You and I against the World (Re-mastered)

the secret twin

I guess it started like any typical teen romance story. I was the new guy in town, and the first person I met I latched on to, trying my hardest not to feel like a stranger in my own skin. I needed some friends here, since I was sure that I wasn't going to be seeing my old ones for a while. They remained in Seattle while I am currently residing in a suburban beach town a few hundred miles from my home in southern Cali. It was densely populated with tan, flat stomached females who never have a reason to wear a sweater in public, so I'm met with their fitness every which way I turn. I was the only person in this entire town without a tan, and it definitely caused people to stare. They knew I was an alien. Perhaps they didn't really stare so much, but for a while every time I went out that's how it felt. 

I wasn't in Kansas anymore, and I had no Toto to wander this strange land with me. I got sucked up into that tornado alone. 

I met Thomas at a gas station about a month ago, he couldn't decide between Hot Cheetos or regular Cheetos, and I thought that I should be kind enough to offer a bit of advice about the situation; ditch them both and get Cool Ranch Doritos.

He invited me to a party that night, thanking me profusely for my sage words of wisdom on what to do when you've got the munchies and can't decide what to buy. He said he needed to expand his pallet anyhow.

It was a pretty cool party, I have to admit. It was the first one I'd been to in a while even back home. It was May, the school year was coming to an end and people were looking forward to summer. I'd left school early to move and missed out on all of the sophomore-year-ending-extravaganzas. 

Since that night I've realized that Thomas is exactly who has been missing in my social circle. It never really felt complete. I mean I've had lots of friends and met a lot of people, being raised by a wealthy mother I had wealthy friends with wealthy parents. We wanted for nothing, but that never really gave us a chance to connect outside of all the boat parties and wild nights out. Any meaningful conversations I may have had were blackened from my memory by way of beer and...well, more beer. How I don't have a bigger gut is beyond me. 

Okay back to Thomas though. 

When I hung out with him he kept me thinking. Just that he invited me to a party within ten minutes of us meeting made me think that there was something different about this guy. Not only did he remember inviting me when I got there, but he introduced me to everyone as "that guy from the gas station". As we walked down the street that first night to get away from the ongoing chaos we talked about our childhood, and what we wanted from life as we entered adulthood. I smoked some weed with him; it was only the third time I'd ever done it. We talked about everything.

Finally we split off and went separate ways, stoned out of our minds and still thinking about the conversation we'd just had. A few hours ago he didn't know my name, and now he knows my biggest secret. Well, I guess you could say it was a secret about two months ago, but I recently came out around the time that we moved here. That's right, I'm gay. And surprisingly Thomas didn't mind that, because a lot of people back home certainly did. 

It's now early June, and I think I can safely call Thomas the best friend I've ever had. Just my friend, though. This story isn't about Thomas and I, no sir, it's about me and the twin brother I never knew he had until the night he asked me to come to the beach with him and some of his crew. (At least the crew that used to hang around, but where they are is another story entirely.) We're talking about this fucking secret. This fucking prank. These two really threw me threw my head against a wall, let me tell you. 

"This is Eli," Thomas gestures to the doppelganger smiling widely at me, amused by my bewildered appearance. I've just seen my best friend doubled, with no warning whatsoever, and they're making fun of my response. This when I realized how little I really knew about his life, his family... I know what goes on in his head, but the facts, those were things I never sought to learn and I'm not sure why. Maybe I hadn't realized how much he left out of his stories.