Jennifer Two

ELEVEN.

April 23rd, 2016

It had been a month since my discovery. I kept most things under wraps, but I would make small jabs to my parents and remind them that I knew. They still hadn't sat down and talked to me about it yet, and I guess that was just because they were afraid of me, and what I could do. They didn't know how to go about it. And to be honest, I was bursting with zest at the discovery of my First Life at first, but a part of me was full of fear too. It forced me to suspend my plans and shrink into a long lonely quietness. Everybody could tell that I wasn't myself, and I was somewhere so far deep that I couldn't get out. For whatever reason, I was just depressed.

Farrow came to check up on me again, and I think that my parents were scared, because they just knew I would act out. I would send alarm bells ringing. And they were right; I did.

"Your immune system is a tad weak at the moment, Anne." Dr Farrow told me nonchalantly. He sat on our living room sofa with one leg folded over his knee and a leather briefcase by his feet. I swallowed hard, trying not to cry in front of my parents. I hadn't done it in years, and I was not starting again anytime soon. My parents seemed annoyingly calm about it –it's almost like they had prepared themselves for this moment. They knew why my body was playing up with me, and they knew I knew.

"You saw this coming, didn't you?" I began to argue. "But it's a risk worth taking, right?"

"I don't quite follow, Miss Middleton." Farrow responded.

"Anne, it's not like we planned for this to happen." My mother interjected.

"Yeah, you knew I wouldn't be as healthy as she was. You knew I'd spend a lot of my life needing treatment. And naïve old me, just thought it was a condition."

"You need to understand that we love you so, so much, and-"

"Parents who love their children don't keep secret after secret away from them, especially when those secrets revolve a life-or-death situation."

"Anne-"

"You don't love me. You've always loved the first one more. She was perfection." Just looking through the old photos of Jennifer One, I felt heartache. You could just tell she was sought after, popular, lusted for. She was loved and she was fun and wild, and I'm not quite there. Something must have happened during the shift into the Second Life. Something must have changed her.

Soon, my parents were both lost for words. I could see my father fuming, close to bursting. I always see it before it happens; agitated, he starts impatiently tapping his foot on the ground and trying too hard not to curse under his breath. Then, he'll raise his voice, make it as stern as possible, and it will get louder until the neighbours can hear our arguments – our daily arguments, repeating like a circadian rhythm.

"I'm nothing but a glitch. I'm like a second draft that was worse than the first. And it's fine by you, as long as I'm around. As long as you can pretend you're just going back in time and not that you spent thousands of dollars getting someone to play God for your own benefit."

I was expecting Dr Farrow to be as shocked as my parents with my outburst, but he just sat there calmly as if he were a patient waiting at a clinic.

"I apologise for this, Dr Farrow..." My mother said sheepishly, cupping onto her tea like she was scared of dropping it. I could see her hands shaking.

"We've known each other almost nineteen years, Roseanna. It's Vincent, to you. You're no stranger to me."

I turned to Farrow, cocking my head to the side as if analysing him. "Are you proud of yourself? Are you happy you went through with this? Does it feel good to know you did it?" This was the first time I had ever confronted him about the biggest elephant in the room, and my heart raced more than it would otherwise.

"No, Jennifer-Anne. I'm not proud of myself at all. In fact, I feel a lot like Dr Frankenstein. I feel like a terrible human being. I've haven't felt happiness in a long, long time." He smiled sadly.

"And I'm the monster, right? The freak? Obviously nobody else sees it that way, but it's true, isn't it?"

"The real monster of the story was Dr Frankenstein. He was the one that had caused the most pain. You, dear, are a wonder. Something that spiralled out of our control, purely because you are a human being, and humans are unpredictable creatures. You're nothing more, nothing less."

"Honey, you've always been a miracle, that's all you are!" My mother said to me.

"But here's the catch: I'm someone else's miracle. Not my own."

And that was the story of how the revelation was made.

◆ ◆ ◆

July 27th, 1999

[fifteen days after the shooting]

"Nobody is to ever know that this took place. Nobody is to ever know that we agreed to do something like this. You will keep it completely under wraps. Do you follow?" Farrow looks up.

"Yes, Sir," Jeff nods, squeezing Roseanna's hand under the table. "We promise we'll never let anybody know. We'll move to another town if we need to."

"Do whatever you can to keep this between you and me." He says, filling out forms on his office desk. "I have a laboratory around forty miles north. You are to attend appointments three days a week."

"Three days? I don't have the time-"

"This is your demand, not mine." He cuts Roseanna off. "If you want this to go as planned, you need to cooperate. I need three full days a week, from the morning until the evening."

"What will we tell our children?" Jeff asks. "What do we tell our employers? How long will this take?"

"It could take a few days. Months. Maybe even a year," Farrow takes off his glasses, wiping them clear with a lens cloth. "But this needs ultimate commitment and effort. If you have to work your way around your daily routines, do it. Or else I will end it all, right here, right now."

"We'll do it." Jeff says. "We're ready."

"Alright," Farrow sighs. "But I'm telling you – you've made the worst decision of your lives. And I have done wrong in choosing to help you. There will be future implications for this – some that we may not be able to predict. We don't know the long-term effects."

"We're willing to take this risk."

"No," Farrow says. "You are making a big mistake. One day you might regret it. No. you will regret it."