Kayla

It’s funny actually. Sometimes the occasional freshman still comes up to me and is like, “Woah that girl Ally looks exactly like you!” Duh. As if that walking, talking, breathing, creature of a twin isn’t reminder enough. Even though we don’t live together, don’t EVER coordinate clothing, don’t hang out in the same crowd, and don’t even talk at all, some people still don't get it. As a high school girl, we all want to find love and marry our high school sweetheart, but in my parents’ case, love is messier than school sloppy joes. That’s saying something. Their divorce was ten times worse than the marriage. So, pretty much, their kid was bound to be messed up. Make that, “kids”.

Ally
I love living in New York City. It’s constantly busy and there’s always at least one neighbor on my floor who doesn’t have a wifi password. Cities are also great for avoiding people. There are people everywhere that I’ve never seen in my life that I meet everyday. I’ve never had a run in with Kayla in my whole life, besides school of course. Friday was a first for everyone I guess. It started when my best friend Hannah and I were waiting for the L train like we do every morning. When she all of a sudden whispers to me, “Look, who it is.” She gestures with her chin to the blonde girl facing the tracks. I can already tell from her hair that it’s Kayla. Kayla has always been the prettier twin. Her nose is a little smaller, her eyes a little bit more blue, her legs a little longer, her hair a little blonder. I’m not saying I’m ugly because we both have great genes, but Kayla, although I hate to admit it, is gorgeous. In the twenty seconds she has been standing on the track at least five guys have looked her up and down. Including the homeless dude on the floor. If I dressed as well as she did I might be almost as pretty, but I let her take the crown on that one. When it comes to brains, I have her by a landslide. And that’s all my parent cares about.
Kayla
My friends say I’m the prettier twin. Ally’s friends say she’s the smarter one. There is definitely truth to that that even I can’t deny. But in no way am I stupid. I get decent grades while Ally gets straight As. Ally’s not ugly either. She’s pretty, but my friends say I’m drop dead gorgeous. There may or may not be some truth to that. I live with my dad, and to him as long as I’m getting above a C+, I’m doing great. He’s the hippie, artistic, relaxed kinda guy. Which makes it easy to understand why my robot of a mother divorced him. To her, school is everything. It must suck for Ally. I’m sure her house doesn’t have an indoor hammock. The divorce was super confusing and no one has really explained how the whole arrangement came to be but it is what it is, I guess. I live with my dad. Ally lives with my mom. Mom calls about once a week to indulge me in awkward small talk. Even though she and my dad aren’t quite on speaking terms, she says that she didn’t want that between the two of us. Although, the only speaking we ever do is on the phone.

Ally
The one time I ever saw my parents speak was when my mom had to drop off a vase that Matt’s new girlfriend, Stacey let her borrow.
“Good afternoon, Matt.”
“Hello Karen.”
“Give this to Stacey, will you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
The door slammed sending a small gust of wind through my mother’s straight blonde hair. Other than that, pretty much they stick to email, and even those aren’t pretty. In my opinion, Matt’s a really cool guy. We talk on the phone a lot and he gives me a ride home when he sees me walking down his block. Not that my mother would ever do that for Kayla. Kayla doesn’t seem to care. Not that I would know. Kayla and I usually only converse when Matt tells her to tell me something at school. Sometimes I think he does it just to get us to talk at all. Neither of us has ever done anything to deserve the cold shoulder from the other, but because of the situation, it would never be possible for us to be friends. Me? I’m fine with that. From what I’ve heard, Kayla is a total... nevermind. You can guess the rest, I’m sure.

Kayla
I have never gotten caught drinking by my dad. Not that he would care. When I woke up in an apartment that looked only vaguely familiar, I knew that I could call him. I had done it before. He just gave the usual I’m glad you called and were safe, don’t drink and drive, yadda yadda yadda. It wasn’t until I heard ,”Yo! You’ve reached the crib of Kayla and Matt. We are having fun somewhere else right now so leave a message! Peace out!” That’s when I remembered that my dad was away on a business trip doing whatever he did to make money. Of course, this weekend of all weekends. Now I remembered.
“Cupcake, don’t forget I’m leaving for France tonight. Don’t call my cell unless it is an absolute emergency ‘cause those calls cost more than I’m worth. Have fun!”
Just so you know, I had never even seen Ally at a party before this. We didn’t really hang around the same type of people. You could imagine my surprise when I looked around the immaculate apartment to see none other than Ally sitting at the counter enjoying what looks to me like an english muffin with 40% reduced fat cream cheese.
‘Good Morning friend!” she smirks.

Ally
Believe me, getting invited to a party was weird enough. Seeing Kayla there was more weird though. I guess, I should have expected her to be there since she is mega popular. But for some reason it caught me off guard. I got their at 10:30 and she was already more wasted than I had ever seen anybody. I tried to stick with the friends that I knew there, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for Kayla. She was just sort of floating in a drunk, confused kinda way with people pushing her away only to have her bounce off the next person. It looked like human pinball. I finally intercepted her from the crowd and took the drink out her hand. After chugging whatever was in the cup and regretting it, I then looked her straight in the eye and loudly shouted ,”NO MORE” at her as if she was a deaf 5 year old. As if I had simply told her to drink more, she floated her way over to the keg in the corner of the room. I once again grabbed her cup, but this time poured it out the window onto the street. I grabbed her hand while saying, “Let’s go take a nap, shall we?”
When I finally found the master bedroom I awkwardly thrusted Kayla onto the bed, where she lay in a rather uncomfortable looking position. If I remembered one thing from health class is that people can only get sober with time. Kayla could sleep it off. As I looked around the room at the expensive luxury furniture, I realized that whoever’s apartment we were in was really nice for the neighborhood. I pushed Kayla onto her side to keep her from choking on her own vomit, (another trick from health, thanks Ms. Sterningham!) and head out the hallway to the living room.

Kayla
Although most of the night is pretty hazy, I do remember rolling off of a really nice bed onto the cold hardwood floor and remembering that I was still somewhat drunk at a party. As I wiped the drool from my mouth, I headed into the main room to sit on a couch somewhere social. Not ten seconds after I sit down and chugged another cup of beer, a loud banging came from the door that overpowered even the awful music that was blasting.
“POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!” a voice yelled.
I had never been to a party that had been crashed by the cops before and I wasn’t planning on getting in any trouble. The guy who lived in the apartment, Andrew, slowly made his way to the door motioning to his friends to hide the booze, that was all over the apartment.
“Do you live here , young man?”
“Yes,” Andrew said sheepishly.
“How old are you?” The questions continued as I slipped an altoid from my purse into my mouth to hide the stench of alcohol on my breath. I’m not quite so proud of what happens next.

Ally
My plan of keeping Kayla asleep to get sober only worked for about five minutes. She stumbled back into the party as drunk as she was before. As soon as she sat back down some guy handed her another red solo cup that she immediately downed. That was when the madness began.
“POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!” a voice yelled. Of course almost the first party I go to the cops come. Great. The guy whose apartment it was slowly walked to the door as a bunch of guys tried to hide the keg. When the door swung open a female cop was on the other side of the door and looked pretty bored. I guess some teens drinking was the most exciting job she got all night. She was actually very pretty and apparently more than that to some of the guys. As she took off her hat and exposed her high ponytail, some of the guys started hooting at her. She acted as though she had heard it all before. It seemed as though Kayla and I would be generally unaffected by this whole ordeal until...
“Excuuuuuuuse me?” slurred Kayla.
“Yes?”
“Who do you deedoodeedoo think that you are?” Even an eight year old kid could have figured out that she was drunk. She wasn’t even making sense! “Did the tigger get to the poo poo pee pee in the garden of the flowers? ‘Cause I know that I did!” Although I found this extremely funny and if on film could have made amazing blackmail material, I knew that she was going to get herself into some serious trouble.
“I am so sorry officer, she has had a bit too much to drink,” I say without realizing that what I just said probably got her into more trouble. “It will never happen again I promise. At least she wasn’t driving!” I add for good measure.
“If, hypothetically, I asked you ladies for your IDs, would you girls have them? Hypothetically, of course.” This cop was clever huh?
“If, hypothetically, I didn’t, would I go to jail?” I managed to ask.
“You’re new to this aren’t you. If I arrested every kid who drank in high school, I would need to drive a school bus to and from the station. You seem to be a tad smarter than your sister, and you seem to have her somewhat under control.” It was odd hearing her call Kayla my sister. We are of course sisters but people usually didn’t talk about it like that so bluntly. Looking between the two of us the resemblance could not be anything other than genetic. “You ladies have a warning. Now anyone wanna tell me who supplied the alcohol tonight? Illegally might I add.” At this I grab Kayla by the hand and practically sprint out the door and down the back stairs. Now, this takes some time considering that Kayla is still very intoxicated, but now she has seemed to have past the “Where am I?” phase, and simply entered the “Now I’m Gonna Puke” phase. Which of course she promptly does by the time we reach the next block.

Kayla
“Sorry about that,” I mumble wiping the leftover vomit off my chin with the back of my sleeve. “You have a mint or something?”
“How’s gum?”
“Yeah that’ll do.” Recounting the previous events in my head I say, “Thanks for helping me out back there.”
“Yeah no problem. I’m not quite sure how much I actually helped but I take the recognition.”
“What’s your mom gonna say?” I ask.
“Oh she won’t. She takes these sleeping pills so she has probably been out cold for about an hour now. You can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the floor.”
A normal sober person would probably refuse to take her bed and insist that she sleep on the floor, but right then, I felt like total crap, and I all I really wanted was a bed to sleep in for the night.
“Is Mom seeing anybody?” I question. The alcohol seems to be making me brutally intrusive.
“No. I like to say that she and her work are in a committed relationship. She doesn’t really have time for much else.”
Thinking about that makes me want to cry right there in front of Ally. A girl who I share genes with and yet have probably spoken less words to than I have to the cafeteria lady.
“Dad is pretty cool.” I respond, “I think he’s scared of losing me like he did Mom. He always puts me first.” We walk in silence for a while down the dark streets, passing the occasional bar that is still bustling with late night crowds. Yet, everything seems sort of quiet.
“So how are you liking junior year?” Ally breaks the silence, and I’m glad. The silence was in an odd way really really loud. Like the nothingness was too much. After thinking it I realize that I sound like Ally. It seems like something she would write in one of her A+ papers in our Psych 101 class. We continue in small talk until we get to her apartment. As I crawl into her bed, I realize that almost none of this will matter in the morning. I will still be Kayla and she will still be Ally. But I fall asleep before I can think too much more about it.

Ally
The next morning as Kayla opens the door to her apartment with the spare key I found at the very bottom of my mother’s sock drawer she says,
“I’ll, uh, see you in school.” Neither one of us seems to quite know what to make of the new situation.
“Yeah! Maybe we can sit together sometime!” I say maybe a little too excitedly.
“Actually I’d prefer that people didn’t find out about this whole thing, if that’s ok with you. Not that getting busted by the cops and vomiting on my new favorite sweater wasn’t tons of fun but it would kind of send my reputation down the toilet with my vomit.” Her sarcasm stings more than I thought it would have.
“Haha.” I laugh as though her joke was funny. In reality I had busted my butt for her and once again I’m just the lesser one. “Yeah. Well, see you in school then.” And I do see her in school, but eyeing each other from a distance is the closest we really ever get.

Kayla
Don’t look at me like that. I know I was a little harsh on Ally. Being friends would just have complicated things. The school year was already almost over. Plus, I would have to consult my whole friend group before bringing her in anyway. We are two different people who live in two completely different worlds. It should stay that way. What’s that thing that happens when two stars collide in space? A meteor shower? Oh I don’t remember. I never pay attention in science. Ask Ally, she would know. I would say that I’m a star and she’s like a piece of debris in my orbit. I could do without her.