“Now we’re even, Doyin,” Victoria said.
I looked at her. “Even?”
“Yeah.” She paused, then tilted her head. “By the way, what exactly happened at your school?”
I frowned slightly.
“You might be proud and self-absorbed,” she continued, “but I find it hard to believe you could actually do something like that.”
“Thank you for the kind words,” I replied sarcastically. “I don’t really want to go into details, but what happened was basically me being a victim of circumstance.”
“What does that mean?”
“Long story short, I got framed for stealing.”
“You were framed?”
“Yeah. And you don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t really matter.”
“I believe you.”
I stared at her.
“You believe me?”
She sighed and looked away.
“I know what it feels like to be seen as something you’re not. From a very young age, I’ve always been known as the bad and rebellious twin. Our parents, family members, even our neighbours accepted that fact, and—”
“Hold on. Pause right there.”
She stopped and looked at me.
“What?”
“You’re a twin?”
She blinked. “Yeah. I thought everyone knew.”
“I definitely didn’t.”
“You’re serious?”
“Very. You have a twin sister or brother?”
“A twin sister. Her name is Mercy.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.” She gave a humourless laugh. “She’s the good twin. I’m the bad one.”
I stared at her.
“Everything she did made everyone proud, while everything I did somehow messed everything up. She’s calm and obedient. I’m stubborn and rebellious. So, naturally, they started comparing us.”
She shrugged.
“They still tell me to try to be more like her.”
I frowned.
“Wait. Why doesn’t she come to this school?”
“Because she’s abroad with my parents.”
Right.
Victoria had told me that her parents were abroad. She just hadn’t mentioned that they had taken Mercy with them.
“You didn’t go with them?”
She looked up at me.
The expression in her eyes told me I had probably asked one question too many.
I immediately looked away.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “It’s fine.”
She sighed.
“What’s the point? You already know basically everything about me.”
“You’re right.”
She was quiet for a moment before she spoke again.
“If you had two notebooks, and one of them got torn, what would you do?”
YOU ARE READING
Rats, Roses And Paper Bones
Fiksi UmumDoyin is used to being silent. After a false accusation forced her to leave her old school in shame, she arrives at Longford high ready to disappear. No one knows what she's running from, and she intends to keep it that way. Between low self worth b...
