Chapter 11
11
I check into a hotel for the night.
I’m in a daze as I shower. Hot water sprays my bare skin, droplets draining down my thighs, steam pluming. The shampoo smells like peach and Bartlett pear. It marinates in my hair and skin, becoming nauseatingly sweet, like overripe fruit. Almost rotten. Like… Chloe’s corpse. I snap my mouth shut, hold my breath, but the smell has already traveled through my nostrils and into my throat, sticking to my insides like tacky syrup. I gag and frantically rinse out the shampoo. In my frenzy, the foam drips down my forehead and traps itself between the thin skin of my eyelid and cornea, stinging, burning. I splash and rub my eyes. It lingers, persistent.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get rid of it. The burning and the smell.
Chloe’s smell.
Chloe. Chloe. Chloe.
I stumble out of the shower, soapsuds crackling in my hair, and wrap myself in a towel. I stand there, trembling like a sopping-wet dog, playing back every terrible decision from the last few hours.
My sister died, my twin, and yet…
I stole her life.
Replaced her.
Took everything.
The ring I put on earlier tonight suddenly feels too tight, too warm, a reminder of my wrongdoing, searing evidence of my cruelty. I wrench it off my finger and throw it. It skids against tile, clattering somewhere I can’t see.
Why did I think I could get away with this? Lying to an incompetent cop with Chloe brain rot was one thing, but lying to the rest of the world? People who know about Chloe are bound to find out.
The Van Huusens.
What if they realize I’m not their daughter? What if they go to the police? Will I go to jail? Does the State of New York have the death penalty?
And Chloe. Even if she had tossed me aside, never truly cared about me, she was still my sister, my family. How could I do something so terrible? So stupid?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.
I climb into the bed, wet hair squelching into the white sheets. Curling into a little ball, I sob, desperately alone and scared. I’m praying that this is all a nightmare. That I’ll go to sleep, wake up, and everything will be fine. Chloe will be alive, and I will have done nothing wrong.
I don’t know how long I cry until I pass out, exhausted from everything that’s happened.
I’m awoken by the blaring sound of notifications. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. A phone call. My—Chloe’s—phone vibrates off the end table, clunks on the floor.
I stare at the screen. Someone is trying to reach Chloe. I throw a pillow on top of my head, attempting to muffle the sound. As one call drops, another begins, unrelenting.
What if Chloe always picks up this person’s phone calls? I must pick up. If I don’t, they might realize something is wrong.
With a jolt, I straighten and grasp the device, squinting at the bright screen. It’s 9:04 a.m. A thin ray of light streams in between the blackout curtains, casting a stripe of white across the wall.
I ignore all the messages from social media and read the texts. They’re all from Fiona. She was cc’d in emails that Chloe sent out to brands. I think she might be a manager or an assistant.
I click on the text thread.
7:08AM: Hi Chloe! Hope Pilates is going well. I know you told me not to contact you unless it’s necessary since you’re taking a break. But this IS necessary.
So, Chloe had been taking a break. Also, what kind of psycho takes Pilates at seven in the morning?
7:09AM: A video of you is blowing up on that gossip subreddit, FauxMoi. You’ve already lost 10K followers on IG!!! But the good news: you’re relevant enough to be on FauxMoi!!!!
I furrow my brow. What video?
7:35AM: Hello?
8:01AM: The video is gaining traction. It’s been posted on TikTok and Instagram. I’ve tried to contact your neighbor to take it down. Call me back! This is urgent!!!
Neighbor? And then it dawns on me.
A guy had filmed me while I was having a breakdown in the hallway.
Chloe doesn’t have Reddit on her phone, so I go into the App Store and download it. It uses my face for Face ID, which somehow still astounds me. As it downloads, I continue reading the text thread.
8:55AM: Stopped by your apartment and used the spare key when you didn’t answer the door. It smells like shit in there by the way. (I already contacted a cleaner for you, ur welcome.) I called the Pilates studio and they said you no-showed? Are you okay? Call me.
They must be close if she has a spare. This isn’t good. What if she finds out the truth?
9:00AM: This isn’t funny, Chloe.
9:00AM: Call me.
9:00AM: Are you even alive?
9:04AM: I just spoke to the front desk guy. He said your twin died in your apartment? WTF. I thought you didn’t talk to her because she was a loser. Why the hell was she at your house? Call me!!
9:04AM: IF this is true, let me know
9:04AM: We can use it.
9:05AM: Hello?
My pulse thrums as I finish reading the last message.
A laugh, of all things, escapes my throat. Because she was a loser. I’m not surprised. Fiona’s text confirms that Chloe never cared about me. Not even a little.
I go on Reddit and log on to my own account. The video is on the front page of FauxMoi. Me, curled up against the beige walls of the hallway, the velvety carpet. Chloe Van Huusen Throws Tantrum in NYC.
I swallow, press play. The video starts off from afar, but slowly zooms in. I’m hysterical. Like I’m on drugs. I remember sobbing and screaming but I don’t remember banging my fists against the floor, knocking my head into the wall, flailing around like a baby. The video is five minutes, but I pause at thirty-eight seconds, embarrassed. I look in the comments.
Chloe’s a pretty big influencer. I used to watch her beauty tutorials in high school. What the hell happened to her?
In the replies: Entitlement is one hell of a drug.
Isn’t her whole persona about positive mental health?
Are we even surprised? You’re an idiot if you trust a single thing these influencers sell. There nothing more than society’s parasites. Real-life snake oil salesmen.
They’re*
My breaths are short and scattered as I read and expand every vile, vindictive thread. There’s something addictive about it, seeing what people think of me, every cruel comment, every hateful sentence. I’m about to reply to one of the users, thumbs itching for vengeance, to clarify everything, when Fiona calls again.