Chapter 3
3
The next morning, I’m exhausted but I clock into my shift at SuperFoods and try going about my day.
“Would you like a bag?”
“How would you like to pay?”
“What a cute baby!” It’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen.
I’m miserable, but the mindless work occupies my brain.
There’s a lull in the afternoon. Michael Bublé’s “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” hums overhead. (The manager hasn’t switched out the disc since December.) Vera regales me with a tale of her deworming her cat last night. She goes into excruciating detail. I think it might be her kink.
I lean against the register, nodding along to Vera’s story like I’m so interested. Yes, Vera, oh please! Tell me more about your pet’s intestinal parasites!
It is then, without warning, that Chloe crawls back, clinging to my shoulders so she can whisper into my ears, guttural and frothy.
Ju-Ju.
The more I try to ignore it, the louder it gets.
Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.
What if, by some small chance, something terrible happened and I was the only one she called?
“Julie?”
I jolt.
“You look a bit green in the cheeks, hon,” Vera says. “Might be coming down with something.”
I smooth my palm against my forehead. “Maybe a cold. I didn’t sleep that well.”
“That reminds me: Poochie Poo Senior caught a cold a few months ago. I know it’s hard to believe since most people don’t think about how animals can catch colds just like humans…” Vera drones on. I can’t focus on her voice, attention drawn to my reflection in her lopsided glasses. Remnants of her greasy fingerprints blur my features, disturbing the details of my face until my twin is all I see. Her harsh voice lashes again, a bug burrowing through my eardrum. Ju-Ju. She’s snagged onto me. I can’t shake her away.
My shift drags on, Chloe in my thoughts.
I call her again on my lunch break.
No answer.
I can’t focus. I even forget the PLU for bananas.
At home, I call her five more times.
On the sixth call, I finally swallow my pride and leave her a voicemail. “H-hey. It’s Julie. Your twin—which, I’m sure you know. Um, I’m a bit worried about you. Can you call me back? I’ll text you too.” I cringe when I hang up, playing my voice back in my head.
I text her: hey, just checking if you’re okay? I wait for the delivered status to change to read. It doesn’t.
Concern gnaws at me as I pace around the kitchen.
Desperate for relief, I scroll through Instagram and read mean comments on Reels. An ad for a dress pops up in my feed. It’s the style I’d rock in my mind: girly, with bows and ruffles, but would look frumpy IRL. I find myself on the shoddy site nonetheless. The dress is fifty-five dollars. I can tell it’s going to be drop-shipped and will arrive on my doorstep in three months looking nothing like the images (if it arrives at all), but I still click on Purchase with 4 Installments , yearning for the temporary euphoria of impulse shopping. The confirmation pings in my email right as my bank notifies me of low funds. Regret spills into my chest. I click on the email, hoping to cancel the order. The link for customer support redirects to an empty web page.
Frustrated, I check my text to Chloe again. It hasn’t been read.
Blistering anger suddenly ensnares me. I hate how I wasted money on a dress I didn’t really want. I hate how Chloe took over my life with a single call, a few muttered words. I hate how I can’t stop thinking about her, how much power my twin holds in my life. But what I hate the most is the knowledge that if she really gave me a chance, opened her arms, I would crawl on my knees and lick from her palm.
I type in her Instagram handle, click onto her page, and hover my thumb over unblock .
Since our reunion, I’ve tried my best to stay off Chloe’s socials. Her pictures and videos are an addictive portal into a surreal, alternate dimension. As I watch her vlogs and scroll through her feed, our realities blend in my mind, until at some point, the liminal thresholds between what’s Chloe’s and mine become one. I start believing it’s me waking up in her wide, king-sized bed, brushing my teeth by her Italian marble sink, applying my ten-step skincare routine in front of her backlit vanity, frying crackling eggs in her kitchen with the Turkish tile backsplash. It’s so easy to lean into these delusions when you look the same. Sometimes, I let these imaginings marinate before bed, so when I dream, those visions carry on, lucid and real. But like anything good, it never lasts. The blare of my alarm inevitably expunges me from bliss, and when my eyes open to my cracking ceiling and painted-over light fixtures, the dissonance of our realities crashes harshly into my mind. Just like that, a simple unblock becomes a reminder of everything I don’t have, everywhere I have failed.
This is my pattern. It’s self-defeating and depressing, yet I can’t stop myself. Chloe is my vice. I’m addicted to the way I grow hateful. Crave how it fills me with vitriol. Being angry and envious is better than being empty.
And this time, I need answers to satisfy my curiosity. There’s a justification for what happens next.
I click unblock and refresh her page.