Chapter 21
21
I lurch out of bed and search for my phone, which I had tossed into the nightstand drawer, hands trembling as I rummage through Chloe’s sex toys. Eventually, my fingers grasp hard metal. I pull it to my face right as the call drops.
Notifications pop up on my lock screen: Missed Call from: (13) DANGER! DO NOT PICK UP. (6) Voicemail.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
My phone rings again and I yelp, throwing the device away. It has what feels like ten seconds of airtime before it slams into the wall, leaving a dent, and clatters on the floor.
The ringing. It won’t stop. I push my palms against my ears, trying to drown out the sound. How could I forget?
My aunt.
I’ve been so carried away living as Chloe that I’ve ignored my previous life as Julie. My aunt was my emergency contact. The authorities must have called her after they took Chloe’s body.
But if she knows Julie is dead, why is she calling Julie’s phone like she’s alive?
Maybe she’s trying to reach Chloe.
That makes sense. Julie was discovered in Chloe’s apartment, so Auntie could be calling to get the phone back. She probably wants to factory reset the device and sell it secondhand like the penny-pincher she is. I wouldn’t put anything past her. She’s as unscrupulous as a person could be. I still remember when I found my fourth-grade classmate’s wallet at a park. It had a grand total of $11.24 in quarters and pennies, yet she still pocketed the money before asking me to return the wallet. Of course, I was accused of stealing the money, and when I tried to tell the truth, the teacher called my aunt and she put the blame on me without remorse. I was a fourth grader. Nine years old. For a month afterward, she refused to pack a lunch or give me two dollars for the lunch program since I tried to snitch on her. I had to live off the occasional sympathetic teacher and the snacks I stole from the corner store.
The call drops. Silence.
Deep breaths.
Everything is okay. There’s no way she knows.
My sweat-soaked pajamas stick onto my skin as my heart plows through my chest. I reach for the phone like it’s a venomous spider.
“Calm down,” I tell myself. “Listen to the voicemail. It will be fine.”
Finding the courage to pluck my phone from the ground, I swipe my damp thumb on the lock screen and go to voicemail.
Five seconds of static silence. The sound of someone washing dishes in the background. Maybe she called by accident. Like a butt dial?
But then she speaks.
“ Wai! A’Patrick, come here.” Her Cantonese is gruff and short. “What the hell is this? Why is there no noise from the phone?”
“You’re supposed to leave a voicemail, Ma.”
I groan. The last thing I want to hear is Patrick’s voice. When I was living with them, he spent every second glued to his gaming computer in our shared bedroom, screeching when he head-shotted someone in Call of Duty, or screaming racist and homophobic obscenities every time he died. His voice triggers me. He’s a PMS migraine incarnate.
“Voicemail?” my aunt asks.
“Just talk if you want to leave a message. It will record you and send it to her.”
“How do you know if Julie will listen to it?”
My heart drops. It’s visceral. A rock plummeting from my chest down to my stomach. I break out in a shivering cold sweat.
How do you know if Julie will listen to it?
Julie.
She knows.
She knows I’m alive.
“Well,” Patrick says, “you don’t, Ma.”
“Hah?”
“And I doubt she will. She was posting at some party. She won’t be checking her phone.”
My ears ring. They know about Bella Marie’s event. About me pretending to be Chloe. How? How did they piece it together?
She clicks her tongue. “Useless. Get out of my face! I’ll call her again.” The voicemail ends.
Another voicemail starts. In this one, she only mumbles a few Cantonese swear words before it cuts. Ever eloquent.
There are a few more of these, each voicemail getting shorter because she learns to hang up before the beep until it’s just missed calls.
I drop the phone and cradle my head in my hands, rocking back and forth. A maelstrom rips through my mind. Should I call her back? Lie? Double down on the fact that I’m Chloe?
But what if she has proof? How is she so confident that I’m Julie?
If they decide to report me, it’s over. What if they get a last-minute autopsy on Chloe’s body and discover she’s not me? Is that even possible? Can they tell identical twins apart? Either way, I know she’d only reach out to me for nefarious reasons.
I want to believe I’m overreacting. Family would never do something so terrible, right? Especially Asian families. There are stereotypes about us, how we always support each other, send money back to the homeland, how we have this sacred bond of ancestry and blood.
But who am I kidding? That shit doesn’t exist anymore. One feud between sisters and a whole generation is at war, the effects trickling into their children.
I don’t know the exact details, but it didn’t take the most inquisitive mind to understand my aunt’s hatred for my mom. My beautiful mom. The darling of the family. She married a handsome man and had beautiful twin girls. My aunt, short and stout, married an alcoholic who abandoned her when Patrick was two. She never felt it beneath her to insult my dead mom in front of me. If anything, she might have felt more joy knowing her sister’s daughter was forced to absorb her jealous words.
When I was seven, I asked her why she adopted me and not Chloe. She answered simply: “There was no choice. Chloe was already adopted. Trust me, I would have taken you both out of the kindness of my heart. Someone needs to straighten out the sins your mother birthed into you.” This was said while she searched the mail for my monthly adoption subsidy like a rabid, frothing dog.
The phone rings again. I flinch and turn the device on silent.
My heart pounds. I know I have to talk to them before this all gets out of hand, but I can’t bring myself to answer. Not when I’m so fatigued and panicked. If I pick up, I’ll only say the wrong thing, fall into their trap.
I need to rest, take a breather. Yes. Tomorrow morning, when I’m calm and collected, I’ll give my aunt a call.
Everything will be okay.
I head to the living room and throw the phone onto the couch. Searching through Chloe’s prescriptions, I find a bottle of Ambien. I take a pill, chew it to a fine powder, and swallow it with a gulp of tap water.
Back in the bedroom, everything is silent. Still. Safe.
Stripping off my sweat-soaked clothes, I slide naked onto the towel I laid out and pull the duvet up to my chin. My eyes are closed for a long time, but sleep doesn’t come.
I stare at the dim ceiling. Squiggles and lines appear in the darkness. Something isn’t right. I blink and the squiggles suddenly turn into worms and centipedes, their bodies forming weird shapes. Molding, stretching, bloating. My pulse buzzes with horror as I try to look away.
But I can’t.
I can’t move. Can’t control my body. “Lacrimosa” plays as the ceiling twists and morphs into a face. Chloe’s face. Her round eyes, black hair, small lips. She’s discolored, almost blue-gray. No, not her. Go away. I whimper, shutting my eyes hard, but the vision of her naked gray limbs invades my consciousness, seeps through my eyelids. Chloe looms over me, purple veins snaking down her neck like claw marks. Her skin is peeling, flaking off. Her black hair drapes over me like a cocoon. I yearn to escape but I am frozen. Tied to the bed. We are encased together in a void made of her hair; nothing else exists except the two of us and darkness. Then, a noise. A heartbeat. We’re in the womb again. It’s warm and wet. She is mere centimeters away, holding me captive in her unblinking gaze. My twin. Her irises have turned gray and glassy, rotted away from the inside out like a dead fish. I try to say I’m sorry as if an apology would stop the haunting, I’m sorry for taking your life, but my lips don’t move; it’s like they’re sewn together. Then she opens her mouth. Wide. Dislocates her jaw like she wants to swallow me whole. But instead, something falls out of the black hole that is her throat. A grain of rice. No. It squirms. A maggot. Then another. And another. And another. Until a waterfall of maggots is expelled from her gullet, burying me. The tiny, writhing bugs crawl into my nostrils, slither underneath my eyelids, burrow in my ear canals, chew the thin lining of my eardrums. They munch and bite and eat me alive until I’m drowning, until I suffocate, until I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t—