String of Fate

Chapter Thirty Nine

We were sitting in the canteen at lunch at school, thinking that maybe this was a bad idea. We could go out for lunch but we had decided to be cheap and eat in school, also, we were all feeling too lazy to walk out of the school grounds. It turned out that we weren't the only ones in the year who had decided to do that. The twins had also decided to stay at school for lunch, which meant that all the guys in my group were distracted. The four of my friends kept questioning which of the twins were which.

It confused me that they kept questioning which one was which. It wasn't too difficult to tell the two of them apart. Tessa's hair was curlier and she had a rounder face and Tanya was a little taller. The fact that nobody else in the whole school could not tell them apart was a bit bizarre to me. We'd been in school with the twins for five years and nobody had bothered. "Guys, the first one is Tessa and the second one is Tanya."

"How come you can always do that?" Scott asked, looking at me a little surprised as he took a bite of the cheap school pizza.

"What? It's not that difficult." I pointed out, stabbing one of the chips with my fork. I chewed it quickly and swallowed it. "I just can't believe that you guys have all been in school with them for at least five years and none of you have bothered to actually pay attention to which twin is which."

As I glanced to them, I noticed that they walked past our table and sat at one in the corner of the canteen. I don't know why I was sometimes really aware of the twins. They did always seem to go everywhere together. I was a little surprised that they didn't get bored of each other. It was probably a twin thing.

Instead of questioning me further about being able to tell the twins apart, they changed the conversation to talk about their potential strings. It was not an uncommon conversation at the moment, the five of us had already turned sixteen, but only two of us had gotten our strings by now, and they had been with each other.

Somehow, the topic of the conversation rolled back around to the twins when potential partners came up. I don't know why the single guys seemed to get their hopes up. Whoever was at the end of their strings would be perfect for them. Though, if I was being honest with myself, a part of me wanted Tessa to be at the end of my string, which kind of was a lucky thing since the other guys seemed to want to fight over Tanya.

While we had been chatting and slowly eating, the twins had finished their food and began walking back out of the canteen carrying their trays. They surprised us a little by stopping by our table, Tanya giving us a bright smile. "Hey, guys, you all still coming on Saturday to our birthday party? Our parents are making sure they have enough food so we're trying to give them a rough head count of people. So, you still in?"

"Yes, we are." Scott answered, leaning back and smiling up at them. I shook my head a little. He was such a flirt. "What time did you want us to show our faces?"

"Does eight o'clock sound good to you guys?" She queried, glancing around at the five of us. We all nodded and murmured in agreement. She smiled brighter and I could see that Tessa was also smiling at us, looking happy that we had agreed to come to their birthday party. "Perfect. We'll see you guys on Saturday!"

It seemed like Saturday took a little too long to turn up. It was amazing how slow three days could pass when you were excited about something. Eventually, the five of us met up at the agreed spot and all made our way to the twin's house where they were hosting the party. We were not the first people to show up for the party. It seemed like most of the year were already here.

Once we got inside and grabbed a drink, we kind of just lingered to the side of one room. There seemed to be the usual crowds of people all standing together. The twins appeared in the doorway and started to mingle with the groups. I saw Tessa glance this way and I raised my hand to wave at her, and I was a little happy when she smiled and waved back. Then, she separated herself from Tanya and started to head over to our group.