A Second Chance

Judgement Day: Lowren.

Neck ties are dumb. The only people who know how to tie them are dads and old ladies, and since I am neither of those things, the smaller side of the tie that goes behind the bigger strip is sticking out almost passed my belt. How did I mess up this bad again? And who teaches dads and old ladies in the first place? Does that just come with the territory or is there a class I'll have to take just in case I want kids?

Today is the big day and I have to dress nicely. It's certainly been awhile since I've had to do that and even when I did try to look good last time, I decided to not bother with a tie for the current reason that I am struggling now. But today is one of the biggest moments of my life and I guess that calls for a long piece of fabric to be impossibly tied around my neck. Figures.

I'm on the brink of ditching the tie and searching in my closet to see if I still have a clip-on tie every toddler boy gets to wear instead of a real one when there's a knock on my door. Whoever knocks doesn't wait to be let in. They instead just push open the door and invite themselves in, leading me to believe that it's my twin brother, Flinn. My identical twin.

Whenever you read something about twins, there never seems to be anything about how either twin thinks it's weird looking at someone and knowing they are the mirror image of you. Because it is weird. Someone who looks like you, walking like you, talking like you, looking exactly like you. It's only okay because I know what I look like to other people and I kind of like that, but whenever I think that it may be a good thing, I realize that it's hard to be your own person when you have a twin. Everyone just assumes you two are as similar on the inside as on the outside. It's not true. We may both have matching brown hair, though he keeps his shorter than I, and faces: strong jaw and lips most the girl angels here may be jealous of. It's easy enough to tell us apart because of the one thing that is different about our appearance, the eyes. While his are a storm of grays all swirled together, mine are a deep green that shines with flecks and streaks of lighter green with sun or bright lights.

We are different people on the inside though, as different as our eyes. We're both quiet but he's the shy type of quiet. I'm not shy, I just don't love the company of many people other than Flinn, my dad and my best friend, Roy, who was judged and returned to Earth two months ago. Rumor has it that he already gets to stay. He always was good that way because he'd had the practice I hadn't. Roy had died of some disease at 16, but had gotten his fair share of flirting and learning done. I had known he would get to stay there. Despite being happy for him, and I truly am, I miss him a lot. But back to Flinn.

"Why bother knocking if you just walk in right after?" I ask without looking up at him. I'm working on getting my dumb tie off because somehow I tied the knot much too tight.

"It's polite," he responds. "I see you're having just as much trouble with that as I am."

I look up at this and tighten my lips so I don't laugh out loud at his mess. He's somehow managed to get the smaller side of the tie in the front, but it obviously wasn't always in front because the two sides are twisted together. Basically, his mess is making mine look almost decent.

"I think you two need my help, yeah?"

Flinn turns around to look at our father. He looks the same as he did on the day of the car crash 16 years ago because the guardian angels don't age. He's got blonde hair (we got the brown hair from mom) and bright blue eyes (the funky eyes must come from him). Both Flinn and I are taller than him, but not by much because he's a tall man, too.

"Maybe Lowren does but, as you can see, this is exactly how a tie is supposed to look. I've even added my own touch, this nice twisty thing you can see right here." Flinn points to his tie and grins at our dad. The smile is also something we both share with our dad, a little crooked, higher on the left than the right. As far as I know, it's what hooked my mom in the first place but dad told us that a long time ago so who knows if that was even real or just something I imagined because it's a nice thought.