Page 13 of My Twin Sister's Ex

5

Bennett

Icouldn’t look at Jessilyn’s face when Mr. Brownley had called out our names to work together. I figured she probably wasn’t happy about getting me as a partner. I saw her going up to him after class, probably to ask him to give her someone else to work with.

I glanced across the parking lot to see her getting into her car with her best friend, Reese. I got in my own car and cranked up the engine. My old Mustang roared to life. The nineties weren’t the best years for the Mustang, but she still drove fast. And she was running. That was the best part. Her paint was a bit worn in spots, but I planned to redo it once I’d saved up enough money.

I saw Jessilyn and Reese looking at some papers that looked familiar. They must have been going over the script together. I hadn’t even looked at it yet. I unzipped my backpack and pulled my script out. If I wanted to graduate, I would need to know this scene inside and out. I might as well take a few minutes to read through it before I left for work.

I scanned through the stapled packet of papers. My brow furrowed as I read. This was a romantic scene—we were basically declaring our love for each other. Couldn’t Mr. Brownley have assigned us something where we were brother and sister? Maybe mother and son? Putting me in a scene where I had to pretend to be in love with Jessilyn would be a disaster.

I turned the page and continued to read. I felt my heart speed up in my chest. There was kissing in this scene? I knew I’d said I didn’t mind kissing, but I didn’t think Mr. Brownley would have me partnered up with my ex-girlfriend’s identical twin. I was in bigger trouble than I’d thought.

Jessilyn was every bit as beautiful as her twin, but there was a softer beauty to her. Jackilyn wore heavy makeup and left little to the imagination with her clothing. But Jessilyn was all innocence and purity. Way too good for a guy like me.

Jackilyn had a hardened exterior. I’d been able to see myself with her. But I couldn’t ever be with a girl like Jessilyn. She deserved better.

Wait. Why was I thinking this way? We were only acting. I was getting carried away. Just because Jessilyn and I had to kiss onstage didn’t mean it would mean anything. Maybe we wouldn’t even have to practice the kiss until the day of the performance. There was no need to practice something like that, was there? We would mostly just need to get together to run lines. That was all. And block out our scene so we knew where to stand and how to move.

I flipped through the page. There was another kiss. This was only getting worse. A third kiss showed up on the next page. I scanned the rest of the document for more kisses but didn’t find any. Who put three kisses in one scene? I knew it was extremely sappy, a story of young love, but I wasn’t happy about having to kiss Jessilyn so many times.

I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about it either. There was no way she was happy about it. Maybe it was possible that I was overreacting about this. Maybe she’d already gone to Mr. Brownley and had convinced him to reassign us. I could be freaking out over nothing.

And freaking out, I was. My palms were sweaty, and I was breathing hard. Out of nowhere, images of Jessilyn with her lips pressed to mine bombarded my mind. My face grew hot as I thought about how nice it would be to kiss her. I shook my head to clear the unexpected scenes. I couldn’t allow myself to think this way.

I had to go to work and forget about drama class for a while. It was easy to lose myself in my work at the shop. Getting my mind off of Jessilyn and her soft pink lips was exactly what I needed. I put my car into reverse and pulled out of my parking spot.

I drove through town to my uncle’s shop. I changed into my work clothes and threw my backpack into a corner of the office. A little old lady sat in the waiting room, and I smiled at her. “How are you today, ma’am?”

“I’m doing just fine.”

“Glad to hear.” I left the waiting area to look for something to do. “Hey, Uncle Ryan,” I said when I spotted him in the garage.

“Hey there, Bennett.” He was doing an oil change, probably for the old lady in the waiting room. “Can you hand me that rag?”

I grabbed the oil-stained cloth and handed it over.

He wiped his hands off on it. “She’s all done. Would you mind checking her out?”

“Sure.” I went back into the office and rang up the customer. I smiled and said all the proper, polite things to her, but I kept finding my mind drifting off to think about the kiss with Jessilyn again.

“Is everything all right?” Uncle Ryan asked.

“It’s fine. What do you mean?” I asked.

“You seem like you have something on your mind. You want to talk about it?” Uncle Ryan knew me extremely well. If anyone were able to notice something was going on, it would be him. There was no use in trying to hide it from him.

“I just found out who my partner for the Drama Competition will be.” I’d already filled him in on how I needed to get my grade up in order to graduate. So he knew how important it was for me to do well on this final project. I couldn’t blow it this time. I had to put my all into it. He’d been awesome and supportive and had even offered to run lines with me if I needed the extra practice. My uncle was cool like that.

“I’m guessing from your tone that it’s not who you expected,” he said.

I gave a harsh laugh. “Definitely not. My teacher is either oblivious or he has a sick sense of humor.”

Uncle Ryan leaned against the car he was about to start working on. The owner had dropped it off and wasn’t in a big hurry for us to fix it. “What do you mean? Who is it?”

“It’s Jessilyn.”

“Jessilyn.” He wrinkled his brow. “Who’s that again?”

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