Page 31 of Deranged Imposter

An identical twin. A lingering ghost. A joyful smile and sunny eyes. He’s the shadow in my peripheral, the face in the mirror, and the last shred of sanity. Drowning me in a sea of iniquity or being the insignia of intrinsic kindness, I wish this debate hadn’t bothered me for years.

I love him with so much hate. Black snakes bustling in my stomach, unending in devotion to slither into every crevice of my body.

Zico is the pillar of white. He’s protective, like the embrace of our mother, taking my hands when birch roots slap around my ankles. He’s the voice of truth, talking over the menacing taunts of something immoral.

Sometimes I see him looking at me through surface reflections. I wonder what he thinks when he looks back at me. I might see myself through his eyes, throat slit and a vicious laugh.

I would look horrendous, but he’d smile and say, “Are you calling me ugly? We have the same face!”

At least, that’s what I assume. I don’t know if I can read him in a way only a twin’s bond allows.

I met Isa first, at the tender age of ten, when she punched me for scaring her. He met her twenty seconds later when he appeared behind the greenhouse where our mom was planting flowers.

She was seven years old when I made a lasting impression on her. I was the one she fretted over, small hands roughly wiping the blood from my busted lip while chiding about jump scares.

I was the one to play with her when Zico finished the procrastinated homework as our tutor smacked the ruler in her hand. I made her laugh to tears, but I can’t recall what made her gasp for air.

I retaliated with an orange marker on Zico when he doodled on her sleeping face with a blue pen. We share the same DNA, so he drew on me just as much.

Zico knew I rarely had an interest in things. I told him and made him promise to not take Isa from me. He could take toys, books, our mother’s attention, and friends, but I drew the line at Isa.

He claimed that brothers shared things, and I ignored him for a week.

After that, we made up with a vow across his heart to never steal Isa from me.

The dynamic changed six months into meeting Isa and our fight. It shouldn’t have been an alarming sight to see them reading from the same book. Isa loved reading, so I often found her in our library.

But the impulse to rip Zico from her side formed with that timely stroke of the grandfather clock and fragmented thunder.

Eight months after meeting her, her parents died in a car collision. She sobbed in Zico's arms while surrounded by my mother's soothing words as she huddled them closer to her.

So much anger and envy coursed through my body that my undeveloped brain couldn’t comprehend.

It was the first conscious sign of my dislike toward Zico. I was too immersed in ideas to convince my mother to keep Isa with us, but before I could voice them, she had already offered them to Isa.

Two months after her parents’ death, her dependence on Zico grew exponentially. I was cast aside in favor of Zico’s comforting arms and warm smiles, distanced from just the two of their worlds orbiting around each other, and abandoned until they conveniently remembered me.

On the first anniversary of our lives crossing paths, Zico disappeared. We were told during breakfast when the nanny said she couldn’t find Zico anywhere.

I don’t remember much after that. Just lots of frantic shouts, panicked footsteps, and an influx of authoritative men in suits with badges.

I was asked questions. When was the last time I saw Zico? What is he like? Did I know good kids don’t lie to the police? Where is he? Did we fight? Do I like him? Did I do something to him because he made me mad?

Days passed, weeks rolled by, months clumped together, and years blended like melted chocolate.

No word on Zico, and everyone moved on.

Isa walked out of that gloomy turmoil with me by her side when I helped her fragile mind cope with the loss. I liked the way she said she couldn’t lose me, that losing me would kill her.

So, four days ago, when a small earthquake rattled the land of my family home and its vicinity, trees were snapped in half, revealing a small skeleton.

I kept it from Isa because I was waiting for a DNA match, which confirmed it was Zico this morning.

I didn’t want to ruin everything she’d worked so hard for, so I waited and felt a strange coil in my stomach at the prospect of lying to her. I flew to her immediately.

She was so angry at me for being deceitful.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

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