Doppelganger (excerpt)

Chapter 2: The Hot Guy

Chapter 2: The Hot Guy

 Was my double doing well on the test? Should I just go home? Should I barge in and demand an explanation? All of these things were going through my head. I knew it wasn’t rational. That’s because the situation was totally surreal. I didn’t know what to do. I was probably in shock. No, I was definitely in shock.

“You’re already in there too?” A male voice asked disbelievingly behind me.

 I turned as if in slow motion and felt my startled eyes focus on Aedan Finnegan. I had always thought he was cute. He was tall and Irish with wild red hair and green eyes. Aedan was popular too, but not crazy popular, like on the football team. He was more of an intellectual, funny guy and I thought that was way cooler than playing football.

 I felt myself look back into my World History classroom. Aedan too was already in the class working on his test, just wearing different clothes. I looked back at the Aedan standing next to me. How was this possible? The world felt suddenly, completely unreal.

 “What is going on?” I asked, my voice shaking. The world wanted to tilt on its axis. I was going to faint. I never thought the day would come since I'm not a fainting kind of girl, but I was totally going to faint.

 “Don’t let them see you,” Aedan warned, startling me out of my thoughts on fainting, by grabbing my arm and moving me out of the eye line of the students in the classroom.

 “Why not?” I asked, but let myself be moved away by Aedan. I couldn’t help thinking that it was really nice having his hand on my arm. I had never been this close to him before. I mean, unless you counted that time I accidentally bumped into him when I was walking down the hallway to class, but I don't because it was totally embarrassing. I was hoping he didn't even remember that.
Aedan was really hot up close too. I couldn't help but notice. I know it's not the sort of thing I should have been thinking about, but it was way better than freaking out about the girl who looked like me, that was sitting in my desk, taking my World History test! I mean, if I was Melissa Day I would be emphasizing the word "my" in that sentence. Why was I thinking about Melissa at a time like this? I was having a nervous breakdown. I was totally having a nervous breakdown!

 Aedan moved me halfway down the hall before he stopped and looked at me, “Do you trust me?”

 I didn’t know what to say, so I hesitantly said, “Yes?”

 “I think we need to get out of here,” Aedan said.

 “But what about…” I started, looking back at our World History classroom.

 Aedan followed my gaze and shook his head, “I don’t think it’s safe here.”

 "Why not?" I asked. My brain was still trying desperately to process the situation. It would actually prefer to ignore the whole thing, but I knew that wasn't at all realistic or possible. I mean, was any of this realistic or possible? Yup, my brain was definitely short circuiting.

 "I need to tell you what happened to me this morning," Aedan said, scanning the halls nervously, "But not here. Let's go."

 There was something about the way he said it. I looked at Aedan and suddenly the gravity of the situation hit me and I felt really, really scared.

 We escaped through the back doors that led out to the football field. There was a gym class walking laps around the track that encircled the field, so we avoided that and walked toward the parking lot. It was deserted, which was lucky for us. I had never ditched school before, though, so maybe it wasn't lucky and just normal. Like, maybe this was what it was like every day. Was it really this easy to ditch school if I had ever wanted to? Which, of course I wouldn't. I was the good kid, for better or worse. I mean, even if I was sick I felt guilty about missing school. It was actually kind of a curse. Okay, why was my brain thinking about random things like this when we had bigger things to worry about? What was wrong with me?