Twins Make Four

CHAPTER 1

Scarlet

The voices around me had all begun to melt together as I sat at the bar, beer in front of me, bored out of my freaking mind. My life had been so dull lately that I’d really been looking forward to a fun night out with friends just to break up the monotony. Initially, the prospect of going out had been exciting and I had been all for it. Before leaving my place, I’d spent hours in front of the mirror, curling my hair to perfection and making sure that I was dressed to impress. I had even applied my makeup with a little more effort than usual.

But after getting to the pub and sitting for a couple hours, I had realized that my work had all pretty much been for nothing. There weren’t many guys out, or at least none that I found attractive. I had no interest in the older drunks who had been hitting on me all night, and the handful of guys who had managed to catch my eye were all accompanied by dates already. Not being one for drama, I had to dutifully stop my eyes from wandering in their directions.

And then there was the atmosphere of the place in general. It seemed to be geared toward an older crowd. The lights were a little brighter than I’d expect for a night setting, and the music was slow and boring. After a whole two hours, I had yet to hear a good dancing song. Instead, there was a lot of slow and mid-tempo songs, as well as a fair share of blues. Not that I didn’t occasionally enjoy that type of music, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it at the moment and felt that if I had to listen any longer, I would fall asleep right then and there, my head slamming right on the bar top.

As for my friends, it hadn’t taken long to figure out that they were primarily interested in simply gossiping and drinking. If I had known beforehand that they didn’t want to dance and have a good time, but rather drown themselves in liquor and vent about every annoying thing that had happened to them over the past few weeks, I probably would have declined this particular outing. Sitting at home alone and binge-watching Netflix suddenly seemed more appealing than sitting on a cold, hard bar stool drinking cheap beer and listening to stories about rude co-workers, loud neighbors, and irritating family members.

“Scarlet? Scarlet? Hello?”

I snapped out of my reverie, realizing that my friend Mila was speaking to me. It was hard to tell though, since everyone insisted on speaking at the same time. That was the reason I’d lost interest in the various conversations going on in the first place; they were happening simultaneously and I had exhausted myself trying to keep up. But as Mila stared at me and her lips pursed into an agitated line, I realized that whatever she was talking about was important, at least by her standards. She seemed pretty offended that I hadn’t been giving her my undivided attention.

“Yeah?” I said, halfway feeling compelled to just smile and nod as if I had been paying attention all along. I doubted that trick would have worked on Mila though; she’d known me for too long and knew when I was or wasn’t invested in a conversation.

“What’s your deal tonight?” she asked.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, taking a sip of my beer.

“You were all excited about going out, and now you’re just sitting here like a bump on a log, not talking to or interacting with anyone. Not listening to anyone…”

“Well, I thought this was supposed to be a fun night, that’s all.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so we’re boring to you now?”

I sighed and shook my head, not wanting to be rude even though Mila had hit the nail right on the head. “No, of course not. I’m just tired, that’s all. It’s been a long week.”

“How so?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “You know, same ol’ thing, day in and day out.”

“You want to know what the real problem is?” Mila said, leaning in toward me as if she was about to give me the secret to understanding my own life.

“No. What?” I said, trying not to sound exasperated. Mila had always been like this though. I’d always thought she missed her calling to be a life-coach because she always believed she knew precisely what everyone else needed to do and was more than happy to give her two-cents to anyone willing to listen. Sometimes she even gave it to people who weren’t willing to listen; it really just didn’t matter when it came to Mila. Funnily enough, she wasn’t so good at addressing her own problems. Whenever she was faced with a problem, it was somehow always someone else’s fault, by her calculations.

“You’re isolating yourself too much,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I mean, just look at yourself right now. You come out, get all dolled up. And for what? To sit here and ignore everyone.”

In my mind, I wanted to say that I had gotten all dolled up to dance with cute guys and have some fun, not to pretend to be riveted by her lecture. Mila was a good person deep down though, and she’d been my friend for a long time, so I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. So instead, I just took another sip of beer and furrowed my brow, feigning interest in hearing her perspective.

She nodded, thinking that she had finally captured my full attention. “Sometimes it just seems like you don’t want to be bothered. How can you expect to get over your boredom if you never want to be bothered, Scarlet?”

“That’s not true,” I said, actually feeling a somewhat defensive. In all honesty, I felt slightly uncomfortable because Mila may have possibly had a point. On the other hand, it was also plausible that I was a little drunk and being sensitive. It was no secret that my emotions could sometimes get the best of me when I was a little tipsy.

“Any interesting guys in your life lately?” Mila asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“You see? Ever since you broke up with—”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Ever since you broke up with him, you’ve lost interest. It’s like you’ve given up.”

I sighed. “Just because I haven’t been actively dating doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest or given up. I just need time, that’s all. And hell, I know you don’t expect me to find anyone interesting to talk to in this dead-beat place! Seriously, you guys couldn’t have picked a duller spot if you tried.”

Mila glanced toward the dancefloor, where an older couple appeared to be doing a line-dance of some sort to the dragging blues song that had just come on. She chuckled. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But you know who picked this spot.”

We both glanced over to the table the rest of our group occupied. Both of us looked directly at our friend Marcy, who was sipping a wine-cooler and occasionally bopping her head to the music whenever she wasn’t leaning in to share some bit of gossip or complaint to the rest of the table.

Although Marcy was in the same age-bracket as the rest of us, she had always been old-fashioned. And while being wise beyond her years was one of her more admirable traits, whenever she came up with plans for our group of friends, she tended to pick activities that seemed more suitable for our parents than for us. I had no idea why we still gave her a turn in picking our group outings. Loyalty, I guess; we tended to be cautious about not hurting each other’s feelings.

“I’m going outside for a smoke. Wanna come with me?” Mila asked.

I grimaced. I hated cigarettes, and I had pleaded Mila to quit smoking more times than either of us could count. But she still hadn’t broken the habit. One of these days, I wanted to send her to a hypnotist to get her to quit.

She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, why did I just ask you that?”

“Hell if I know. And I thought I was the one who was tipsy.” I turned around in my seat and sighed, contemplating if I should join the rest of our group. I hesitated, not sure if I trusted myself enough to enter their conversation. I feared the first thing out of my mouth would be, “Aren’t you guys ready to leave yet?”

That certainly wouldn’t go over well with them. Besides, just because I was feeling irritable and cranky didn’t mean I needed to ruin everyone else’s night; there was no pride in being the party-pooper.

Granted, my mood was not without reason. After all, I was the only one currently single. Surely that was the reason the rest of them could enjoy a girls’ night out that consisted of nothing more than sitting around, gossiping and drinking. At the end of the night, they would go home to someone they cared about and didn’t need to participate in mindless flirtatious with strangers on the dancefloor.

I held my beer and glanced around the pub again, looking at nothing in particular when my heart suddenly skipped a beat and I felt like the floor had dropped from under me.

At first, I’d only seen him from the corner of my eye. Yet, that was all it took to grip my attention. I blinked, taking in his thick dark hair, gray eyes, and broad shoulders. I was suddenly teleported all the way back to high school. Even the giddy feelings he’d given me back then were abruptly returning to me.

I so easily recalled watching him walk down the halls and through the corridors. Until the day I died, I would never forget that moment when our eyes had first locked in the hallway between second and third period.

Preston Walker.