The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

2.22: Paper Notes

Q U E N T I N

He forgot when he started to feel it, but being a twin sucked.

Of course, there would be pros, as most things in the world. You're guaranteed to have a friend in the same age. You get unconditional love from said friend from all times. You don't need to deal with domineering older siblings or annoying younger siblings, because the two of you would be of the same age.

The con list went on and on, though. Parents had to scrape off significantly more money (double actually, but Quentin was a noisy kid with a lot of demands, so it might stretch the funding to be triple) to feed the kids. Since April was his female twin, Quentin never got the chance to play 'swap lives' like all the other twins in movies. And he needed to learn the term 'Shared Attention'.

Sometimes even 'No Attention'.

Quentin had always known that there was something 'off' with April, even when he was young. April found adventures to be more terrifying than that clown in It movie. April would sometimes eat a single kind of food for a couple of days. April rarely looked at people in their eyes.

After one visit to a childhood doctor one day, his parents started to give April more attention than Quentin. And he was fine with it. He really was. He knew that he was the Lucky Twin. He wasn't the one who had to live with 'That Thing', and he surely thanked his parents that they gave him vaccine shots to protect him from a lot of ridiculous and unwarranted deaths.

And after all, how could he hog the parents's affection when he could so easily win the attention from other people? In high school, he had been one of the most popular jocks. He had dated a lot of girls, and he made friends easily, just like 50 push-ups. Right now, he was on his way to play on NFL, and he had been dating one of the prettiest girls he'd ever laid eyes on his whole life.

Audra had been amazing to him. Whenever they met, all of her attention was focused to him. For once, he was the only one in the spotlight. She pointedly decided to ignore his sister, but the reasoning behind it was unlike the other girls whom he had dated before.

Other girls would say, "Your sister is weird."

Or,

"Is there something wrong with her?"

Or,

"I don't care about your sister."

But Audra once told him. "Your sister has it easy." He would argue that April didn't have it easy, but he remembered. Oh, he remembered. The way their mother cared more about what to put in April's lunchboxes than his. The way their father only gave him a fatherly (which means half-hearted and extra awkward) hug when he told them he made it to the National Team. The way they showed a lifetime's worth of happiness when they attended April's graduation party. The way people around her always cared about her. April hadn't had it easy, but in the same time, she had it easy.

And that was when Quentin knew that he fell in love with Audra. He knew about her struggle, and he knew about her deep, dark desire to be liked by everyone (even though she'd deny it vehemently) She wasn't condemning her sister because she had a mental condition or something like that. Audra condemned April because she was jealous.

And Quentin would feel not as bad, if he somehow felt jealous of April, whenever he was around Audra.

But that was all before he heard about the poisonous things that Audra had to say about his sister.

That little bitch.

Now Quentin had to call his mom and say sorry for being a piece of shit son. He had to call his father and demand grave punishment. He might even have to put off dating and stamp a Warning Label on his forehead.