Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
GOOD AUGUST
IS BESIDE HIMSELF. LITERALLY.
What do I do? What the fuck do I do?
He’s me. He’s fucking me.
Head to toe, same height, same face, same movements. He’s just…
It’s like my whole reality just slid sideways. Nothing feels right. This is uncanny. The wall hits my back, brick scraping a cut into my wrist.
“Are you going to help me up?” He stretches out his bloody hand like there’s any way I’d be stupid enough to do that.
“Who the fuck are you?” The rasping sound of my own voice surprises me. If I was going to put on a brave face, I’ve already failed that task.
He stares at me a moment, his brow—my brow—contracting.
Then he lets out this sort of laugh-scoff sound, like I’m being thick.
“That’s pretty obvious, don’t you think?
” He swivels around on his supporting arm, reaches over his shoulder to grab something, and a second later, pushes black-rimmed glasses over the bridge of his nose.
Why does he have glasses? I don’t have glasses. I guess he needs glasses. Why would he need glasses if… “You’re a doppelg?nger?”
“What?” Now he does actually laugh, short and sharp. “No, I’m not a doppelg?nger. What kind of ridiculous conclusion is that? You might have tried, I don’t know, long-lost twin first?”
“Are you my twin?”
“No.”
What the actual fuck?
He shifts his hands to the ground to support himself trying to stand, so I raise my guard. “If you come near me, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“I’m not coming near you. Jesus, don’t you think I’ve learned that lesson already? You’re surprisingly violent.”
“I’m not violent!”
“You literally just hit me!”
“You snuck up on me! And you’re a fucking… You’re a doppelg?nger. You have to be. Have you come to kill me?”
He’s up now, dusting himself off. His clothes look nice, just like the barista said.
Expensive. He has some kind of fancy wool jumper that looks thick and soft.
Black jeans, but nice ones. His hair is a perfect match with mine—same almost-black with curls at the tips, and the exact cut.
The only other difference between us is those glasses, and his bleeding lip.
“August,” he says with a forceful calm in his tone, like I’m an unruly school student and he’s trying to get me to pay attention to algebra, “I’m not a doppelg?nger.”
“You’re exactly me,” I counter.
But he says, “That’s right. I’m exactly you.”
My eyes flash left in a way that I hope implies he’s the one being thick. “Then you’re my doppelg?nger.”
“No, I’m not your fucking doppelg?nger!” He spits the words at me, his veneer of cool dissipating as quickly as it would have for me had I tried to put in on. “I’m exactly you, which also means, you’re exactly me. We’re the same person.”
“We’re not the same. Because you…” One finger escapes my raised fist to point at this bizarre thing in front of me. “You’ve been stalking me.”
With a raised eyebrow, he corrects, “Researching you.”
“You’ve been following me.”
“I needed to know you’re…” He sighs and raises a hand to his temple. My hand. My exact hand. “Maybe I could have gone about this a bit better.”
“Do you think so?”
“Don’t be sarcastic. I’ve had a lot to deal with.
” My fists flinch in readiness when he takes a few steps up the alley, only to turn and pace back before facing me again, looking at me with an almost disarming earnestness.
“Listen, I’m you, and you’re me, and we’re both August Blackthorne. Only I’m you… from another universe.”
A sharp and cold silence hardens the air between us. Then a laugh snakes its way up my throat in spite of the bizarre situation. Or perhaps because of it. Maybe it’s nervous tension.
Is this what doppelg?ngers do? Do they tell lies to get close to you? I thought it would just kill me and take my place. Shit, do they have magical fighting abilities? Do they even know about alternate universes? I wish I could research this right now.
Just as I’m wondering if I can pull my phone out of my pocket and Google this, he says, “I know it sounds mad.”
Understatement of the century. “It sounds very fucking mad.”
“I know. Um… I wanted to…” He lets out a hard breath, then pushes two hands out in front, as if he’s giving a lecture. “I wanted to see how much like me you are. And you’re… You seem…” He lowers both hands to indicate my whole being. “But you’re not quite.”
He walks away again, pressing those black-rimmed glasses up his nose and holding them there while he closes his eyes, boots squeaking to a stop on stone as he turns to me again.
“You know, this has been very hard on me too. I’ve tried my best to keep you out of it.
But things are getting serious, and I really need to talk to you. Before…”
His other hand taps at his thigh. It’s a habit I have when I’m stressed.
Do doppelg?ngers copy anxious mannerisms? To that extent?
I wait for him, still ready to punch him again if I need to.
But he doesn’t look like he’s about to start a fight or pull a weapon.
He seems lost in his own world, worried about whatever it is he’s not telling me yet.
Which is fair enough, because then he tells me what’s on his mind: “You’re going to die, August. And I’m going to die.
And everyone around you, and this whole reality you exist in, is going to burn unless you can help me. ”
The air sours in my lungs, my chest turning hot, until I manage to whisper, “Help you do what?”
He takes a step towards me. “I don’t know. But there’s a chance you might.”
I want to say he has the wrong guy. But I am the guy—the guy who’s walking towards me right now, saying these things that are too ridiculous, too outrageous, to be true.
But he’s me. And I can see the proof, right here in front of me, that everything in the world is different from how I thought it was.
So when he stops about a foot away from me, and says, “Please, August. Sit down with me and let me explain everything,” I find myself nodding.
I find he’s doing the same.
And a second later, I’m following close behind him, letting him take me somewhere to talk.