VERONICA'S PERSPECTIVE
"Harrison! Dear, Harrison's here, I thought he was doing some research or internship or job shadowing, I thought he was busy, that's so sweet of him, he managed to travel back to Pittsburgh for our anniversary and plan a party for us." Mum gasped, gesturing to Harrison, who shrugged, shooting me an apprehensive smile, as mum rushed over to him, tightly embraced him, than she began informing everyone why Harrison had to travel back to Pittsburgh, he was at uni.
Pre-med student. Rising junior at an Ivy League college. Partial scholarship. Valedictorian. MENA's Future Doctors of America club's president. He had the goddamn GPA, the extracurriculars, the SAT scores, all that lovely shit that future Dr. Harrison Colton needed to become that future doctor he had, leaving mum and dad practically worshiping him, claiming how he was always such an inquisitive boy, they knew he'd grow up to be something lovely like a doctor, an anesthesiologist.
Seventeen. Rising high school senior. Naturally blonde. Mediocre GPA. A B, sometimes C student with a dead twin, what a tragedy, what a tragedy. Apprehensive stares from mum, every time I asked if I could go to a party or the mall or go anywhere, that's what I got, instead of praise and worship, because I was the alive twin, therefore I had to stay alive and couldn't do anything if it wasn't at home or school because straying from those two properties might result in my not-aliveness.
I wasn't bitter or jealous towards Harrison, he was relatively modest, humble- he didn't brag or attempt to lecture me on getting my shit together and applying for a university or figuring out what I want to major in or any of those things. He tried to sympathize with me, when I complained about the lack of freedom, the insane curfews, the butterflies, the goddamn butterflies. Every birthday, mum and dad would release butterflies and give a sappy speech to commemorate Paisley; I hadn't realized when I was younger what, precisely the butterflies symbolized, I was perfectly content playing tag with my big brother and my preschool friends, than with my primary school friends. During the past few years mum and dad had forced me to realize that I was technically a twin, they'd asked me to give a speech, where I'd mumble thanks to everyone, comment about their foundation for TRAP syndrome. I suppose they expected me to break down when talking about her, survivor's guilt, perhaps, or maybe they expected me to comment how I felt some sort of connection with her, that I knew from the minute I was born that I was a twin, that she was alright in whatever afterlife mum envisioned, however I didn't feel any of those things.
I felt like a normal person, I don't remember what happened in utero and I didn't feel like lingering on the shitty things that happened when I was a fetus. I recognized that it was beyond shitty that the syndrome occurred, however, I didn't understand why the association that mum and dad forced upon, me was: "the girl with the dead twin." They didn't phrase it so simply, but they sure as hell made it blatantly obvious that that was what I was. I was alive, she wasn't, my parents were people who were constantly wondering what it would have been like if I wasn't the pump twin- If Paisley was alive, would she have made an seventy-eight in algebra? Or an eighty-four in English? Would she quit ballet? Would she even like ballet? Would she be unable to stick with a MENA art elective, going from ballet to painting to pottery to ballet again to acting? She'd look just like her, you know. They didn't say these things to me, I heard them, as they whispered in hushed tones, I saw them, the look of momentary regret, sadness, guilt that appeared in their eyes when they saw what they thought were failures but in all actuality it was just me being average, me not living up to the real success of my brother and the imaginary success of my sister.
"You gonna order anything or ya just gonna take up a bar stool?"
"Huh?" My thoughts were interrupted by a tall, thin, blonde bartender, who was impatiently staring at me.
"You've been sitting at the bar for ten minutes. Are you going to order a drink or not?"
"Uh..."
"She's good." I heard a deep voice say, as someone rested their hand on my shoulder.
"Who th-" I spun around, to see Harrison, smiling at the bartender, who began fluttering her eyelids and leaning forwards.
"Veronica, would you mind coming with me?"
"Sure." I stood up, following him to a worn door with employees only crudely scrawled upon it in black ink. He pushed open the door, ignoring the writing, and began climbing up the rickety stairs. I followed, glancing back at mum and dad, who were chatting with my aunt, who'd flown in from England with her spouse. A few minutes later, we were on the bar's roof. Beer bottles and detritus was strewn about, remains of a rooftop party filled with teenagers with shitty fake IDs that the owner pretended look legitimate.
Harrison sat on an open lawn chair that was stained with questionable colors, I perched myself upon a stack of newspapers from last month.
"How's college?" I lamely asked, knowing that, from mum's bragging, it was going perfectly well.
"Decent." He shrugged. "How's mum and dad?"
"Still keeping an ankle monitor and a surveillance cam on me twenty-four seven." I sighed, as he glanced apprehensively at his shoes.
"Thanks for planning the party, it was a bloody brilliant idea."
"They think it was all you." I bitterly said, kicking the green-glass beer bottle across the roof. It hit the edge, shards of glass, shining in the moonlight, sailed across the roof.
"I told them it was you, you planned everything, you scheduled the cake, balloons, the venue."
"Mum'll think you're being modest." We sighed in unison, he knew that no matter what he said, he was still the golden boy and I would still be the precious, delicate flower that needed to kept under a glass bell jar.
"You could always come live with me."
"I have a year of high school left."
"Dual enroll. There's this community college about fifteen minutes from this place Wilson, Lawrence, and I were gonna rent, but then Lawrence decided to transfer so he could be closer to his mum, who's sick, so Wilson and I weren't sure if we still wanted to rent it, since it's three bedrooms, so you could move in, go to the community college, once you graduate, go to our uni." Wilson Cameron, if I remembered correctly, was also a premed student who wanted to become a sports doctor since his senior year of high school he suffered from an injury that ended his career before it even began. Cooper Lawrence was Harrison's freshman roommate.
"Harrison, I'm not Ivy material, I'm like mediocre state school material, there's no way I could go to the same uni as you."
"You could, I mean, there's also an artsy college a few hours away, aren't you into painting and ballet?"
"Right now it's drama. I'm auditioning for Sandy in MENA's production of Grease."
"There's a community college dramatics department. I've researched the program, you can take all the classes you need to graduate from MENA, plus you get a year of college credit. Admission is half the usual cost."
"Do you think mum and dad would let me?"
"Do you want to do it?" What did he mean did I want to do it? Of course I'd love to be living with semi-freedom, of course I'd love to free from the bell jar, however mum and dad seemed to have no desire to let me go farther then five blocks away from the only home I'd ever known. "Also... There's an acting gig near by."
"Acting gig?" I was interested in drama club and hadn't bothered contemplating what I want to do with my life, taking classes seemed fine, but a gig? "What kind?"
"With Love."
"Pardon?"
"Mum's... You know what happened with mum, right, it lead to her and dad meeting?"
"They've only told the story a hundred times." Every wedding anniversary, mum began with a deep breath and a glass of scotch on the rocks, she'd tell the story, seeing her face on the television, her apprehension about learning who her father was, who her mother was, then, her face painted with tragedy and a bit too much alcohol, dad would take over, he'd tell about the Christmas party, our inspiration for hosting their anniversary at the shabby bar instead of some upscale center, how mum was utterly gorgeous and out of his league, how they eventually fell in love, he knew he'd fallen once mum literally fell while ice skating.
"Mum's been secretly working with some production company on a script, to honor the twentieth anniversary, apparently casting begins next week and her mum's the lead. It'll be a bit like CSI, it'll start with scenes of a lady hitchhiking away, then it'll go to mum finding out about her mum, then she'll be questioned by a handsome police officer, dad, and he'll give her the diary. She'll page through it, there'll be flashbacks- Mum gets input on casting, she told me when we were catching up, she'll announce it tonight."
"I... I... When she brings it up, I"ll bring up what you said." Acting, living with my brother, dual enrollment... I'd have control over my life, I'd have freedom, I'd be able to make my own goddamn choices, I hadn't thought much about my future, but this, this, now that it was an option, a choice, a perhaps, this was something I wanted.
Next Chapter
Note: This chapter took waaaaaaay longer than I wanted it to; I knew that August was going to be a blur of business, however I didn't think it'd take me five (five!) weeks to publish the last chapter of generation one. That being said, this is the last chapter of generation one, I have some idea of how I'd like to start generation two and there might be some changes in the future, so I'll let you know once I've decided how things'll be. ☺
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