Chapter 128: The Crazy Twin

Chapter 128: The Crazy Twin Clark POV: "Haha, brave move. But I was thinking the same thing. Here’s mine. :)" I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Okay, that went... surprisingly well. Then my phone buzzed. Unknown number: "Hey, it’s Sara :) Hope it’s cool I texted you. This site’s comment section is a mess lol." Just like that, we were talking off the site. I saved her number, still unsure what this was. A potential friend? Another brainy nerd chasing the same dream? A person I’d probably never meet? I didn’t know. We kept it chill, mostly college talk, the kind of excitement you get when you realize someone else is dreaming about the same unknown future as you. She sent a link to a video that did a walkthrough of the Memoville campus—footage I hadn’t seen before. It looked even more magical in motion. Tall stone towers, huge arched windows, trees blooming in colors I didn’t even think were real. Somewhere between her messages and watching the video, my stress from earlier started to slip away. But what I did know was that for the first time since Clare started giving me the silent treatment, I felt excited again. About the future. About Memoville. About possibilities. And yeah... maybe even about this girl named Sara. Not that I was planning to tell Clare. She’d either tease me endlessly or claim I was being catfished. No, for now, this would be my little secret. Just me, a dream university, and a girl who—at least for tonight—seemed to get it. And honestly? That was enough. ******** We kept talking through the weekend. What started as a random comment online had somehow turned into a full-on daily conversation. Sara was funny, easy to talk to, and most importantly—she got it. The nerves, the excitement, the questions that kept me up at night about whether I was making the right decision or aiming too high. She didn’t try to act like she had it all figured out, but she was confident in what she wanted, and that made it easier to admit what I wanted too. Sara wasn’t just smart—she was funny in that dry, sarcastic way I never expected from a stranger online. She hated math but loved astronomy, couldn’t cook to save her life, and had this strange obsession with naming clouds. I mean, who does that? I found myself checking my phone more than usual. Waiting for her replies. Smiling when I saw her name pop up on my screen. It was weird. I’d never even met her, and yet it felt like I knew her. Like we’d been friends for years. Every time my phone buzzed with a message from her, I found myself smiling. It was a weird kind of comfort, knowing someone out there—someone not in my school, not in my neighborhood, not tangled up in my current mess with Clare—was dreaming the same dream. Wanting to leave the same weight behind. Looking at Memoville University the same way I was. Like it was a shot at something bigger. By Sunday evening, we both admitted the obvious—we wanted to keep talking. Stay in touch. Not just over the phone, but in person someday. The idea came up casually, somewhere between a conversation about our favorite snacks and a debate over whether dorm life was overrated. "I wish we could actually meet up one day," she said. And I had typed it before I could second guess myself: "Then let’s make it happen. Memoville. You and me. Let’s both apply, get in, and meet there." There was a pause. A long one. I thought maybe I went too far, sounded too eager. Then she replied. "Deal. That gives me something to look forward to." Something to look forward to. I didn’t say it out loud, but her words stuck in my head like a song I couldn’t stop humming. Because truthfully, it did give me something to look forward to too. Especially with how things were at home. She lived on the other side of the city. Not too far, but not close enough to casually meet at a coffee shop either. I guess that’s what made our shared dream feel even more important. We weren’t just chasing the same school—we were chasing the chance to actually meet each other. To connect in real life instead of just words on a screen. So we made a promise. Not one of those dramatic, overly cheesy kinds you see in movies. Just a quiet agreement. We’d both try our hardest to get into Memoville University. She said she’d finish her application by Monday, and she was working on her scholarship essay already. I told her I’d do mine tonight. That was only partially true—I’d already rewritten the essay three times, still not sure if it was good enough, but now I had a reason to stop overthinking it. I told her I believed in her. And I meant it. She told me she believed in me too. And weirdly... I felt it. We even joked about how crazy it was to be getting attached to someone you hadn’t even met yet. But she said, "It’s not weird. Sometimes the right people find you in the wrong places. Or at the wrong time. But it still counts." That kind of stuck with me. Clare still wasn’t speaking to me. She’d passed me in the hallway earlier—twice—and acted like I didn’t even exist. Like we weren’t twins. Like we hadn’t spent our whole lives glued together, side by side, in chaos and survival. It stung more than I wanted to admit. She’d been avoiding me the whole weekend—ghosting me at meals, slamming her door every time I got too close. I’d almost told Sara about it, but I didn’t. Not yet. I guess it still felt too personal. Too complicated. Or maybe I just didn’t want to dump that kind of emotional weight on something that had become a little slice of hope. Mom and Dad had tried talking to her, too, but you can’t reason with Clare when she’s stubborn. She shut her bedroom door like it was a prison cell and locked herself in with her pride. And me? I kept pretending like it didn’t hurt. Like I wasn’t hoping she’d forgive me. Like I wasn’t tempted to bang on her door and demand she speak to me. But instead—I poured my focus into Memoville. Into this goal. Into someone who actually wanted to talk to me. Sara. She didn’t know about the mess back home. She didn’t know about Clare or the guilt I felt or how badly I needed something to work out for once. She just knew me as Clark—the guy who cracked dumb jokes about professors and stressed over scholarship essays. It was nice. A break. So, yeah. We made a pact. To get into Memoville. To meet in real life. To chase this dream together. I didn’t know what that meant. Or what would happen if we both didn’t make it. But right now, I didn’t care. Because for the first time in a long time—I wasn’t just thinking about getting away from here. I was thinking about where I wanted to go. ******** By sunday evening, I knew I couldn’t let Clare start the new week while she was still mad at me. We’d gone too many days without talking, and honestly, it felt like a part of me was missing. As annoying and unpredictable as she was, Clare was my person. My twin. My best friend. And I hated this silence between us more than anything. This silence between us? It was starting to feel like a black hole sucking everything down. I needed to make things right, even if I had to bribe her with junk food and guilt. So, I decided to take action—Operation Win-Back-Clare commenced. Step one: Peace offering. I headed out to the supermarket to get her favorite comfort food combo—vanilla caramel ice cream and those overpriced, extra buttery biscuits she liked hoarding like a squirrel in winter. And the other overpriced chocolate-dipped biscuits she pretended not to love but always stashed under her bed. I knew just the brand. If I was going to earn my forgiveness, I had to go big. But of course, because my life doesn’t know how to stay normal for more than two seconds, fate decided to throw a wrench into my noble mission. As I turned into the snack aisle, there he was. Jason. The same Jason I saw sneaking out of a janitor’s closet with Clare just last week. Only this time, he wasn’t with my sister. Nope. This time, he was locked in a full-on make-out session—with a girl. Right there in front of the cleaning products. Bold move, really. I’d give him points for that—if I wasn’t currently seeing red. While I had no problem with who people chose to love, I did have a problem with liars—especially ones who messed with my sister’s head. Now, I’m not a fighter. I’m really not. I solve problems with my brain, not my fists. But something in me snapped. Maybe it was the fact that Clare was still mad at me. Maybe it was the guilt of breaking her trust. Maybe it was just plain brotherly rage. Either way, I saw red, reached for the nearest thing I could grab—which turned out to be a small, unopened bottle of water—and launched it. The bottle hit Jason square in the back of his head. His make-out session came to a dramatic halt. He turned around, blinking in confusion. "Clark?" "Stay the hell away from my sister, you lying jackass." I knew I shouldn’t have said anything else. But, well... I did. And let’s just say, Jason didn’t appreciate my water bottle diplomacy. I didn’t leave the store in victory. Next thing I know, I’m on the ground with a black eye and a bruised lip, being told by a very angry supermarket manager to "take it outside, or take it up with security." But hey, I did manage to buy the ice cream and biscuits. Mission sort of accomplished. By the time I got home, it was 9 PM. I went straight to Clare’s room and knocked softly, ice cream slowly melting in one hand, biscuits tucked under my arm, and my face feeling like I’d been in a boxing match. She opened the door, clearly planning to yell at me again—but then she saw my face. All the anger vanished instantly, replaced by shock and a flash of that dangerous protective fire she always kept just under the surface. Her eyes locked on my face. Not the snacks. Not the hopeful smile I was trying to pull off. Just the bruises. Her mouth fell open. "What the hell happened to you?!" And just like that, her anger at me was completely erased and redirected toward a much more deserving target: Jason. The second I said his name, the air changed. "I... ran into Jason," I said, keeping my voice casual even though my lip throbbed. "Saw him kissing someone else. So I threw a bottle at him." She blinked. "You did what?" "I hit him. Sort of. With a bottle. He hit me back." "He what?!" she demanded after I told her who hit me. I didn’t even finish the sentence before pulled me into her room. She didn’t even notice the ice cream and biscuits in my hands. Just grabbed my arm, pulled me into her room, and pushed me down on the bed like she was my mom and I was a wounded kindergartener, and told me to sit on the bed and not move. Her voice had that calm-before-the-storm tone that made even me nervous. Then she squatted, reached under her bed, and pulled out a freaking baseball bat. "Wait—Clare—what are you—" "Sit. Stay. Ice your face," she said coolly, already halfway out the door. "I’ll be back." "Clare, don’t do anything stupid—" "Too late." Five seconds later, I heard the thunderous roar of her motorcycle engine outside, followed by the squeal of tires tearing down the road. I just sighed, flopped back on her bed, and opened the biscuit packet. Guess Jason’s about to experience all the pent-up frustration Clare’s been bottling since I told Mom and Dad about her college plans—or lack thereof. If she doesn’t kill him, he’ll wish she had. Honestly? He had it coming.