Short Stories

Not Jesse (version 2.0)

It was only Tuesday morning of the first week of school and I was already eager for the weekend to get here. The day had started off completely wrong and I was certain it would continue rolling downhill from there. I mean, objects in motion tend to stay in motion, right? My entire schedule had been thrown off since Alex Martin had dumped scalding coffee all down my front in the mess hall during breakfast. I had to immediately change gears and skip breakfast, heading back to my dorm room to change clothes. I was not happy. After that, I dropped my bowl of cereal I had made in my room while I was walking to class which meant no food at all for this morning. Could it have gotten any worse? Apparently, the answer to that question is, yes, it could have, and it did. First period was absolutely horrible. The teacher called on me the one time I didn't know the answer or even what he was talking about, math was making less and less sense, and the teacher caught me falling asleep at least three times. I'd never felt worse in my life!

I was at third period now, my favorite class, and I was praying to God that it wouldn't be as bad as the rest of the day. I thought my prayer was being answered until I realized something was missing, more like a someone. I looked up right as he walked through the door but I knew something was up. It couldn't be... Oh that idiot thought he could pull a fast one on me huh?

"Hey Jesse!" called out Aaron, a kid who sat two rows away from me.

"That's not Jesse," I muttered as I observed the newcomer. I narrowed my eyes. Sure this guy looked a lot like Jesse, but at the same time they were so distinctly different there was no question that this couldn't possibly be the idiot who sat next to me.

Aaron shot me a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"Are you blind? Can you not see that that's obviously Jesse?" Claire butted in.

"I'm not blind," I sent a glare Claire's way before answering Aaron. "If you'd look a lot closer, you can see the differences between this dude and Jesse, however similar they may look."

"Like what? Explain it, Freak Show," Derek smirked at me with that wicked glint in his eye and I had to stop and take a deep breath to keep from punching him.

"Well, where to start," I looked the guy up and down, coming to a conclusion. "Let's start with when he walked in. Jesse has heavy feet, with a short stride and while he walks with an overconfident swagger, he walks with hunched shoulders. When Not-Jesse over here walked in, he had a smooth long stride with soft feet and quiet confidence. Take a look at how Not-Jesse is sitting. He's sitting up somewhat straight with a slight hunch as if he's used to bending over something. This could from anything really, a lot of people in the arts do indeed sit like this. Jesse however stretches out in his seat, legs as far in front of him as they can go and typically slouched back against the back of the chair. Not-Jesse's hair is a shade lighter than Jesse's, probably from getting more sun than our resident vampire/ghost, and his skin is a darker tan color than Jesse's pale complexion. Not-Jesse's eyes are sharper and a more intelligent blue than the slightly lighter blue Jesse has. Jesse's hands have callouses where he holds his pencils and art supplies, and his fingers are calloused from all the years he's played guitar. Not-Jesse's hands are calloused differently, probably from lots of hands-on work. Let me guess, you're one of the mechanic kids aren't you? Welding, mechanics, and wood work, am I right?" Not-Jesse nodded, an amused smirk dancing onto his face and into his eyes. "Also, please, what's your name? I can't just keep calling you Not-Jesse the whole time."

The smirk turned into humour in his eyes and a laughing smile on his face. "Kane," was all he said but it was enough to send shivers down my spine.

"Hm, nice name. As I was saying, Kane seems much more observant. Also, Jesse's a little bulkier. He's a show off with his muscles, and he goes on and on about how impressive they are. Kane has muscles too, no doubt, with all the work he does, but he looks to be stronger in the legs. He looks leaner than Jesse and probably has better muscle endurance with certain activities. His hair is even done differently than Jesse's normally is and he looks less sloppy with the way he dresses. Jesse loves to throw a bunch of gel into his hair and then throw on whatever smells the cleanest off of his floor. Kane's hair looks gelless and he actually looks like he doesn't just throw all his clothes onto the floor and play a guessing game every morning with them. Also, if you think back to when Kane spoke, his voice was a little lower and a little smoother than Jesse's gruffer voice, though they sound identical as well. So yeah, Kane is obviously not Jesse."