Alpha Centauri

One - Julian

May 7, 2013

Sometimes, you can take a person and crush them and beat them down with all the horrible things in life, like poverty, stress, or public school, and they can turn out to be a genuinely good person, who can tolerate just about anything.

And sometimes you can take a person and put them through all those horrible things, and you'll get someone like my sister.

Don't get me wrong. My sister is a great person, if you dig through the stubbornness, impatience, and aggression. The way my sister sees it is that the world has never been good to her, so why should she be good to it?

Despite her less than perfect aspects, my younger-by-two-minutes twin sister Jaden Nova Everett is one of the best things in my shitty life. Even though I always have to pull her out of fights and stick up for her and sit through lectures from the school principal every other day with her and explain it all to a mother who is stressed out enough as it is, she's one of the few things I can look forward to in my hellish day-to-day life. Jaden is the funniest person I've ever met. She's always cracking (rude) jokes under her breath during class. She's mischievous and clever. The only thing sharper than her wits is her tongue. She's probably my best friend. And I know that if I was ever put in her shoes, she'd stick up for me on the spot. Jaden Nova Everett is a good person. And I'm perfectly okay with the fact that I'm the only one who's aware of it.

We're to that part of the school year where it's too close to summer vacation for anyone to care. It's past the final exams, so teachers are pretty much done with teaching and done with students. People only show up to maintain their attendance.

At lunch, Jaden and I sit on a row of tables all alone. It's like people think we have some highly contagious disease. Jaden's not the only one who has the undesirable reputation. I'm the guy who hangs out with the girl with the undesirable reputation. Other than that, no one really knows much about me. It's kind of a win-lose.

I ask Jaden how her classes are going in hope that she might actually start caring. She's pretty much blown off school, but I guess I can't blame her. Education is really not for her. After that we don't talk much. While I eat my shitty free-and-reduced school lunch, I look at her while she watches over the entire cafeteria. She's like a replica of Mom, small and thin (she'd kill me if I called her petite), except for her hair and eye color. Also unlike Mom, her hair is cut in a short, unfeminine way. Even though Jaden rarely messes with her appearance, she's pretty. (She'd also kill me if I said that.) You wouldn't be able to tell we were twins if we didn't tell you. I'm much bigger and taller, and Mom always tells me I look like my father.

"Hey," Jaden suddenly says, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Who's that?"

She casually jerks her head the left. My eyes follow the direction.

The usually empty table at the end of our row has been claimed by someone else. It's a girl, probably in our sophomore class. She's got long, dark, curly hair woven into a loose braid curled around her shoulder. She's wearing jeans, lace-up boots, and a blue hoodie under a denim jacket. She looks a little taller and more athletically and femininely built than Jaden. And she's really pretty. Like, she's pretty enough to be dating the entire football team.

Yet she's sitting alone.

"I don't know," I say to Jaden, still staring at the girl.

"You think she's hot, don't you?" Jaden smirks.

It's no use denying it, so I just shrug and nod.

"I've never seen her before," Jaden says.

I keep looking at the girl and realize that I've never seen her either. I mean, she fits in enough to look like she's been attending this school all year. But I know she hasn't.

Jaden just shrugs and goes back to her lunch. She has little to no concern for other people.

But I keep looking at the girl, and I notice yet another strange thing about her. She's drumming her fingers on the table anxiously and looking around like she's trying to locate a time bomb or something.

This really worries me.

Then the girl's gaze falls on me. Her eyes get wide. She takes two fingers and presses them to her temple and holds them there for a moment. Then she stands and starts walking over to Jaden and me.

And then things get crazy.