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Chapter 8

"Blanket, stop!" I call and he listens. He stops walking and turns around. Giving me the death glare and stomping over to me he challenges, "You told me I could trust you. You lied. I can't believe you did that. What if. . ."

"She won't say anything, Blanket! She's our mom. I-I thought she knew about it because—"

"What did I say?" he yells and I step back. "Save it! I should've known I couldn't trust you!"

"I don't think you should be talking to me like that. You're the one that messed up, not me! You have no idea what I'm capable of." Blanket steps forward and looks down at me. 

"Is that a threat?" he asks with a low voice. I swallow hard and look back and forth between his both of his eyes. I step back once again.

"You take it however you want to. But when you cool off, you know where to find me." And with that, I turn around and head back to my house.

Blanket calls for me, but I ignore him. I don't want to talk to him until he 's calmed down, and besides, I need a minute or two to process everything myself. I hear Blanket  curse at himself and continue walking. 

When I walk in the front door of my house, my mother is nowhere to be found. "Mom?" I call. No answer. "Mom?" I repeat, and still no answer. I walk around and peek in every room on the main and second floor. I walk around and find myself at the basement door. Just as I place my hand on the door knob, the front door opens and slams shut. I flinch and peek around the corner.

"Natalie?" Blanket's voice calls. I know he's trying to sound as calm as possible. I'm a little annoyed that he came back so soon, but I'm also slightly relieved. I was hoping that he would, anyway.

"Over here." I say and he finds me.

"What are you doing?" he asks as I turn to him. 

"I can't find mom. This is the only place I haven't checked yet." I say and he nods.

"K, let me go first." he says and I nod and back away. He opens the door, and I try to peek over his shoulder, but he's too tall. 

"Where's the light?" he asks quietly. I point at the switch to his left. He flips it on and begins walking down the stairs. Suspicion ties in with tension as I wait for Blanket to tell me everything's clear. He makes it to the bottom and looks around. He then smiles and I sigh of relief.

"It's good." he calls up to me, and I make my way down the stairs. I look around and find what he was smiling at: my mother sitting on the floor behind some boxes. She has photos in her hands and photo albums resting on her crossed legs and to her sides.

She looks up at us and smiles. 

"We didn't know there were two of you in there until the day of the birth," she begins and smiles down at the picture in her hand. When I realize that it's a sonogram, I smile as well.

"You were hidden behind Natalie and we didn't even know. We just thought that she was a really big baby." my mother explains and Blanket and I smile at each other. We sit on the ground in front of our mother and listen to her talk about us as babies.

"The nurse actually thought you had some kind of rare birth defect because she could see Blanket's legs but nothing else." my mom says, looking between Blanket and I. The two of us awkwardly smile at each other, and when we say nothing, our mom continues speaking.

"She mentioned something about twins, but you never moved an inch the entire duration of the pregnancy," mom is looking at Blanket now. "Michael was so happy to find out that we were having two, but I was nervous." Blanket's smile fades and mine follows.

"Why?" Blanket asks. Mom looks up at him again.

"Because we bought all girl stuff and people who came to the shower gave us pink onesies and bibs and everything. Michael said that it wasn't a problem, but I felt so bad. I couldn't dress my boy in girl clothes." Blanket and I giggle. "And besides, one newborn is difficult enough let alone two."

My mother places the sonogram photos back into the photo album and turns the page. She points at a photo of two one-or-so year old's hugging each other. One was laughing and the other was crying, and when I noticed that the photo is of Blanket and I, I smile.

"Your dad always liked the way you looked with long hair," my mother glances up at Blanket, strokes his hair, then looks back down at the photo again. "He said it reminded him of himself."

"I like it." Blanket says with a smile and I nod in agreement. I have always wondered what he would look like with short hair, and the image in my head is disturbing. 

"When you guys were little, we could barely tell you apart because you had the same hair and face and everything." Mom giggles.

"I think you'd look weird with short hair." I say and Blanket glares at me jokingly. 

"So would you." My twin fires back. I laugh, then look down at the picture of our dad holding the two of us as babies. 

"You look just like him," I add and he looks down, shyly smiling. "You have his eyes and everything." Blanket smiles and glances at our mom. 

"You really do." she agrees with me and he continues smiling at the ground. 

"Thanks," he says with a shy smile. "I get that a lot."

"Now that you guys are reunited, would you mind if I got a newer picture?" I look at Blanket and we both nod. 

"You have to smile this time though." He turns to me, rolling his eyes.

"What? You never smile in pictures!" I respond.

"I do too! Just not often." He says hesitantly.

"Exactly." We both laugh just as my mother takes the picture.

We look up to find her covering her mouth. She sets her phone next to the photo of us as one years old's, and we see that the two photos were almost identical, besides the thirteen year difference.