Page 45 of Twice as Twisted

She shakes her head against me, a little breath of a laugh escaping her. “I don’t celebrate my birthday.”

“Why not?” I ask, drawing back from her. “It’s a whole day celebrating you. And don’t try to be humble. You’re definitely worth celebrating.”

“It’s a silly tradition,” she says. “If people want to celebrate, they should make it about the mother. She gave birth that day.”

“Yeah, to us,” I say. “And we lived. That’s what we celebrate.”

“We didn’t do anything except passively lie there while she suffered. We weren’t even aware of what was going on. If people want to celebrate us, it should be for an achievement, something we did to earn it.”

My chest swells and a smile stretches across my lips. It makes me so happy to see she’s the same old Mabel, despite the name and location change.

“We earn it by being alive,” I say.

“If anything, I’d rather have my death day celebrated after I’m gone,” she says. “At least on that day, you can look back on all my achievements in life.”

“What’s weird is that we celebrate our birthday every year, but every year, we’re also passing our death day, and we never even know it. Like, today could be the day I die, and for the past eighteen years, I never did anything special at all on this day. I never knew that May 22 was the day I’d die. I went about my business never knowing there was a shadow on it. It’s like someone walking across your grave.”

“You don’t know your death day until after you’re dead,” she says. “But then, wouldn’t you rather be celebrated every year on that day, rather than a day you didn’t do anything and can’t even remember?”

“I mean, I want both,” I say. “If I died young, I’d want people to set my death day aside as a day of mourning for the rest of their lives.”

“With wailers?” she asks ironically.

“You remembered.” I kiss the top of her head again, squeezing her harder. “I fucking love you.”

I wait for her to say it back, but she doesn’t. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. That when she’s ready, she will. That someday, she’ll be the first girl who ever says it to me. The first person who ever loves me.

When Baron finally comes back, and I scramble up and tell him he left us too long, and she’s just about comatose, he gives me a funny look and says, “The door wasn’t locked.”

I tell myself it’s a good thing, because surely she knew that. She works here, so she must have known about the emergency lever to open the door from the inside. And since she didn’t leave, maybe that means she didn’t want to, that she wanted me to fuck her, and cuddle her, and say I loved her. Maybe she loves me back, but she hasn’t forgiven me enough to say it just yet.

And maybe she’ll forgive me for leaving her in there for fifteen more minutes with Baron, so he can show her that he loves her in his way.

But while he’s in there, I wonder.

When I go out front to flirt with the pink-haired chick, she’s not there, and the sign on the door still says ‘closed,’ and I wonder if she’s ever coming back. When I look out the door and see a black sedan in the lot, I wonder if the FBI is really watching Mabel. If they are, and Baron did something to Mabel’s coworker because she was rude to him, I wonder if they’ll connect it with the other murders, the ones in Tennessee.

I wonder if for the first time in our lives, Baron is lying to me, and those people died because they got too close to Mabel, and he didn’t like it. And if he’d lie to me about that, what else is he lying about, and what happens if I get too close to her for his liking?

Would Mabel even care, or is she like Colt, and I’m just a nuisance she’ll indulge a few times to ease her conscience before she gets rid of me?

I wonder if they’re back there plotting, making plans that don’t include me. After all, they don’t really need me. They could have something together. Maybe they’ve had something together all along, and Baron’s lying about not seeing her. It doesn’t really make sense that he’d go to all the trouble of finding her, and tracking her, and going to get her, only to stop short of actually claiming her. I wonder if they’re back there now, getting their stories straight, so I won’t find out.

And most of all, I wonder if, when Baron says he loves Mabel, she says it back to him.

eleven

Mabel Darling

Three Years Ago

I wish I hadn’t told Duke to leave. Once he’s gone, there’s nothing to distract me from thoughts of his brother. And when eight rolls around, there’s nothing to distract me from the fear that he’s not coming. I didn’t think I cared until it’s true. I didn’t think I wanted to go. I thought I’d just tell him that I can’t date, and he’d leave, and I’d be disappointed that he didn’t talk to me at school anymore, and things would go back to the way they were. I can’t bring myself to call them normal.

But when he’s not there fifteen minutes later, I realize I cared a lot more than I knew. Or maybe I just don’t want to be discarded as if it all meant nothing. Did I spend all this time getting ready, getting to know his brother, and he didn’t even remember we had a date?

That’s impossible, since Duke would have reminded him when he got home. He told him everything that happened, and Baron decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. I have my answer.

I didn’t pass.

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