should make me feel better.

It doesn’t.

Nice is the part right before the turn.

Dad comes in buttoning his cuff, drops his keys on the counter, and kisses the top of Payton’s head on the way to the coffee pot. “Morning, princess.”

Then he looks at me. “Hey, kiddo.”

I hate that I notice the difference every single time.

“Morning,” I say.

“You packed for the trip yet?” he asks Payton.

“Mostly. Emma says we’re bringing fairy lights for the cabin.”

Dad laughs into his coffee. “Of course you are.”

“She wants the whole thing cute.”

“I’m sure you girls will figure it out.”

He doesn’t ask if I’ve packed. Doesn’t ask who I’m rooming with. Doesn’t ask anything until Mom slides my report card closer to him with two fingers like it might stain the granite.

He glances down at it. “Art’s good.”

I almost laugh.

One class. Two words.

“Tyler said Mr. Bennett might submit some student work to the county showcase,” Payton says, reaching for the syrup.

Dad looks back up at her immediately. “Really?"

She shrugs. “He was talking about it in the hall. Tyler thinks one of his pieces might get in.”

Not mine, then. Good to know.

I push my plate back. “Can I go finish getting ready?”

Mom frowns. “You barely ate.”

“I’m good.”

She starts to say something else, then doesn’t. Dad’s asking Payton about practice. Mom’s refilling her orange juice before the glass is even empty.

I take my backpack off the floor, clip Biscuit’s ear as I pass, and head for the door before anybody can tell me to sit back down.

The truck ride smells like coffee and Dad’s cologne and the pine tree air freshener clipped to the vent. Payton gets shotgun without asking. She always does. I slide into the back and put my forehead against the cool window.

Outside, Maple Grove’s oak trees are draped in gray moss that looks like wet hair hanging from the branches. We pass the gas station, the church, the little strip mall with the nail place Mom likes and the pet store that never has anybody in it.

Dad and Payton talk the whole way.

Practice. Jake. The pep rally. Cabin assignments. Emma’s new boyfriend. A girl named Chloe who apparently cried in first period yesterday over something on Instagram.

I catch my name once.

“Paige still doing art club after school?” Dad asks, looking up at me in the rearview for maybe half a second.

“Yeah,” I say.

He nods. “Good.”

That’s the whole conversation.

When we pull into the school lot, Payton’s already reaching for the door handle.

“Bye,” she says, bright and easy.

Dad taps the roof of the truck above her head twice with his knuckles like some weird little ritual. “Have a day, baby.”

I get out the other side without saying anything.

Willow Ridge High looks exactly how it always does red-and-black banners, brick walls, too much sunlight, everybody pretending this place matters more than it does.

I’m at my locker digging for my sketchbook when Tyler shows up two doors down.

He has charcoal dust on the side of his hand and his earbuds looped around his neck. His notebook’s tucked under one arm. He catches me looking and lifts his chin.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

He glances at the graphite on my wrist. “You finish that hallway mural sketch?”

“Almost.”

“Can I see?”

It’s stupid how fast my mood shifts. One normal question and suddenly my chest loosens.

“Maybe when it doesn’t look terrible.”

He smiles a little. “So never, then?”

I actually smile back. “Shut up.”

“There she is.”

He leans against the locker beside mine, easy as anything, and for one second it feels normal. Not like I’m behind glass. Not like I’m the wrong twin. Just normal.

Then I hear Payton before I see her. Her laugh carries.

She comes up the hall with Emma and Sophie, cheer bag over one shoulder, hair still damp at the ends from the shower. Everybody makes room for her without meaning to. That’s her gift. Space opens.

“Tyler,” she says, slowing down. “Did you leave your portfolio in Mr. Bennett’s room? He was looking for you.”

Tyler straightens. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. He had it when I dropped off the fundraiser forms.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem.” She glances at me then, quick. “Paige, you left your charger in Dad’s truck.”

I didn’t. I checked for it this morning.

Or maybe I didn’t.

I stare at her.

She touches the front pocket of her hoodie. “I grabbed it before he left. I can give it to you at lunch.”

“Okay,” I say.

Emma loops her arm through Payton’s and pulls her along. “If we’re late again, Coach is gonna lose it.”

Payton gives Tyler a little wave. “See you.”

He watches her go for a second, then looks back at me. “Your sister’s nice.”

I look down at my locker so he doesn’t see my face change.

“Yeah,” I say. “Everybody says that.”

In art, I try to fix the eye.

It’s supposed to be a practice portrait. Not even for a grade, just value and shadow and structure. Mr. Bennett told us to work from memory, which is probably why mine keeps coming out wrong. Or maybe right.

I drag charcoal under the cheekbone, blend it with my thumb, step back.

The face on the page looks like Payton if you squint. Same mouth. Same nose. But one eye is darker. Not drawn darker. Wrong darker. Like there’s something sitting behind it.

Mr. Bennett stops behind me. “You keep pushing too much weight onto the right side.”

I don’t look at him. “Maybe the light’s from the left.”

“Maybe.” He folds his arms. “Or maybe you’re drawing what you feel instead of what you see.”

I erase too hard. The paper pills under the kneaded eraser.

“Sometimes that’s the better drawing,” Tyler says from the next table.

Mr. Bennett gives him a look. “Sometimes.”

The classroom door opens.

I don’t turn, but I know it’s her.

I know because the whole room shifts around her the way it always does. A pause. A look up. Somebody smiles.

“Sorry,” Payton says from the doorway. “Paige? Dad texted. Your charger’s in my bag.”

Mr. Bennett smiles at her like she’s doing community service. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah,” I say, before she can come farther in. “Just leave it.”

She steps over anyway and sets it beside my pencil pouch.

Pink charger cord. Mine.

“See?” she says quietly.

Her hand brushes the edge of my desk. Her nails are painted the same pale pink as the lip gloss she left in the bathroom.

I look at the portrait, then at her real face, then back at the portrait.

The dark eye looks darker.

“Thanks,” I say.

She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

When she leaves, Tyler glances from the door to me. “You okay?”

I smear charcoal across the page with the side of my hand until the mouth disappears. “Fine.”

Gym is worse because I forgot my shorts.

Actually I forgot to move them from the dryer to my bag, which is different, but Coach doesn’t care about the difference. She points at the bleachers with two fingers and tells me to sit there if I’m not dressed out.

So I sit.

The cheer girls are using half the floor for warmups before practice. Emma’s running through counts. Sophie’s filming something. Maddie’s lying on her back doing leg lifts and complaining about how gross the cabin mattresses are probably going to be.

Payton drops into a split like her bones are optional.

A couple girls clap. Coach whistles. Everybody loves a body that obeys.

I look down and pick at the cut on my thumb until it opens again.

Their voices drift over in pieces.

“-not rooming with Chloe if she brings that self-tanner-”

“-Jake said the boys are doing the canoe race again-”

“-your hair is so pretty today, Payton-”

Then lower, closer together. Laughter after.

I catch my name. Or maybe I just hear the shape of it.

Sophie glances toward the bleachers. Maddie follows her eyes. Emma says something I miss completely, and all three of them laugh again.

Payton looks over too.

For one second, I think she’s going to say something. Stop it. Fix it. Anything.

Instead she just gives me this tiny tight smile, like she knows I’m watching and doesn’t mind that I am.

Maybe they weren’t talking about me.

Maybe they were.

It doesn’t matter. It lands the same.

By the time school lets out, I already feel scraped hollow.

Dad’s late, which means I have twenty minutes in the pickup lane pretending I’m not standing by myself while Payton sits on the curb with her friends and passes around a bag of chips.

Tyler walks by once with his portfolio case and almost comes over, but Jake Harlan jogs up behind Payton and hooks two fingers through one of her backpack straps, and then everybody’s laughing and moving and there’s no space for anything else.

Dad finally pulls up.

Payton slides into the truck still smiling. Jake taps the side of the door and says, “See you tomorrow, P.”

P.

Like he’s known her forever.

I get in the back and shut the door harder than I mean to.

On the drive home, Payton talks about the lake trip again. Fairy lights. Matching mugs. Who’s sneaking what snacks. Dad laughs in all the right places. I watch the back of her head and count fence posts until we turn into the driveway.

She gets out first.

That’s when I see it.

Black fabric under her hoodie. Tiny white stars at the collar.

My shirt.

The one I bought with birthday money and hid in the back of my closet because every time I leave something out too long, it turns into hers by accident.

I’m out of the truck before Dad kills the engine.

“That’s mine.”

Payton turns. “What?”

“My shirt.”

She looks down like she honestly didn’t know what she had on. “Oh. I thought this was mine.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Dad shuts his door. “Girls-”

“I bought that,” I say. “You knew that.”

Payton’s face changes just enough. Not guilty. Wounded. Or pretending to be. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference fast enough.

“I said I thought it was mine.”

Mom opens the front door before anybody can go farther. “Why are y’all fighting in the driveway?”

“She took my shirt again.”

Mom looks at the stars, then at me, already tired. “Paige, it’s a black shirt.”

“It is my black shirt.”

Payton puts her hand to the hem. “I can change.”

“Don’t bother,” I say.

But she’s already pulling her hoodie closed over it like that makes it better. “I seriously didn’t know."

I laugh once. Short. Ugly. “Yeah. That keeps happening somehow.”

Dad exhales through his nose. “Enough.”

Mom steps down onto the porch. “Not today. I mean it. We have packing to finish, and your father already talked to Mr. Reynolds.”

I look at her. “About what?”

“About you two,” she says, like it should be obvious. “He’s going to pull you aside at the lake. Help you work through some of this tension.”

My whole body goes cold.

A private talk.

At the lake.

Payton’s looking at me now with her eyebrows pinched together, all concern and confusion. “I didn’t know they were doing that.”

Maybe she didn’t.

Maybe she did.

“Great,” I say. “Sounds fun.”

I go inside before anybody can stop me.

Upstairs, our room still has the divider Mom insisted would help. One room split in half by a tall white shelf and a hanging curtain that doesn’t reach the floor. Privacy, if you don’t think about it too hard.

I drag my duffel out from under the bed and unzip it so hard the teeth chatter.

Biscuit trots in behind me, does one hopeful circle, and jumps straight onto Payton’s bed.

“Unbelievable,” I mutter.

His tail thumps twice.

I start packing. Jeans. Socks. Hoodie. Toothbrush. Sketchbook. Charger.

Downstairs, I can hear Mom and Payton moving around the kitchen, cabinet doors opening and closing, their voices blending together. Dad’s in the garage. The whole house sounds normal. That’s almost the worst part.

I roll up two sweatshirts and shove them in the bag.

Three nights at Grand Rock Lake.

Cabins. Trails. Water.

Mr. Reynolds wanting us to talk it out somewhere quiet.

The thought gets under my skin and stays there.

I kneel and reach under the mattress.

My fingers find the pocketknife exactly where I left it, wrapped in an old camp sock. Dad keeps a handful of them in the tackle box in the garage for fishing line and hooks and whatever else he thinks needs cutting.

He won’t miss one.

Not right away.

The knife is heavier than it looks.

I press the pad of my thumb against the flat of the blade, then flick it open with a soft metallic snap.

Just hearing it does something to me. Not good. Not bad either. Just steady.

A floorboard creaks in the hall.

I close it fast, slide it deep into the rolled socks at the bottom of the duffel, and cover it with jeans.

Payton knocks once on the half-open door and comes in anyway.

She’s changed out of my shirt.

Now she’s holding it, folded neat against her stomach.

“I washed it,” she says.

I keep packing.

She sets it on my bed. “Here.”

The shirt smells like detergent. Warm still, like it just came out of the dryer.

“I said keep it,” I tell her.

“I don’t want it.”

I zip the side pocket of my bag. “Could’ve fooled me.”

She stands there for a second, twisting the cuff of her sleeve around one finger. It would almost work on me if I didn’t know how good she is at this part.

“Paige.”

I don’t answer.

Her voice gets quieter. “I don’t want this trip to suck.”

I laugh under my breath.

“I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

“I am.”

I turn and look at her then.

Same face. Same eyes. Same mouth. The one from the mirror this morning. The one from my drawing. The one everybody trusts.

“What do you want me to say?” I ask.

Her shoulders dip a little. “Nothing, I guess.”

Downstairs, Mom calls her name.

Payton looks toward the hall, then back at me. “Just… don’t forget your meds if you’re bringing them.”

Something in me locks up.

“I know how to pack a bag.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Then don’t.”

Her mouth opens, then closes. “Fine.”

She leaves the shirt on my bed and disappears down the hall.

I stand there listening to her steps fade, my pulse knocking hard in my throat.

Meds.

Like I’m the problem to manage. Like I’m the unstable one. Like all she has to do is say one careful thing in the right tone and everybody starts nodding.

I grab the shirt off the bed and shove it down into the duffel on top of the knife.

Then I add the charger. My sketchbook. The extra socks.

I zip the bag closed, drag it across the carpet, and set it beside the bedroom door.

I leave it there with my hand on the handle until my fingers stop shaking.