Gemini - 26. Secrets Revealed

Josh

After he hung up, Philip fell on my father’s armchair and sighed. “The school has already informed the police. As soon as they know something, they'll notify us here. Until now they couldn’t reach your father, and fortunately they won’t try it anymore.”

“Okay. what do we do now?” I asked.

Philip took my father’s calendar off the desk, and flipped through the pages quickly. “Your parents are in an important conference. We can still stay here for a few more hours in case the police calls.”

I nodded. That made sense. The last thing we wanted was my father finding out about what was going on and picking up Jacob from the police station; and if the police couldn’t reach him at home, they would certainly try other ways.

I pulled out my phone and went towards the door. “I’ll call Sarah and let her know what’s happened.” When I was in the hall, I dialed her number and waited tensely.

“Hey J what’s up?”, she answered at last. Her voice was more than a little sniffy and sleepy.

“Err, we have a problem.” I cleared my throat. "Jacob is gone."

“What do you mean? What happened?” she suddenly sounded wide-awake.

“No idea. He didn’t come to the park as planned. Now we are at my place. There was blood on the floor in my room, and Philip told us my school had been informed that I was leaving effective immediately.”

“Wait a moment, Philip?”

“Yes, anyway, he’s apparently okay. No idea, long story, but that doesn’t matter. He’s on our side and helps us. However, Philip has found out that Jacob was sent to a military school, but when we called there, they said he had disappeared.”

" Oh shit,” she cursed. “And now?”

“We are waiting at my place for a call from the police and hope that nothing has happened to him.”

“I’ll come by,” she decided. “I just gotta get ready first.”

“Sarah, you don’t need to come, we’re taking care of it. You are sick, you’d better rest.” To be honest, I was more concerned about what would happen if my father came home early. I didn’t want to be responsible if something happened to Sarah, too. However, I didn’t want to tell her that.

“And miss the whole excitement? No way, see you soon!” she said before hanging up.

I stared at my phone for a moment before I sighed and went back to the study.

" ... was a little bit shy, but all in all it went extremely well,” I heard Ethan saying. “Nobody noticed anything. Why would they? Who could have suspected that he was not Jacob, but his twin, especially when nobody knows that he actually has a twin. Well, then somebody came and asked him about the homework for French. You should have seen his face!" Ethan laughed, and Philip and Ian grinned amusedly. "Then we realized how many gaps our plan had. At least he couldn’t go to the French period without everything blowing up.”

I sat on an empty chair. Grinning I listened to how Ethan told them about the last weeks while we waited.

Around an hour later Sarah rang the bell. I let her in, and she greeted me with a hug. “Is everything okay?” she wanted to know.

I shrugged. “I hope. So far we know nothing new. At the moment we only sit around and talk.”

As I led her back to the study, I heard Philip speaking on the telephone.

“Okay, thanks a lot, I’ll come immediately.” After saying a few other words, he hung up and turned to us. “They’ve found Jacob; he was in a bus from Plattsburgh to Albany.”

I sighed in relief. The others seemed to do the same. “Are we going to get him?”

“We’ll try,” said Philip as he got up and took out his car keys.

The trip seemed to take forever. The fact that the police station was at the other end of the city, didn’t make it any better. When Philip had finally parked the car, he turned to us. “You’d better stay here and wait.”

“I come along,” disagreed Sarah instantly.

He considered her with a speculative look. “Okay, but only you.”

After they both left the car, Ethan spoke “I’m glad that they found him so quickly.”

“Would have been better if he had reached us first,” I answered with crossed arms.

“Yes, but can you imagine what could have happened?” Ethan shuddered. “Anyhow, I wouldn’t voluntarily walk at night through the forest and along the highway.”

“I wonder how he managed to do it in the time he did,” noted Ian. In the waiting time we had looked at where the school was. I had to agree with him. This was quite an achievement, and to judge from the blood in my room, he had not probably been in the best condition.

“I hope he’s well,” said Ethan quietly. I didn’t trust myself to say anything, but I only nodded as agreement.

After a while, Philip and Sarah returned from the police station. However, Jacob was nowhere to be seen. I unbuckled myself and got out of the car. “Where is he?”

“Only family can pick him up,” answered Philip bad-temperedly. “I tried to explain to them that I am here by your father’s orders, but it did nothing at all. "

“Really?” I groaned. “And now?”

“We wait for your grandmother,” grinned Philip. “She is family, after all.”

“We should go to our place in the meantime,” Ian interjected. “My parents should know about this.”

I swallowed, but then nodded slowly. “Okay. You are right.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes on the way to Jacob's family. The last weeks had passed so quickly, and there was never really the time to stop and reflect on the things that had happened. Only at the end of last weekend I had started to really accept the events as a reality, and not as a dream.

Exchanging roles with Jacob was a really crazy idea in retrospect. I still couldn’t figure out why I thought I was able to pull it off. However, after I had jumped in at the deep end, I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t want to go back at all.

Pretending I was Jacob had given me a self-confidence I had never known before in my life. His family loved him, he had friends and was respected. Perhaps his life was not perfect, but damn it was close. At the same time, it seemed Jacob surprisingly enjoyed parts of my life, too. On the first glance, my family’s wealth was certainly attractive for someone like him. However, in other parts he had definitely sacrificed himself for me; something I could probably never repay him appropriately, particularly how he had taken a stand for me against Parker.

At first I had argued with him about it, but now it didn’t matter to me anymore. I couldn’t give two fucks about Parker anymore. I was only glad that I had somebody like Jacob who stood on my side no matter what, and then I got to know Ethan, had fallen in love with him, and had found my first boyfriend.

On Sunday evening, Jacob hadn’t contacted me and on Monday he hadn’t appeared. Something must have happened that had brought my father to beat up Jacob and to send him to a military school. Or perhaps he had simply gone crazy at last. Thinking about him, it really wouldn’t have surprised me.

Would Jacob ever be able to forgive me? After all, I was responsible for what had happened to him. The most terrible fact was that it actually should have happened to me. If we hadn’t exchanged roles, or if we hadn’t met, this would have never happened to him. If only I had been in his place.

I really hoped that Jacob didn’t blame me for the whole thing to the point that he wouldn’t talk with me anymore or break up the contact completely. He had enough reasons to do so. After some reflection I realized that he wasn’t necessarily the one I had to worry about. Although , his family was a much bigger problem.

I looked at Ian, and let my eyes linger on his face for a moment. Surprisingly he turned his head towards me and answered my look with an encouraging smile.

I tried, to smile back, but it ended in a grimace. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry much about him. He’d accepted everything relatively well or at least, it seemed he had managed to do so temporarily.

Conrad was a different story. If he found out that I was gay and had slept in the same room … I shook my head, as if that would help me to get rid of the thought. Jacob's parents…, however, I was sure that they would somehow accept me anyway. Anything else with them was difficult to imagine. On the other hand, a certain fear gnawed at me that they would abandon me, and they would resent me for deceiving them by pretending to be Jacob.

What would I do if our small, practical joke, the role swapping, which had turned into so much more, and might just have been the biggest stupidity of my life, backfired and cost me my own as well as Jacob's family?

Perhaps Philip would be willing to help me. Otherwise I could still go to my grandmother’s, but at the same time this would mean the separation from Jacob; and, even worse, from Ethan.

“We are there,” announced Philip, while he parked the car. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Is everything ok with you?”

Sarah's quiet voice and concerned look kept me from saying “Yes, everything’s good.” Instead, I stopped for a moment and cleared my throat. “I think I worry too much. It will somehow work out. I hope.”

“Let’s go,” sighed Philip. We followed him to the entrance door where I pulled out my key to let the others in. Everyone was so quiet on the stairway that you could hear the clatter of pots and tableware from above.

Only at the front door it occurred to me how used I was to the staircase, the house, everything that was there really; and that was in spite of the fact that only a few weeks had passed since I had first met Jacob. For me it had almost become natural, almost like a second home. I suppressed another attack of guilt, swallowed, and opened the door

I hesitated before entering. Previously I would have called out something like “Mum, I’m home,” but now this appeared more than inappropriate. Jacob's mother took away the decision from me. “Food is almost ready,” she called, before she appeared at the kitchen door. “Jacob …,” she looked somewhat surprised at the not so small group. “Sarah, Ethan? Don’t you have sport, Ian? Did something happen?”

“You might say that,” said Ian. “Can we talk about it while we eat?”

Jacob's mother nodded slowly. “Okay, why not? Wash your hands, take a few plates, we eat in the living room; there is more space.”

After we all had taken off our shoes and washed our hands, we helped with setting the table in the living room. Conrad arrived shortly after, but luckily he remained quiet and simply sat down next to us. Finally, Jacob's father came from the kitchen, sat at the head of the table and said a short grace. I had never experienced this with Jacob's family before. The thought of his parents having a need to leave a good impression on visitors distracted me from the situation for a moment, and I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. At least it wasn’t as bad as it was with my parents.

While Jacob's father filled the plates with spaghetti, I squirmed restlessly on my seat. Finally, I cleared my throat. “Err, by the way, this is Philip,” I remarked with a gesture in his direction.

Jacob's mother looked at me a little peculiarly. I realized it was probably because of the age difference. “A new friend of yours? Or … of Ian’s?” she finally asked.

“Err, well…,” Ian said.

“I’m not really Jacob,” I blurted out before Ian could continue.

A deathly silence ruled the table for a moment. Then everyone began to speak at the same time.

“What’s that supposed to mean?" Jacob's parents demanded.

“He means that ...,” began Ian.

“What the hell?!” was all Conrad said.

“Quiet!” Philip finally shouted. When everyone fell silent, he sheepishly cleared his throat and asked, “Jacob is adopted, correct?”

“I’d known it,” Conrad commented immediately. His look moved to Ian, as if he was waiting for some kind of confirmation. However, Ian was too tense to even notice.

I anxiously watched Jacob's parents. Their eyes met for a few long seconds, then Jacob's father looked at the group and nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true.”

“Why haven’t you ever mentioned that?” Ian said furiously. “Don’t we have a right to know this? Shouldn’t Jacob have known this?”

“We … we wanted to, but everything went so well, and we didn’t want to cause unnecessary problems when there were none, so we’d always put it off. We’re sorry about doing so,” Jacob’s mother tried to explain to me. Then she lowered her eyes.

When nobody answered, Jacob's father cleared his throat. “We didn’t want to hide it from you, but you got along so well…,” it was obvious that he wanted to help out his wife, but didn’t really know what to say. “Sometime...,” His words had evidently overtaken his thoughts, and he looked speechlessly at the group. There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Baker collected herself and spoke with her gentle voice that always took away the worries from everyone, “But what does that have to do with this? Who are you if you’re not Jacob? Do you mean that you originally had another name? How did you even find out that you were adopted?”

“Err, no,” I gulped, trying to gain some time. “Erm, so … the thing is that I, that I’m Jacob's twin ... I met Ethan in the public pool and he introduced us to each other, Jacob and me, I mean.” Under the looks of others, I started to sweat as though I was standing right under a spotlight and began to talk faster and faster. “The fact that we were adopted was the most logical conclusion. We decided to keep it a secret at first, at least until we knew more...only Ethan and Sarah knew. Then we had the idea to swap roles. Only a little bit, as long as we could do it. Once we started, we didn’t want to stop anymore. I’m really sorry, we shouldn’t have done that. I have slept here, eaten here, as if I were Jacob. I have deceived all of you. That was wrong, and if I could turn back time, I would.”

I forced myself to stop when I noticed how emotional I had gotten. My eyes were lowered to my hands, and only after I had swallowed the threatening tears, I forced myself to look at Jacob’s parents. “Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have done it. I hope, you can accept my apology and allow me to stay in touch with Jacob.”

After what felt like an eternity of shocked silence, Jacob's mother rose, came over to me and pulled me into her arms. At first I tensed, but after some time, I slowly relaxed and accepted the embrace. Nevertheless, I still had a bad feeling.

“I’m really sorry,” I repeated myself.

“It’s ok,” she answered softly, while she held me more. “If you are Jacob's twin, you are practically family. Perhaps it wasn’t particularly smart, but it wasn’t so bad either. Soon we will all laugh at it.” I had to clear my throat as I tried once more to hold back my tears. At last, she let me go and I didn’t know exactly whether to be sad about it or glad. Looking me in the eye, she joked: “However, next time tell us beforehand.”

I had to almost laugh. She had this unbelievable talent to calm everyone down and to make sure that they felt better, “Ok, I’ll do that. Thanks,” I promised.

“What’s your name then, if not Jacob?” she wanted to know.

“Josh,” It felt unreal to pronounce my own name.

“Welcome to the family, Josh,” she pulled me into another hug, before she finally let me go, and returned to her seat.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s father nodded at me friendlily. Then turned to Philip, “Who are you then? Where is Jacob, and why are you all here?”

“I’m Philip and I worked for Josh’s father….” he started.

“Worked? As in past tense?” I interrupted him.

Philip snorted, “After all that happened today, I doubt I can continue working for him, let alone that I want it.”

“What about Jacob?” Mr. Baker reminded us impatiently. One could notice that although he had left the talk to his wife, now that it was about his son, he had a strong need to interfere.

“Yes, Err, at the moment, Jacob is at the police station, we were already there and tried to pick him up, but only his family is allowed to do so, so either my father or my grandmother. And you can’t pick him up, because they think he is me.” I said really fast. “My grandmother is on her way to here from Washington DC because the reason Jacob is at the police station is probably my father. He tried to send him to a military school because he thought Jacob was me, and not Jacob. But we don’t know for sure. So for now we hope she'll be here soon, and then we’ll see what happens. By the way…” I pulled out my phone, mostly because I didn’t want to see their reactions to my words. Indeed, I had a new SMS.

“Yep, my grandmother wrote to me that she’d be in the airport in around half an hour and asked where she should come from there.”

“Tell her we’ll pick her up,” Philip suggested. Whether he had said that in order to be nice to my grandmother or simply to escape from the situation, I didn’t know for sure, but I was happy about it anyway.

“Wait a minute,” protested Jacob’s father, “What exactly happened?”

“We don’t know either,” I answered and tried to suppress the despair in my voice. “Jacob is at the police. For some reason my father sent him to a military school, and he ran away, and to get him from the police we need my grandmother who’ll arrive shortly at the airport.” I preferred to leave out the fact that my father had probably beaten up Jacob. That would have made the whole situation more complicated, and would have held us up even longer. Philip seemed to think similarly, because he threw me a knowing look and nodded lightly.

“Ok, we’re coming, too,” Jacob’s mother decided. “We clean up the table and then we leave.” Almost everyone was done eating by then, so it took no more than five minutes to clean up and leave the house.

I went with Ethan and Sarah in Philip's car, while Conrad and Ian joined their parents. A tense silent ruled on the way to the airport. I didn’t have any idea what Jacob's family talked about during the drive, but the tension stayed until we could finally see my grandmother leaving the check-out.

“Josh, it’s good to see you,” she greeted me as she hugged me formally.

“Granny, thanks for coming.”

She looked at me seriously, almost scolding, “Of course Josh. You are family, adopted or not.”

I hugged her back immediately, “Thanks,” I whispered. Then I asked, “Did you know about me being adopted?”

She let go of me, so she could look me in the eyes as she answered. "No. Your mother was pregnant again after several miscarriages and your parents were out of the country almost permanently, traveling. Then she was back in the country and suddenly there were you. I hardly remember, but at the time a few things seemed strange to me. In retrospect it makes more sense, but I have never assumed it directly. But this doesn't change anything. Like I already said, you still belong to the family. Now you must introduce me to the others and tell me how I can help. Do you already know where your twin brother is?”

“Yes, Jacob is at the police station, but only you or my parents can get him. Luckily my father doesn’t know anything so far. The others are Sarah and Ethan, Jacob’s friends, Ian and Conrad, Jacob’s older brothers, and these are Jacob’s parents, Peter and Mary Baker, and Philip, who you already heard about.

With every name, I pointed to the respective person. She nodded at them friendlily, and then she turned to Jacob’s parents, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Margery Adams, Josh’s grandmother.”

“Likewise, and thank you for coming here so quickly, although we’re still trying to understand what is going on,” answered Mrs. Baker who seemed totally out of her element.

“I barely know anything more,” my grandmother stated. “But first of all we have to pick up Jacob, and then consider what to do with Josh. Would it be possible to let him stay with you for a day or two?”

I just wanted to argue that they hardly had enough room as it was when Jacob’s mother was already answering, “Of course we can do that. Do you need an accommodation, too?”

“Oh no, but thanks. I will stay at a hotel, it is already taken care of,” my grandmother answered. “Josh, do you prefer to sleep at the Baker’s or rather at the hotel?”

“At Jacob’s,” I replied immediately. I was incredibly glad and thankful that I didn’t have to go back to my parents for the time being, and that my grandmother had understood the problem so quickly and solved it. I was still a bit concerned and worried about Ian and Conrad, but at that moment I consciously suppressed those thoughts.

She nodded at me understandingly, “Good, then I’d suggest that you go to your house, and take all of your things.” she turned to Jacob’s parents and added, “and we use the time to get Jacob, and talk some more. Is that acceptable for everyone?”

“Sounds good,” I answered immediately. When nobody argued, I went with Philip, Ethan and Sarah to the car, while my grandmother began talking to Jacob's parents.

It was already evening when we finally arrived at my parents’ house. The driveway was empty, so we knew that my father was still not home.

“Do we still have enough time?” I asked as Philip parked the car in the next side street. I didn’t know why he did this, but I didn’t ask him either. Probably he wanted to have the possibility of getting out through the back door without being seen in case my father came back.

“Should be good enough,” he said. “We will just have to hurry, but usually his conferences last quite long.”

This time we got into the house through the front door using Philip’s key. The hall was eerily quiet and unnaturally cool compared to the summery heat outside. Philip entered last and closed the door behind himself. Without waiting any longer than necessary, I went up the stairs to my room while the others followed me.

My room was still in exactly the same condition as we’d left it a few hours ago. I took a step in and then stopped abruptly. Ethan had to hold himself back so he wouldn’t bump into me, but I only noticed that peripherally.

So, that was it. The day I left my parents’ home had arrived. Perhaps finally? The thought didn't really disturb me, however, it was very strange to leave this all behind me. In spite of all their mistakes, all the problems and fears they had caused, my parents were still my parents; adopted or not didn’t really make a difference in the end. Even if they had never really cared about me, and would probably be sick to their stomach if they knew about my sexuality, it was nevertheless no small step, and particularly not one I wanted to take too rashly.

I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, two, three times, Ethan put his hand on my shoulder and pressed softly, encouragingly as if he could read my thoughts. With a slow sigh, I walked into the room. Immediately felt relieved, but at the same time it was as though I had lost a piece of myself that I could never get back. “Here goes!” I said looking at the room before me, and tried to sound at least somewhat enthusiastic.

“How can we help you?” Sarah wanted to know. She chuckled. “Should I start packing your underwear?”

I turned around and rolled my eyes. “For sure. Anyway, in the cupboard next to the bathroom door are the traveling bags, backpacks and a suitcase. Philip can you and Sarah please pack the PlayStation and the computer? Ethan, can you help me with my clothes?”

“Isn’t that a bit too much stuff?”, asked Sarah, looking at the cables.

“Nonsense,” I answered, as I walked towards the cupboard with the bags. “That one I’m definitely not leaving here.” I rummaged shortly and then threw a big traveling bag to her. “Simply pack everything in here, including the monitor. We carry the PC separately and whatever space is left, you simply fill up with games and movies.”

I grabbed a suitcase and went to the wardrobe. Ethan took the initiative and began to pack my things as efficiently as possible, while I checked my hiding place. I immediately realized that Jacob had taken some of the money. That explained how he could get back to Albany so fast. With a shrug I put the rest in my bag along with some old pictures of me as a child. Finally, I took my first stuffed toy, a hippopotamus that I had to hide forever ago, so my father couldn’t take it away from me. It seemed a bit childish to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave it behind.

When I looked up, the others had almost finished. Philip still fought with the LAN cable, while Ethan tried to stuff the last gaps with socks. I just wanted to go to the bookshelf to fill another bag with my favorite books when I heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Shush!" I tried to warn the others as quickly as possible. They seemed to have heard the sound as well, because except from my own noise, nothing could be heard in the room. I looked around slowly, while there were more footsteps on the stairs.

Everyone stood still, almost as if they had turned into pillars of salt and I began to pray that it wasn’t my father that was walking up the stairs, although I already knew that it couldn’t be anybody else. Carefully, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, trying not to make any sound.

It seemed to take forever to punch in the numbers and I made a typing mistake twice before I could even press "SMS". As usual my phone froze when I needed to use it quickly. I suppressed a groan and began to blame myself at the same time. Why had we come here again? What if my father was still furious? Why hadn’t we heard his car? I shouldn’t have gotten distracted; I should have paid more attention.

At last my phone worked properly again, and I quickly selected the conversation with my grandmother and started to type.

Suddenly the door slammed open and crashed against the wall. The barrel of a hand-held weapon was pointed into the room and my father stood half behind the corner in cover. “Hands up,” he roared. “Burglars and…,” However, he didn’t come any further. He had moved forward and seen our faces.

“Josh?” he sounded incredulous and he lowered the revolver a bit. He looked back and forth between me and Philip, and his face distorted with anger.

As he opened his mouth and started shouting, and gesticulating wildly with the weapon, I desperately used the opportunity to press "send" behind my back.

HELP