Gemini - 8. What It's Like

Jacob

I overlooked the still empty school parking lot. Taking a deep breath, I slowly started on my way towards the school. The first students were already entering the main building, or standing outside, chatting. As I passed them, nobody greeted me or as much as looked at me for longer than a second. It was as if I was invisible. I felt awkward and rejected. Then I realized that this was what Josh faced every day, and that made me sad and also angry.

My shoulders were dropped, my pace was slow and my eyes were cast on the ground in front of me; the posture of defeat. I had practiced this on the whole way here. Josh had never said anything about his body language, but he had told me that he had no friends at school, and that things were tough, despite him being a good student.

It made sense that he would look like those outsiders at my school. The kind of students that would look at you suspiciously when you tried to be friendly with them. I understood them, in a way, but I didn’t really know how to approach them, and usually I didn’t bother either. Josh was like one of them, but that didn’t make me think badly of him at all. Instead, I felt sorry for him. If I had been in his position, I would have given a lot to have someone who could give me a break from this.

It didn’t take me long to find his locker, once I had found the hallway it was located in. It was the one with ‘loser’ sprayed over it in big red letters. I shrugged and opened it. Josh might have felt insulted by this, or even attacked, and it might have ruined his day. I wasn’t really bothered though. It was only a locker, not a person. Getting upset over something like that was a waste of time.

After I had grabbed my books, I shut the locker and went to the classroom. The hallways were slowly filling and there were students all over the place; laughing, greeting each other, and gossiping about miniscule things. I simply walked by them, ignoring them, just like they ignored me.

A day starting with math was usually a bad day, and Josh’s first period was math. I prepared for the worst while the room filled. The other students around me were chatting or working on their homework at the last minute, while I simply put my stuff on the desk and stared at the board, waiting.

The teacher, an old boring-looking man, eventually silenced the class and started the lesson. Josh was a good student and had tested out of some of the basic classes, so the things they were doing here were far beyond me. Still, I had never been so concentrated in a lesson before. There were two reasons for that. Even though Josh had told me not to worry about my performance in his classes, I didn’t want to screw up on the first question.

I listened intently and tried to understand what the teacher was talking about. Even though I didn’t understand all the details, I got, at least, that it had to do with a procedure that would allow you to determine the size of the area between two graphs. The other reason was, that there was nobody distracting me. Some students were secretly talking or passing small slips of paper with messages around, but nobody cared to even look at me.

“Did you all understand this? Any questions?” The teacher asked finally, after what felt like thirty minutes of monologue. He waited for a few seconds and since nobody raised their hands or said anything, he started passing out papers. “Alright, do the exercise using this procedure. You have twenty minutes, please finish quickly so we can talk about the results.”

As I got my paper, I tried to figure out what to do, but it was useless. The concept made sense to me, but I simply lacked the basics to understand how to do it. ‘I should take math more seriously’, I mentally noted, as I tried to solve the equations anyway. I wrote and calculated and tried everything I knew, but it was no use, and when the time was over, I had several papers full of scribble, but still no idea what the solution was.

Without even asking for a volunteer, the teacher looked at me. “Josh, why don’t you show us how to do it?” I looked up at him, almost a little scared. There was no malice or mischievousness in his voice. He was completely convinced that this would be no big deal for me.

“Uhm,” I started, and looked at him in despair.

“Yes?” He asked me, a little impatient.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just not my day, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I haven’t found a solution yet.”

I could feel the eyes of everyone in the class on me and my cheeks started to burn. The teacher looked at me, almost a little confused, and cleared his throat. “Alright, uhm...” he turned to another guy in the class. “Ben, can you do it, please?”

Ben, a short nerdy guy, got up and wrote the solution on the board as he explained the procedure. ‘Hopefully this won’t happen in every class’, I thought. Cheeks still hot, I tried to focus on his presentation, so I could understand what he was doing. I actually understood his explanation, even if I wasn’t sure I could do it successfully on another exercise.

The sudden attention people had given me had vanished as quickly as it had come. Everyone was back to either paying attention to Ben or to the person next to them. To them, I was just some weird guy that suddenly acted differently than expected, but nonetheless, I was just that; Some guy they didn’t really care about.

The next lessons went similarly, although I had more luck. I kept silent and the teachers shot me looks every now and then, as if they expected me to participate, but then mostly left me alone. If I was asked a question, I actually got it right, most of the time. Listening closely to everything that was said during the lessons did pay off, many questions were simple enough to figure out the answer from what had been said before.

“There will be no specific homework today, just go over everything we have learned during the year. Make sure you are prepared for the finals next week. I will see you tomorrow,” the biology teacher, a petite old woman with grey hair said to the class. Surprised, I glanced at the watch. Usually, I would sit in my classes, waiting forever for the bell to ring. That day, however, I was so busy focussing on the teacher and the subject, every time the bell announced the end of the lesson I was surprised.

I packed my stuff and made my way out of the room. I was just leaving the door, when, once again, someone bumped into my shoulder as he passed me. It was some tall guy whose name I didn’t know. I didn’t comment on it, even though I would have liked to lay into him. It had happened so often this day, I had stopped counting.

Instead, each time someone made a nasty comment to me or deliberately got in my way, I thought of Ethan, Sarah or my brothers and smiled on the inside. These people who didn’t want me, or Josh for that matter, could go fuck themselves. I could do well without them, I had probably more people that cared about me, than they did.

My shoulders and arms kind of hurt, but I ignored it and walked on. History was the only lesson left before lunch, and I was actually curious about this one. Josh had told me about very few people at his school, and Mr. Fisher seemed to be the only nice one among them. After a day like this one, I was surely excited to see him. I loitered through the halls until the break was over and then went to the classroom. Like in all of Josh’s classes, I sat down in the front of the room.

“We have covered everything we need for the finals,” Mr. Fisher started the lesson. “So today, I would like to make a digression. The details of this lesson will not be relevant for the finals, yet you might still find it an interesting topic.”

“Has any of you ever heard of the Lawrence Massacre?” With that he started a long lecture about the Border War in Kansas and its background. It wasn’t a long recital of numbers, like in my own history lessons. He told it like a story, almost like he had been there himself. He had a lot of sources, like newspaper articles from that time, on slides, which made it seem all that much more real. After Mr. Fisher had outlined the background, he talked about the attack, one of the bloodiest events in the history of Kansas.

On August 21, 1863, hundreds of raiders attacked Lawrence, a pro-Union town and a center for free state militia. They pillaged for several hours and set many buildings on fire. The city was generally considered to be secure, but the squad of soldiers stationed there had returned to some fort, so the city was left without much protection.

Almost two hundred men and boys were killed, some as young as twelve or thirteen and many underaged. It really wasn’t a battle, it was more of a mass execution. Revenge was the principal motive and it showed. Mr. Fisher talked about reports of a man shot with a toddler in his arms and two other men being forced into a burning building so that they die in it.

The raiders had a list of people they were to kill. One of their prime victims, John L. Speer, escaped execution, but two of his sons were killed. His youngest son, a fifteen-year-old, was supposedly on the death list but escaped death by giving his captors a wrong name.

There was an open discussion of these events after he was done talking. I actually found myself participating, something totally unusual of me. The civil war had always been a boring subject to me. I didn’t care about what had happened long ago, I lived in the present. Mr. Fisher’s vivid narration had really gotten me interested though.

During that discussion, he also talked about the age of the soldiers fighting in that war. The brutality of the massacre was as disturbing as the thought that about a hundred thousand of the Union soldiers were boys of age fifteen or below. He didn’t give us any numbers about the Confederacy, but said that the raiders who attacked this town were mostly teenagers, one of the youngest reported to be thirteen.

We were done a few minutes before the bell rang and Mr. Fisher released us early, after giving us a reading assignment. Josh had asked me to stay after the lesson and give a comment on the subject of the lesson, so I waited for the other students to leave. Normally I would consider something like this sucking up, but after this lesson I didn’t even need to be told to do this, I did it because I wanted to.

“Thank you for this great lecture, Mr. Fisher,” I told him, as most students had left the room.

“It was a pleasure, Josh,” he replied. “I hope this lesson gave you a better perspective on the horrors of the civil war?”

I shook my head. “It is so shocking. Boys our age, fighting for their lives, or being executed just because of what their fathers did; it is scary to even think about something like that. I can’t imagine what it would be like to serve in the army and defend a town with my life.”

“Things have changed a lot since then,” he mused. “Life, especially as a teenager, is much different now. It’s still far from perfect, but when it gets hard, we should remember what others had it like.”

I smiled at him. “That’s good advice, thank you, Mr. Fisher.”

There was an awkward pause. He looked, actually stared, at me; more exactly at my eyes. I didn’t know what to do or how to react so I looked back at him. After a long time he finally nodded. “Alright…” he put in a pregnant pause. “... Josh…”

Why did he stare at me like that? Had he seen a difference between Josh and me? I quickly turned away. “Well, I have to get to the canteen, so I can grab something to eat.”

Mr Fisher nodded. “Alright, I’ll see you… tomorrow.”

I fled the room. Did he know? I took a deep breath and forced myself to walk slower. Even if he had noticed, freaking out wouldn’t help. I would just give myself away. Acting like everything was normal was the best thing to do. If he had seen a difference in my behaviour or appearance, he still didn’t know about Josh and me being twins. He could assume, but that was all about it.

I went to the canteen to grab some food. When I lined up, I managed to place myself in a large crowd of harmless freshmen. Doing so successfully prevented any confrontations with older students. Of all the food they had, the fish looked most appealing, so I decided to give it a try. I carried my tray over to a small table off in the corner and sat down. Watching the other students, I picked up my fork and shoved a piece of fish into my mouth.

It was the first piece of normality that day; no matter what school canteen, no matter what they serve, it tastes like cardboard. Well, with a little lemon, in this case, but still, cardboard. I forced myself to eat another piece. I was hungry and I had bought this with Josh’s money. I would feel bad if I didn’t eat at least some of it.

During the ten minutes I sat there, trying to ingest the cardboard-fish, nobody bothered to give me a second glance. It was starting to bother me. I hadn’t spoken so few words at school in a long time. Actually, I couldn’t remember a single day of my life like this. I ate about half of what was on my plate before I gave up and left the canteen.

Was this what Josh’s everyday life was like? I walked across the schoolyard and looked at the people around me. Once again, I felt invisible. I sat down on one of the benches and stared off in the distance.

Could I fix this? Could I improve things for him? Not really. This was not only about Parker, this was probably also about Josh shutting everyone out. He had to do this himself, or things would be the same as soon as we swapped back. I could still help him, though. Having a break from this, being at my school with Ethan and Sarah, might do wonders to him. Maybe I could find a way to deal with Parker, too.

♊

When I read Josh’s text about him being ‘kidnapped’ by my aunt, I couldn’t help but grin. I could see him right before me, covered in cow shit with a pitchfork in his hands. I was positive that the hard work and being outside would be good for him. Helping out on the farm was tough, but it was a rewarding work. When I worked there, I always felt great after everything was done. I kind of hoped it would have the same effect on him.

After school I walked slowly back to his place. When Josh called me, I told him all the things he needed to know on the farm. He was going to have an exhausting day. I was glad about having dodged that bullet. I would have never bristled about working on the farm, it was just something you did for the family. However, as long as he got it done, I was happy that I didn’t have to do it.

I arrived at his parents’ house just when we hung up. Taking a deep breath, I pulled out the key he had given me. We were lucky that he was so paranoid about things going wrong, otherwise I wouldn’t have had it. Successfully avoiding Philip, I went straight to Josh’s room, dropped his backpack in a corner and started up his computer.

I decided to spend the day inside. I could have met up with Ethan or Sarah, but decided against it. Before Josh had met us, his afternoons and evenings must’ve been boring. I kind of wanted to spend this afternoon in his house, being him. It wouldn’t be as boring for me, having a computer just to myself was totally new and exciting to me. Still, this gave me more of an idea what his life was like, than hanging out with Ethan and Sarah would have.

I had barely sat down on my desk chair when there was a knock on the door and Philip came in.

“Hey Josh, had a good day at school?”

“It was ok,” I replied with a languid voice, leaning back in the chair.

“Alright, I’ll be out for a bit buying groceries. See you later,” he told me, before he vanished.

I went on YouTube and started watching random videos. One video led to the next, and my next conscious look at the time in the right bottom of my screen made me realize that over an hour had passed. Surprised that time had gone by so quickly, I closed the browser and grabbed Josh’s backpack. He couldn’t do the homework for the next day, so I had to try my best and do it.

It wasn’t even much, a few math problems and something for his French I class. I decided to start with French, as that would be the easy part. It didn’t even take ten minutes to read some dialogue, answer questions in French and then fill out gaps in some verb reflection exercise. Satisfied, I looked at my work and leaned back. Just then, there was another knock on the door.

Philip stuck his head into the room. “Hey Josh, I’m back. Have you done your homework yet?”

“In fact,” I told him. “I’m at it right now.”

He nodded. “Alright, let me know if you have any problems.”

He closed the door behind him and I sighed and turned back to Josh’s desk. Math homework was not going to be fun, but I didn’t want to cause Josh any problems, just because I sucked at math. Looking over the papers I realized that I had no clue what to do. I went to the computer and looked for simple explanations and step by step guides for math. The first problem took me almost an hour, but from then on, it got easier.

Philip checked two more times on me while I was doing homework. I started to see why Josh didn’t like that guy. Maybe I could convince Philip to leave Josh alone, or at least wait for a reply before he entered. It would be a step towards making Josh’s life easier. I decided to confront Philip about this the next time he came into my room.

As I had finally written the last solution to Josh’s homework, I leant back and crossed my arms behind my head, resting my head against them. I was so tired from being focused for so long, but it felt great to have finished this. I would’ve never thought I’d actually solve the problems that teacher had given us. I let out a stifled yawn and closed my eyes for a few seconds, enjoying the moment.

I heard a loud knock on the door and abruptly lifted my head. It must have been more than a couple seconds. When I opened my eyes, it took a few seconds until I could see without a blur. Did I just fall asleep? I held a hand against my stiff hurting neck as Philip opened the door.

“Hey Josh, dinner’s in twenty minutes, you better hurry up,” he commented. He was out and the door shut before I could say anything. I looked over to the clock. Shit! He was right. Dinner with Josh’s parents seemed like a big deal, and I definitely didn’t want to make any mistakes there. I got up from the chair and almost fell because one of my legs had gone numb.

Cursing under my breath, I hobbled over to his cupboard and started rummaging for clothes. I finally found everything I needed and rushed into the shower. I left my room just in time and made my way to the dining room. When I got to the stairs, I heard Josh’s father talking loudly. Slowing down, I took one step at a time. I hoped I’d get everything right. I didn’t want to cause Josh any trouble with his parents.

Another loud comment of his father made me stop momentarily, but then finally, I pushed down the door handle, feeling insecure, and even if I didn’t want to admit it, kind of scared.