I think, if I’d known what I was getting into, I’d sooner have moved across the country than stay. Moving around the country for the first fifteen years of my life worked out well enough—I should have known better than to think that I could settle down for more than a few years here. Or maybe, just maybe, this all could have been avoided if I’d stayed behind in that lab.
It started like this: despite my better judgement, I let Lily coax me outside into the autumn afternoon.
Lily is my partner in our Intermediate Medical Lab Sciences class, and she’s normally pretty responsible with classwork. Homecoming weekend, however, is apparently where she draws the line.
We had a lab section earlier this afternoon, and I tried to linger around afterwards, but it’s Friday, and the homecoming parade is tonight, and Lily practically got an aneurysm when she realised I wanted to stay after-hours. We’re just undergrads, so we don’t have access to the lab on the weekends, and the assignment write-up is due before lecture on Tuesday morning.
“Everyone will be scrambling to finish their report after the Monday lab section,” I grumble as we wait for the elevator. “The lab will be super crowded.”
Maybe I can offer to stay behind on my own? It’ll suck to finish up the hemoanalysis by myself, but I also don’t want to risk my grades for something so mundane as the annual homecoming parade (which, you know, happens annually). Lily is nice and smart enough to keep up in class, but unlike me, she’s not a scholarship student. I need to keep my GPA above a 3.9 for my scholarship, and I can’t afford tuition otherwise.
As the elevator pings its arrival, however, a part of Lily seems to relent. “We could come in on Sunday?” she offers. “I’m free in the evening, and our TA—Jason—lives in the same dorm building as me, so I bet I could get him to open the lab up for us.”
I bite my lip. I have to work at The Caspian on Sunday, and I don’t really want to go around begging my coworkers to switch to a morning shift, but Lily definitely won’t agree to coming in the morning of the homecoming game and dance, so Saturday is out. I sigh to myself. Sunday night is probably the best compromise I’ll get.
Outside, the late September air is golden and syrupy, heavy with the sunlight of late afternoon and the scent of caramelised sugar. As I pay perfunctory attention to Lily’s ramblings-on (about her cheerleader friends, her date to the homecoming dance, and her planned outfit, among other inanities), I try not to judge her for how utterly foreign her world seems to be—all shallow drama.
I barely have time for friends, let alone boyfriends, and I’ve long since given up on being pretty. I’m the same height as Lily—which is to say: short—and we both have long, wavy hair, but that’s about where our similarities end.
Lily’s hair is auburn and perfectly pressed, compared to mine, which is messy and brassy-blonde. Lily actually has a figure, whereas I look all of fourteen years old. I have to work a part time job and maintain a scholarship to fund my degree, while Lily has her family supporting her.
Case in point, as we walk and talk through the campus, fording our way through the sea of fellow students, returning alumni, and their guests, we are interrupted by:
“Aunt Lily!” The owner of this girlish shriek is sprinting at full tilt towards us: a child, about five or six years old, dark red twin braids and a plaid pinafore dress.
Lily laughs and receives her niece with open arms, dropping her book bag carelessly to the pavement.
“I think I’ll go check out the stalls,” I quickly say, excusing myself as the rest of Lily’s family (parents, younger brother, older brother, and sister-in-law) congregate around her.
I can’t help but feel envious. Not in a mean way, I don’t think. Lily deserves to be happy and carefree, to have a family that loves her and to not worry about money. Still, though, it sometimes just feels like that sort of life is out of reach for me, orphan girl extraordinaire, squeezing into college by way of scholarship, working after school and on weekends to pay off bank loans, without so much as a great uncle or second cousin to my name.
Just me, Cecilia Thornhill.
It’s just a little lonely, is all.
“—just got rated, three Michellin stars—”
“Oh. My. God!” shrieks three voices in near-perfect unison.
I grimace discreetly. The crowd has carried me closer and closer to the street that’s to host the homecoming parade, and I’ve gotten stuck behind a massive group of cheerleaders, all golden tans and tight uniforms.
“I know, right?” the first one says, smugly tucking a stray curl of platinum hair behind her ear.
“I’d tell you off for hooking one of the players, but I’ll save the lecture for if he lets you on a second date.” The speaker this time is the tallest and blondest among them, standing near the centre of their group. If I’m not wrong, this would be their captain.
The first girl scowls, “You’re just jealous he didn’t ask you.”
The cheer captain scoffs. “He’s nice to look at, but he’s still on the team. You might be able to get away with a single date and a friendly you-know-what, but mark my words, if Coach finds out, she’ll definitely take you off the competition team.”
“You better—”
“I’m not going to tell her, but Emeric’s teammates? They might gossip—you know their rules are less strict than ours. They’re allowed to go out now and then, as long as they put football first.”
“Coach’s rules are brutal,” one of the other girls grumbles. “We’re in college, not high school. Does she think we’re gonna lose our heads just because—”
A path opens up, and I finally manage to stop listening in on the cheerleaders’ conversation—about the new quarterback, if I’m not mistaken. I was only a freshman last year, but everyone knew that the captain and quarterback of last year’s football team was a senior (now alumnus) named Adam Campbell who managed to lead the team to their first semi finals win in a decade. (They lost in the finals, of course, to some team from upstate.)
I look around for some landmarks, trying to figure out where the crowd has brought me.
After a moment, I realise that I’m only half a block away from the actual parade street, almost right at its start point. It must be getting close to the beginning of the parade, because everyone seems to have squeezed over to the side of the road, leaving the expanse of green lawn in front of a row of fair stalls rather empty.
“RECREATIONAL DODGEBALL LEAGUE SIGNUPS!” one of the tents advertises in block letters. Yet another banner reads, “HELP WANTED—MED TEAM ASSISTANTS AND VOLUNTEERS!”
This latter one is more along the lines of what I was looking for. I’ve been looking for a job closer to campus, and one of my TAs mentioned that some of the teams are open to taking pre-med students for medical assistants. I might only be a sophomore, but pre-med is still pre-med.
Just as I step forward to get a closer look at the second tent, I feel a sudden tingle at the back of my neck. I freeze, peering around at my surroundings even as I keep my head still. Once I determine that it has to be coming from behind me, I carefully turn around.
There! My gaze immediately snaps to a man standing on the outdoor practice fields, barely twenty feet away. He’s in full football gear, though, so his face is obscured by his helmet. Mostly, I can only see his silhouette, which is naturally tall and broad, as well as strangely suited to the ridiculous shoulder pads that football players tend to wear.
Beyond that, there’s just the large “07” emblazoned across his chest in glowing white paint and his eyes, which even from twenty feet away and through a chain link fence and football helmet, I can tell is a piercing blue-grey.
I can’t look away from them, these terrible eyes, somehow pale and dark at the same time, seeming to see right through me—not leering, though, not in the way that some men do, obviously trying to look past my clothes and envision the skin that lies beneath.
No, his eyes are looking through my exterior, penetrating beneath my skin to study the fat and sinew of my inner flesh, peeling into my body layer by layer until I am flayed to the skeleton.
The gaze is both violent and intimate, and I understand only one thing: danger.
I snap out of this suspended state of fight-and-flight, half-running into the crowd, using my slight frame to squeeze my way past larger bodies until I no longer feel his lingering gaze.
The parade has already begun, the marching band blaring its way down the street. I feel disoriented, my heart pounding to the drumline’s brisk beat. I control my breathing, calming myself down, trying to forget about that strange encounter. It was as if my eyes were drawn automatically to his, as if there were some inexplicable force of physics that directed my focus to him and him alone.
“Hey kid, did you want a better view?” some man yells into my ear, and before I can shake my head no, I’m moved bodily to the second row of spectators, settled at a prime spot where I’m able to see the street through the gap between two girls standing at the very front.
The music changes slightly as it moves down the street. Then, someone yells something I can’t understand, and all of a sudden the crowd around me erupts. People begin to clamour, pushing and shoving for a better view. As small as I am, I’m powerless to resist the force of the mob.
As everything around me reaches a fever pitch, an elbow drives itself into the middle of my spine, hard, and I stumbles forward, crashing into the two girls in front of me. We go down all together in a tangle of limbs and a chorus of shrieks.
Thankfully, I don’t land on top of anyone, sprawling instead across the rough asphalt, but someone does land on top of me, heavy-boned and breathing harshly just behind my ear.
“Watch it!” someone shouts.
“You watch it,” retorts the person on top of me—a man, by the sound of it. He’s yelling almost directly into my left ear, and I can’t even move enough to flinch away from it.
The guy on top of me squirms, and I yelp in pain, trying desperately to wheeze out a, “Please, can you get off of me…”
It doesn’t work, I don’t think, and even if my diaphragm wasn’t being crushed into mush, I doubt anyone would have heard me over the fading sound of a trumpet solo and the ongoing cheers and yells all around us.
My vision begins to fade, and I can feel myself getting smothered. But then, just as the encroaching blackness of my sight threatens to obscure everything, the pressure on me eases.
“Hey, what the—” starts the man who’d fallen on top of me, but he either cuts off or I stop being able to hear.
Instead, all I can feel is a large hand, feverishly warm, grabbing me around the waist, pulling me up with ease. For a moment, all I can do is gasp for breath, clinging to the arms around me as I try to stand up.
“Thank you,” I say with what little breath that has returned to me.
There’s no response, but my saviour still hasn’t let me go. A part of me wants to relax into the hold, wants to revel in the warmth of the masculine smell of musk that’s beginning to envelop me, but another part of me, the one that recognises how embarrassing this whole ordeal has been, how conspicuous I must look, forces me to turn around, to push my way out of my saviour’s hold.
That, of course, is when I notice that my saviour is wearing a football uniform, and that the smooth plasticky paint at the front of his jersey traces the unmistakable numbers of 0 and 7.
It’s him.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!
Just as soon as I realise that the man who saved me from the crush of the crowd is the same man who minutes earlier had stared me down by the practice field, he bends slightly and heaves me into a fireman carry, perched precariously over the uncomfortable plastic of his football shoulder pads. I yelp and hang on until I’m set down beneath the canopy of a massive sycamore. Number 07 says nothing, not even as I steel myself and catch his gaze. I was right—his eyes are that terrible, tempestuous blue-grey and, even though I tried to prepare for it, I’m still struck dumb by its intensity. The world disappears from around us, the din of the parade crowd fading as if we’ve gone under water and the amber light of the setting sun seeming to coalesce around him, around my saviour. He’s no longer wearing his helmet, so I can make out his features more clearly. Something about him seems familiar in a strange way, like something deep within myself recognises him somehow. His skin is perfectly
“Hey Rob,” Emily calls out, starting towards the football coach again. “This is Cecilia Thornill, my new assistant. Cecilia, this is Robert Harris, the football coach.” The coach is a fit man in his mid thirties, not a single grey hair and only the barest hint of crow’s feet when he smiles. He’s probably only recently retired from professional play; I remember hearing something about the coach being a former major league player. “Just call me Rob,” he says, extending his hand. I smile at him in return as we shake our hands. “I’m surprised they found another one so quickly,” Rob comments, then turns away to holler, “BOYS!” To my mortification, all of the football players immediately stop, looking our way. “New med assistant,” Rob tells them. “Her name is Cecilia.” I give an awkward wave. A couple of them call back greetings, but number 07—Emeric, apparently—barely glances at me before he turns away again. I don’t know why, but it leaves me feeling strangely empty. I almost wish
As time-consuming as my new position as a med assistant is, the next few days pass by without much incident. Emily seems perfectly willing to take on the brunt of interactions with the football players, so I manage to more or less avoid Emeric entirely.By the time Friday afternoon practice lets out, I feel better than ever about my decision to sign up with the sports med team. I even work up enough courage to ask Emily if she can let me know about my probationary status with the student med team ahead of time. “It’s just, I’ve still been picking up shifts with my part time job, and if I can quit, I’d rather do that sooner than later,” I explain to her. Emily looks up from her clipboard, startled. “Hmm? Oh! No, of course. I’m supposed to give them weekly reports about your probationary status, but it’ll mostly just be a formality. You were excellent with the boys’ physicals on Wednesday, and you did well with Jessica today.” She walks over to the other side of the cramped office, s
Emeric also seems to be frozen, staring intently into my eyes. It’s just as intense as before, but maybe because I’m already used to the effect he has on me, and maybe because he’s been so much nicer this time, it feels a little different. I’m still utterly captured by him, but the fear isn’t as strong as the fascination, and it feels less like I’m being peeled apart layer by layer, but more like his presence has seeped into my very core—cold and stinging like seawater, but also strangely invigorating, like moonlight and a chill breeze on a summer night. I don’t have to look away this time. Emeric breaks away first. Silently, he takes my fallen book bag and shuts it into the storage compartment on his bike. A warm helmet is jammed brusquely onto my head and I’m lifted bodily into the seat of the motorcycle. “Hang on to me,” he says as he slides into place in front of me. I come back to myself. “Wait, what are you—” I squeak as the rumbling beneath us becomes a roar, hanging on for
I’ve long since resigned myself to being mistaken for Emeric. Friends, teachers, cousins—even our parents, they all assume both the best and worst of him. Me? I’m just there. Some part of me has given up hope that anyone will see me as anything more than just “Emeric’s twin.” What’s worse is that, growing up, whenever anything went wrong, it was always a safe bet to blame Emeric. He always messed everything up for me. Don’t get me wrong—I did the same to him, probably. Actually, I probably fucked with him on purpose far more often than he did likewise. Maybe it’s part of why I was so frustrated about it—the fact that Em was almost never doing it on purpose, that I had to go out of my way to return the favour. But I guess that this, too, is something that I’m used to. He’s doing his reading homework right now, completely ignoring the fact that Cecilia could be coming downstairs any moment now. I wonder why he’s being so unreasonable about it all. He and I got into such a big fight
Though I end up getting to the clinic on time after all, I spend the entirety of my volunteer shift completely distracted. Dr. Monaghan, the vet, hasn’t said anything about it, but I can tell she’s starting to get frustrated. I guess the problem is that I just can’t get over how different the twins are. --------------------“I’m Sebastien, by the way, but you can just call me Bas,” the nicer one told me as he served breakfast. “I’m so sorry about last night. Everything happened so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.” Looking back, I realise that what he said was a bit strange. Everything happened so quickly? We’d spent a good five minutes together on a speeding motorcycle! Everything only happened so quickly because At the time, however, I was so charmed that I could only say, “No, no, please don’t apologise. You’ve already done so much.” I gestured awkwardly in the direction I thought downtown might have been. “You know, back at The Caspian. Thank you.” Emer
I back immediately out of the conversation with this strange, unknown number, feeling as if my soul has left my body. Not three seconds later, however, I tap back into it to reread the message: I’ve got your USB stick. Nope. It’s definitely real. I lock my phone and set it on the table, sitting down in a daze. Someone has my thumb drive. Is it that redhead after all? Is he going to blackmail me? I have your data so let me drive you home or I’ll tell everyone about it. I almost laugh at the absurdity. If someone had it, if they saw and understood what was in it, they wouldn’t try anything so benign as blackmailing. Bzzt. I stare at my phone. Bzzt. I pick it up. Two notifications from the same unknown number as before. I unlock my screen just as another notification pops up. I navigate into the conversation and physically feel the adrenaline leave my bloodstream as I read through the messages. Cecilia? Do I have the right number? It’s Bas, by the way I found this near our po
I must have had my phone volume too loud, because Sebastien offers to give me a ride to campus immediately after I agree to go.The idea of going on the motorcycle again is scary, but I nod. Callie sounded pretty panicked, and I’d feel awful if I got there too late to help. It takes all of seven minutes for Sebastien and I to get to campus, and it’s mainly because Sebastien speeds. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice last night,” I gasp after Sebastien helps me down from the seat. “I must have noticed, then blocked it all out for the trauma.” He doesn’t look at me, instead opening up the storage space beneath the seat of the motorcycle. “Notice what?” he asks. “What do you mean, ‘Notice what?’?” I exclaim. “You were going twenty miles over the speed limit!” He grins, handing me my book bag. “Shh, don’t worry about it. It’s an emergency!” I sling the bag over my shoulder and peer through the fence to where the football and cheer teams seem to have gathered. There are several footbal