Lost and Found

Intuition

We pulled into the long driveway from a long dirt road. The house was surprisingly secluded. There were trees along the edge of the property going all the way around the house. My gaze fell on the house in the center. Actually, I didn't know if It even qualified as just a "house", since it looked more like a mansion. No wonder Lorenzo seemed uncomfortable when we walked through the small two bedroom apartment I had lived in for my whole life.

We came up to the end of the driveway and he parked it carelessly in the driveway. He grabbed my stuff from the trunk and motioned for me to follow as he walked up to the front porch. As I ran to catch up, I mentally noted to start walking faster.

Before we even got to the front door, I could see someone peeking through the blinds? The door opened and a boy who looked near my age, with a mop of blonde curly hair on his head, and a cute grin, stood there and stared at me. Lorenzo just looked at the boy, sighed, and walked into the house.

What was that about? I didn't really know what to do. I grinned back at him and followed Lorenzo into the house. I had to run to catch up again. "Who's that?" I whispered to my brother. He looked down at me and had sort of a sadness in his eyes. He turned around and marched me back to the boy still standing by the door. "Lizzie, this is your brother, your twin-Nick." He said. He left to go put my stuff upstairs, and left me in a very awkward situation. A twin? I was baffled. And angry. Mostly at my mother. How could she not tell me I had brothers, let alone a twin!

I was at a loss for words. The boy standing in front of me was my twin! I had always wanted a twin! Maybe I had always known I had one but didn't really know? Even my thoughts were beginning to not make sense. I had to say something, because he also seemed to be struggling to get anything out.

I decided to take the sisterly approach. I gave him a hug. He wrapped his long, skinny arms around me immediately, and rested his chin on top of my head. It felt good, natural. "I've always wanted a twin." I said, attempting to fill the silence. I heard him start to laugh. I laughed too, and it felt strange. How long had it been since I laughed?

"You want me to show you around?" He asked, still grinning. What else could I say besides yes? I nodded and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, and began showing me around. The house was absolutely beautiful. It had huge windows, dark wood beams across the ceiling and just an overall homey feel. It made me a bit sad to see all of the pictures of them around the house. The only strange thing was that there were three other boys I didn't recognise. Who were they? Cousins maybe? I didn't say anything to Nick though.

I learned how wrong I was when I met Alex a few moments later. Nick's tour had led us to the door to the kitchen, and there was a probably 17 year old guy sitting at the island, eating cereal (loudly). He looked up, and even not knowing him, I could tell he was in a bad mood. Nick barely acknowledged him, and I could sense some tension. "So this is the kitchen, but we can come back later..." He said in a quiet voice. He tried to steer me away from the kitchen but I walked in anyways, acting oblivious. It was sweet and all that he wanted to shield me from the guy's bad mood but I didn't care, I wanted to know who the hell this guy was. I came closer and immediately recognised him from the pictures around the house. We walked into the kitchen and Nick acted strange. The guy looked me up and down lazily but didn't say anything. I noticed his gaze stopped for a moment longer on my necklace. I didn't like it. "Who's he?" I said loudly to Nick.

I immediately felt bad for putting Nick in a weird position. "Um... That's my-our brother Alex." He looked at Alex and it was like he was trying to tell Alex to say something through his facial expressions. I sensed I was missing context, so I was silent. Alex looked from Nick to me, rolled his eyes angrily, and practically threw his bowl of cereal in the sink. He stalked off. Nick looked at me and shrugged. "I-it's a long story..." he said. I didn't question it.

We headed out of the kitchen and made small talk, in between him telling me where everything was. I noticed we never went down to the basement. Maybe he forgot? Maybe it wasn't finished?

The last stop was my room. It was huge, like the rest of the house. It was pretty bare, with just furniture which consisted of a desk, a bed, a dresser and a bean bag in the corner, which already had a dent in it the size of Nick. He settled on the bean bag with a groan. It looked like he was in pain? I looked over at him in surprise as I flopped on the bed. "You okay?" I asked casually.

"What? Oh. No, I'm good." He said with a faint smile. Call it twintuition, but I could tell his leg was hurt. I had noticed him walking weird earlier, but I didn't say anything. And he was lying about it? That's a red flag if you ask me, but I had just met him, and didn't want to make things weird between us on the first day if my intuitions were wrong. I decided to let it go. It was pretty late at night when I finally went to bed. Around when I would have gone to bed when I was working. I fell asleep surprisingly quickly.

A new setting certainly didn't help my nightmares....