The Opposite of Me (39 page)

“Alex.”
He stood up and reached for her, and she collapsed into his arms. Bradley stroked her back and whispered something into her ear, something only she could hear, as Alex wrapped her slim arms around his neck and sobbed.

Twenty-four
 

 

“LINDSEY?”

“Mmm?”

“Remember my Magic Eight Ball?” Alex asked.

I smiled. Alex had gotten the ball for her twelfth birthday, and that little black sphere had ruled her life like a squatty, enigmatic dictator.

“Should I wear my Gloria Vanderbilt jeans today?” Alex would ask earnestly, shaking the ball. “All signs say yes,” the Magic 8 Ball would decree, and Alex would breathe a huge sigh of relief and slip them on.

“You realize that means nothing,” I used to admonish her. By then, I was already dismissive of things like Ouiji boards and the fortune-teller who had come to a friend’s birthday party and treated everyone to palm readings. Underneath the fortune-teller’s gray wig I’d spotted brown hair, and her breath smelled like McDonald’s. I’d known instantly she was a fraud; a real fortune-teller drank bubbling potions and brews, not McFlurries.

“Look, there are only a few answers,” I told Alex one day, ripping it out of her hand after she’d agonized over whether or not some stupid guy liked her.

“I’ll ask it the same question twice and it’ll give me two different answers,” I said, shaking the ball. “Will I pass my spelling test today?”

“Cannot predict now,” Magic 8 announced.

“Will I pass the spelling test today?” I shook up the ball and held it up triumphantly: “Cannot predict now.”

“Stupid ball,” I said. “I’ll shake it up again and it’ll come up with a different answer.”

“Don’t!” Alex yelled, snatching it out of my hand. “Sharon Derrigan’s cousin’s sister did that and the ball got mad at her for not trusting it and it put a hex on her!”

“That’s silly,” I said as I stared at the ball out of the corner of my eye. The murky blue-black fluid inside did look a little witchlike.

“Anyway, I’ve got to run,” I said, hurrying toward the door. “I have a spelling test.”

It was pure coincidence that my teacher lost all the spelling tests that day. I’d never told Alex about it, but from then on I couldn’t sleep unless the Magic 8 Ball was tucked safely in a drawer, where it couldn’t stare at me with its unblinking blue-black eyeball.

“What made you think of that?” I asked now as I turned out the light and climbed into bed beside Alex. She hadn’t wanted to sleep alone tonight. I couldn’t blame her.

“That ball had all the answers,” she said. “Anything I wanted to know. I never had to wonder about anything. I wish I still had it.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“You’re going to wake up tomorrow after surgery and the doctor’s going to tell you the operation was a perfect success,” I said firmly.

I sounded good. Believable. Thank God the bedroom was dark and Alex couldn’t see my face. Then she’d know what I
knew: That even if the surgery went perfectly, her life wouldn’t be the same afterward.

“I just wish tomorrow afternoon was here,” Alex said. “I want this over.”

“I know you’re scared,” I said. “I wish I could do something.”

Actually, I had done something, but Alex didn’t know about it. During the past few days, Alex had disappeared for long hours with Bradley. He must’ve taken the week off work, like I had. Sometimes he picked her up outside my parents’ house, and sometimes she disappeared after the phone rang. I knew he was trying to protect my feelings by not coming into the house so I wouldn’t see him with Alex, but I wasn’t fooled for a second. I recognized his tricks. They were the same ones I’d used to keep Alex and Bradley apart back in high school.

“Bradley?” Mom had said once after answering the phone. “How are you, honey? Good, good. Yes, she’s right— I’m sorry, did you say Alex?”

And Mom had handed over the phone to Alex and looked at me with a question in her eyes. I know Mom had always secretly hoped Bradley and I would end up together. Or not so secretly, given that once, in a bakery, she’d loudly pointed out that the plastic bride and groom on top of a wedding cake looked
exactly
like Bradley and me.

“It’s okay,” I’d said. I’d looked at Mom and mustered up all the conviction I could. “I’m happy for Alex and Bradley.”

At any other time, that would’ve unleashed a barrage of questions. But Mom and Dad were already reeling from the news Alex had laid on them—the tumor, her broken engagement—so all Mom did was nod with a kind of exhausted resignation. I don’t think she could’ve taken another intense conversation. I know I couldn’t have.

Every time Alex left, I launched into a cleaning frenzy, orga
nizing the kitchen cabinets and sorting the piles of papers in Dad’s office into neat, color-tabbed files. And while I scrubbed the bathroom, if a few tears splashed into the tub along with the running water, no one was around to see. By the time Alex came home from being with Bradley, my smile was back in place and Visine had banished the redness from my eyes. I’d chat with Alex while I studied her face, wondering if this was the day Bradley had decided to tell her everything. But the moment I feared never came, and gradually I realized it never would. Bradley was keeping it a secret, saving me that crushing embarrassment. Somehow, knowing him, I wasn’t surprised.

I only wished it didn’t make me love him more.

“It’s strange,” Alex said now. She rolled over in bed to face me. “I kept telling myself I needed to change my prescription for my contacts,” she said. “But I think I knew it was more than that. I just couldn’t face it.”

“You were probably scared,” I said. “Anyone would have been.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, then I heard the sound of her start to quietly weep.

“I’m still scared,” she said, her voice choked. “I’ve never been so scared. They’re going to cut open my brain. What if something happens? What if I don’t wake up?”

“Oh, Alex,” I said. I reached over and grabbed her hand. I held it as tightly as I could.

“I don’t want to be kept alive as a vegetable,” Alex said fiercely. “Don’t let them do that to me, okay? You’ve got to take charge, Lindsey. Mom and Dad won’t be able to. I need you to promise me.”

“It’s not going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to wake up. I promise you.”

“What if I don’t?” she said.

I opened my mouth to speak, to reassure her, but suddenly a wave of regret and sadness washed over me, taking my breath away. Alex had tried since I’d come home—the invitation to lunch, the phone calls I hadn’t returned, the way she’d flipped the conversation back to me that night in the bar—but it was
me
who’d pushed her away. I’d told myself that she hadn’t changed, but she had. I was the one who hadn’t.

My jealousy had kept us apart. What if Alex
didn’t
wake up? What if I never got a chance to know my sister?

“Alex, I promise you it’s going to be okay,” I said. I wanted to believe it so fiercely I felt like I could make it happen by sheer willpower alone.

“In a way that dumb accident saved me,” Alex said, her voice thick with tears. “What if I’d waited until my vision was really bad? What if it was too late?”

“I think it’s normal to be in denial,” I said. “I would’ve been.”

“You?” Alex said. “Uh-uh. You take things head-on. You always have.”

“About that,” I said. Suddenly I knew how I could distract Alex from her fear, if I had the courage.

“Are you finally going to tell me about the guy in New York?” Alex asked. Her voice was still shaky, but she’d stopped crying. She reached for a tissue on the nightstand and blew her nose. “You’ve been saving it because you knew I’d need a distraction the night before the operation. Very Florence Nightingale of you.”

I swallowed hard.

“I was fired.”

The words hung there a moment, as boldly as the blazing sun on a cloudless summer afternoon.

“Shut up,” Alex said after a pause.

“Swear to God,” I said.

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“I didn’t get a promotion and I kind of freaked out,” I said. “I did some stuff—messed up a little—and everyone agreed it would be better if I left.”

“
You
were fired,” Alex said.

“Let’s not dwell on it,” I suggested.

“Fired,” Alex said. “You.”

“Or we could dwell on it.”

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“I already told you,” I said.

“Right, right,” she said. “It’s just . . . it’s so . . . 
unlike
you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “So I’ve heard.”

“Wait a second!” Alex shrieked. She sat bolt upright in bed. “The whole time you’ve been saying you’ve been going to work? The whole thing about scouting out a new D.C. branch of the agency?”

“Lies,” I said. “I’m a fired liar.”

“And a poet, too,” Alex breathed. “Awesome.”

“You admire this?”

“My God, you’re like the—the—statue of David of lying,” she said. “You’re perfection as a liar!”

“Wouldn’t I be more like the Michelangelo?” I suggested. “He’s the one who created David.”

“Or so he
said
,” Alex said.

I laughed. I was surprised by how good it felt to get that off my chest. I hadn’t been aware of how those lies had bogged me down, like little sharp fishhooks digging into my skin.

“Did someone scream?” Dad flung open the bedroom door.

“Sorry,” Alex said meekly. “I thought I stepped on a bug. But it was just Lindsey.”

Dad nodded. “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Cocoa?”

“No thanks, Dad,” Alex said.

“Love you,” he said and closed the door again.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“It was the best I could come up with,” she said. “I’m not the liar in the family.”

“Look, I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet,” I said. “So don’t tell anyone, okay?”
Don’t tell Bradley
, I thought. He probably pitied me enough.

“I’ll keep it a secret. Probably best to spread out our Dr. Phil moments,” Alex agreed. “We’ve had enough of them this week, don’t you think? But at least they recovered from the shock of my broken engagement when I told them about the tumor. Maybe you could come up with something like that: ‘Mom and Dad, I was fired, and guess what? I have herpes!’ ”

“Nice,” I said.

“Which brings us back to your guy in New York,” Alex said.

“How, exactly, does that bring us back?” I demanded.

“What’s he like?” Alex asked.

“Look, there isn’t really anyone in New York,” I said. I thought about the night my eyes had met Matt’s and I’d felt an undertow of something deep and unfamiliar, and how I’d run away from him. Funny how long ago that seemed, like it was in another lifetime. “Maybe there could’ve been,” I said slowly, “but things just got . . . complicated.”

“I thought it was that guy from work,” Alex said. “The one with curly hair. Remember I met him when I came by your office?”

Matt.
He’d known I had a fraternal twin sister, but he didn’t know what Alex looked like until the day she’d popped by my office. Matt had stuck out his hand and introduced himself, then he’d turned away from Alex and reminded me that I’d promised to grab coffee with him before I left for Europe the next afternoon. He hadn’t tried to prolong his conversation with Alex. He hadn’t snuck looks at her over his shoulder as he walked down the hallway to his office. He’d just smiled at her
and turned his attention back to me. I’d forgotten how good that had made me feel.