Mirage (The Great Wattpad Write-Off)

Sisterly Bond

My twin sister and I have always had this weird sense. We got weird jumps of electricity whenever something was wrong with the other and could practically read each other's mind. People at our school always get us mixed up because we look almost exactly the same. And we've used that to our advantage, too.

Sometimes we'd show up to each other's class for important exams or we'd play with guys at our campus. But last night, something weird happened. And, as a twin, I am used to all things weird.

"Anna," Martha whined. "I used to be able to fit this dress."

I looked over at my sister. She wore a deep purple dress that fit all of her curves. She looked stunning. "Dude, stop, you look amazing. I wish I had that flat of a stomach."

"Are you sure?" she asked, turning back and forth in front of the mirror. She held her hands over her stomach.

"Yes," I groaned, fixing the last bobby pin in my hair and giving it a nice coat of hairspray. "Now let's go, we're gonna be late."

Martha slipped on her heels and followed me out of our room. Our curfew was midnight, but our parents were pretty chill about our weekend habits. Be smart with alcohol and Don't do something you'll regret the next morning, they always told us. We always were safe and rarely drank enough to lose grip of our surroundings. And we always had a designated driver to get us home.

Tonight, though, it was just us. Normally, Martha's boyfriend drove us to and from parties. But that night, I decided to be the responsible one since her boyfriend was off somewhere else. I told Martha I would have one drink and then be good to drive a few hours later. She agreed, saying that she was in need of a fun night.

We got into the old car that our parents gave us for our sixteenth birthday. I kinda liked it, but Martha always wanted the bigger, brighter, louder cars. She always wanted to stand out. I didn't. That didn't mean I wasn't any fun, but I wasn't quite the center of attention like she was. And even though she was older by a few minutes, I was really the older sister, always protecting her and keeping her in check. Our parents didn't care too much about what we were doing, but sometimes she had a little too much of the good stuff, and I wasn't in need of a grounded twin.

As I drove us across town to some random, popular kid's house, Martha sang along to the radio. I tapped my fingers lightly on the steering wheel, singing along in my head.

We pulled up to a large house. There were plenty in our town, but they were bigger on this side. If you lived west of the school, people knew you were rich. If you lived east, you had a more quaint lifestyle. And it wasn't our parents' faults. I liked our home.

Inside, the air was hot and heavy. Erik Miller, the boy throwing this insane party, had divorced parents. His dad worked a great job that had frequent trips to the west coast, and his mom was off with some man she'd met in Utah, or something. At least, that was the rumor. That meant that there were some weekends that he was alone. But I was pretty sure his dad wouldn't care even if he were here, so long as the cops didn't show up.

I already felt sticky just walking to the kitchen, which had a peninsula covered in bottles of various alcohols. I grabbed a light drink from a cooler, while Martha went straight to the vodka.

I went to find some of my friends. They were chatting in the living room, where there wasn't an overbearing number of people. I smiled and joined them, sitting on the floor next to the couch.

"Do you believe in magic?" Adam, one of my closest friends besides Martha, asked.

"No," Allie said without any hesitation.

Most of our group agreed, except Hanna. She said, "I guess I believe in some sort of magic. Maybe not, like, Harry Potter magic, but I don't think everything in the world makes sense." She looked sheepishly at her hands. "I guess it's like miracles," she continued, "like they're not maybe the grandest thing you could imagine, but they're still miracles nonetheless."

I nodded. "Yeah, I get that. Like, maybe we're not waving wands at everything, but there are still some magical things that happen in our lives, for better or for worse."

"Exactly," Hanna agreed.

After a few hours of sitting around and chatting, a blinding pain shot through my head. I gasped and clutched my forehead, and immediately all my friends' eyes were on me.

"What's going on?" Adam asked me, concern laced in his voice.

I shook my head. "I don't know, it just hurts. I'm going to go get water."

I stood up, my mind reeling, everything becoming blurry. I could barely tell Adam got up and placed a hand on my arm to steady me. "I barely had anything to drink, I swear," I assured him, but I doubted he believed me. Heck, I didn't even fully believe myself.

"Let's get you that water," he told me, and we started pushing our way through the crowd. We finally reached the kitchen, and while Adam handed me a cup, I felt a large mass ram into me.

"Anna! Anna!" I recognized Martha's voice. "Anna, we gotta go." She had her hand on me, obviously to steady herself.

"What? Why?"

And, for the first time ever, I heard a voice clearer than my own say, Please, just trust me. It was perfectly her voice. It was as if she was speaking to me directly from her own brain. Her eyes grew wide, and I wondered if she realized what was happening.

You're drunk, I told myself, you must be.

What the hell, that sounded like Anna.

I froze. There her voice was again. I was going crazy!

I'm going crazy, Martha said—or, thought. This was crazy. We literally had twin telepathy.

My head became clearer, so I pushed us outside, Martha stumbling behind me. "Dude, this is freaky," I told her.

She nodded slowly. "So you hear me?" I nodded. "Jesus, this is insane. We're freaking magical!"

"I don't know if I should drive." I held the car keys tentatively in my hands.

"You're fine," she assured me.

"Did you do something?" I asked as soon as we were both in the car.

She nodded slowly. "Michael gave me something, something weird. I tried it, and instantly I got this terrible migraine."

"I also got a headache! It could've been at the same time."

"It was right before I came and found you."

"This is crazy! We're crazy." I shook my head in disbelief. After a pause of silence, I asked, "What do we do now?"

Martha grinned. "You drive us home, we don't tell anybody, and we abuse the hell out of this."