Page 27 of My Twin Sister's Ex

“She’s probably dealt with a lot of unreliable workers in the past.”

I swallowed my food. “Probably. But I’m not one of them. I’ve never been late, and I’m almost always late to everything else. But I’ve worked super hard to be on time to work.”

“Probably because your boss is so scary.” Bennett pulled out his sandwich and started eating.

I laughed. “That’s exactly why.” I took another bite of my food, and we ate in silence for the next few moments before I pulled out my script. “Ready to run through this?”

“Sure.”

We ran through our lines, and I started putting the script down more, trying my best to recite my lines without looking. To my surprise, Bennett was able to do the same thing.

“Wow. You’re starting to get memorized!” I’d never seen him this memorized for anything.

“I worked on it really hard last night. I tried that memorization method you talked about last night where you record yourself reading the lines.”

“You did? That’s great!” I was impressed. “Do you think it helped you?”

“Definitely. I wouldn’t have been nearly as focused on reading through my lines if I hadn’t had the recording playing to keep me on track,” Bennett said.

“I experienced the same thing. My mind starts to wander if I don’t have my recording playing back to me.”

Bennett grinned, and my heart skipped a beat. “It was really helpful.”

“I don’t know if it would work for everyone. We all have different learning styles, but it’s been great for me. I have a little bit of ADHD,” I admitted.

“I definitely have ADHD. Big time. My mind wanders all over the place.”

“Have you ever been medicated for it?” I took a bite of one of my baby carrots.

He shook his head. “No. I never tried meds. I just pushed through it.”

“I don’t have it bad enough for medication. I just have a phone that distracts me with notifications, and they seem so much more interesting than my homework.”

“Huh,” Bennett said, studying me.

“What?”

“You struggle with doing your homework? I would have thought you’d be ultra-focused and getting straight As.”

“I do get straight As. But I have to fight hard for them,” I admitted. “If my ADHD was worse, I’d probably need to be medicated to get the grades I’ve been getting.”

Bennett frowned. “I probably should have been medicated. Maybe then my grades would have been better. But my dad wasn’t the greatest at taking me to the doctor. Or teaching me good study habits. I remember my mom sitting down with me before she got sick and helping me with my homework.”

“I bet you would have had a pretty different life if she’d been able to stay around.” I hoped it was okay that I was saying that. Was I being insensitive?

But Bennett didn’t seem to mind. “I’m sure I would have. I wonder that myself all the time. How would things have been different if she hadn’t died?”

“That’s really sad. I’m so sorry for your loss.” I wanted to give him a hug, but I wasn’t sure how he would like it.

“It’s been really hard since she died. My dad pulled away from me a lot. And the house went downhill.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said in a small voice.

“I don’t think many people do. They just see me showing up to school in ratty clothes, and they see a ruffian. They don’t bother to look past that to see why things might be that way.”

I’d been guilty of the same thing. I’d just seen the ruffian. A tortured soul. Some moody boy.

“I’ve been surviving for a long time.”

---