Delaney Blake's Guide to Detention

Step #7: Play Hide and Seek With Yourself

Mr. Dennison looks over his glasses at me. His gaze goes back and forth. Me, detention slips, me, detention slips.

"How did you manage to get seven detentions in a single day?" Mr. Dennison's brow furrows.

I shrug. It helps, apparently, when there are two of me. Two Delaneys for twice the trouble. There's no point in denying it now.

"To which detentions are you referring?" I ask innocently.

Mr. Dennison squints at the detention slips. "No hall pass, raising shirt in front of lower classmen in the hall, dress code violation, drawing large penis on whiteboard, yelling YOLO and cartwheeling through the library... this was issued in the middle of my class..."

Mr. Dennison works through this dilemma, this issue of me being in two places at once, but doesn't say anything more of it. He must've thought the same thing about the graffiti this morning. He certainly doesn't mention the fact that I am entirely too uncoordinated to manage a cartwheel in the library.

I kind of wish I actually drew the penis, though.

"It's been a tough week," I say.

Still perplexed, Mr. Dennison shuffles through all of my slips to eventually reach Milo's. If he was incredulous about my impressive feat of seven school disturbances in a single day, he is absolutely astonished Milo is present at all.

"You're my best student," he says.

Milo quietly folds his hands in front of him on the desktop. "Good grades and trouble-making are not mutually exclusive," Milo makes a valiant point, then adds, "sir."

Yeah, you tell him, Milo. You deviant.

Mr. Dennison's chronic disbelief is interrupted by Emma Conroy practically falling into the room, huffing for breath. Her face is flushed, her lips extra pink. Her fingers reach up to comb out the tangles of her mussed hair. If I didn't know any better, I would think she just stumbled out of a hot bedroom at a house party. But this is Emma and this is detention and why the hell is she looking at me like that?

Emma's eyes lock on me like she's seen a ghost. Her lips form a tight, thin line before she twists deliberately to Mr. Dennison as if she is determined to block me out of her gaze, her peripheral vision, and her universe.

"Sorry I'm late," she says breathily, tucking her hair behind her ears. Even a side glance at me blooms a full, red blush across her cheeks and a new wave of vague confusion.

I shrink in my chair. I can handle YOLOing and flashing freshman, but what did my mysterious twin do or say to Emma that she can barely look at me? Worse, why do I want her to? I don't need Emma looking at me. I don't.

Mr. Dennison waves off Emma's apology. There's no need to be upset with her. She's not a delinquent student, just an eager volunteer and you can't be mad at somebody willingly giving up their afternoon.

"The science lab still needs to be finished," Mr. Dennison says, then adds, looking pointedly at me, "don't kill yourselves in there."

My heart leaps. Back to the scene of the crime. I spring up too quickly, Milo following suit. We have built a plan on sneaky text messages and stealthy occult research. We walk too fast to the door, feeling the unspoken, unaddressed problem.

Even if we can figure out how to undo whatever the heck I did, can we do it while my double is here, waltzing around without a hall pass?

We walk right past Emma, who wheels around, awkwardly jogging to catch up. If Emma struggles to meet my eye, I can just return the favor. I don't need to watch her brush her bangs out of her innocent brown eyes over and over.