Doppelgänger

My locker closed with a dull, metallic thud. It was midway through the school year, and I was already completely burnt out. It was difficult to juggle eight extracurriculars, being on the school tennis team, and insanely strict parents. Hormones and my degrading social life is a close contender for first place on the most stressing, I thought with a perpetual pout.

“Louise! Hey, why’d you run off like that?” I turned to see Mira jogging down the hallway in her mustard sweater, waving wildly. Mira wasn’t someone I’d expect to be trapped in a conversation with, since we were only acquaintances through science class.

“Uh, what do you mean?” I asked, turning towards her and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Are you kidding me right now? I just saw you and asked if you had the notes from yesterday,” Mira said, a confused knot forming in both of her eyebrows.

“I haven’t talked to you at all today-” I began just as the dismissal bell rang.

Mira gave me a weird look and ran back down the hallway towards the bus loop.

That was…strange, I thought as I watched her disappear around a corner. Then I adjusted the straps of my backpack and headed to the gym for tennis practice.

***

“Louise!” someone yelled just as I strode through the gym’s double doors. My best friend, Jacqueline, ran up to me with a concerned expression all over her face. Before saying anything else, she grabbed me by the forearm and dragged me to the bleachers.

Just as we sat down, all conversation around us stopped. A bead of sweat trickled down my chin as I realized my teammates were stealing glances at me from the corner of their eyes. “Why did you yell at Ray during lunch?” Jacqueline whispered.

“What?” I said a little too sharply.

Everyone’s eyes flicked over to me in a matter of seconds.

“I-I would never. I don’t even have the same lunch period as him!” I stammered.

Jacqueline gave me a questioning glance. “But I saw you in the cafeteria. You seemed really mad.”

I didn’t have a response. My head spun. Is this like a doppelgänger story? What is happening? “Alright, everyone get off the bleachers and start warmups!” Coach Bridley yelled.

Jacqueline distanced herself from me the entire rest of practice, clearly hurt that I’d supposedly shouted at a friend and “lied” about it. I sighed as warmups started, knowing that I had two more extracurriculars, homework, and a lot of drama.

***

I scrambled to pack away my things just as the bell rang. Jacqueline didn’t wait for me so that we could walk to our next block like she usually did. She was still hurt by what I "did" at lunch.

I dashed out the door with my backpack still half-zipped. I sped around a corner and crashed into someone, causing both of us to tumble onto the floor. I winced as someone stepped on my fingers and glanced at the person I’d run into.

At first, it was like I crashed into a mirror. I was staring at someone who looked completely identical to me. My eyes shot down to look at their ID badge and read the name “August  G. Vernon”. I recognized that name from the loudspeaker when the principal welcomed a new student a few days ago.

August scowled at me, and I was deeply disturbed. I was basically seeing myself glaring at…myself.

Suddenly, a person in a familiar mustard sweater ran over to us. August and I looked up at a clearly appalled Mira. 

“What in the actual…?” Mira whispered, her eyes darting to look between us. “Which one of you just stole my lunchbox?”

August gave her an even deeper scowl, then held out a matching mustard lunchbox in Mira’s direction. Mira grabbed it quickly as if August was going to pounce on her at any second.

“Are you two related or something? Louise, I didn’t know you had a sister-” Mira began, but I cut her off.

“I don’t,” I snapped, sending a glare at the other two girls.

The bell suddenly rang out from the speakers, but I could care less at the moment.

“Shoot, c’mon, all three of us are late for science,” Mira said, helping me put away all the papers I’d dropped when I fell.

We ran to science together and had to explain everything to an angry Mrs. Phill. August, Mira, and I sat together in the front of the room as punishment. I let out my frustration by focusing my glare on Jacqueline, who was trying hard not to look at me or my doppelgänger.

***

“Why do you look so tired all the time?”

I closed my locker with a sigh, recognizing a voice I had been hearing all day. I turned to look at August, and as if on cue, we both crossed our arms.

“Try dealing with being on the tennis team and having eight extracurriculars,” I snapped. “You can’t be talking, anyway. What’s up with the scowling?”

August rolled her eyes. “Your friend Ray or whatever really worsened my mood. Him and Jacquel-whatever-her-name-is are probably fake.”

I faltered for a second, then gave her a level look. “What makes you say that?”

August took a seat right on the tiled floors pretzel-style and looked up at me.

“They were trash-talking right to my face, thinking I was you, so I yelled at them. I explained I wasn’t ‘Louise’, and boy, you should’ve seen the way they looked like tomatoes after that.”

My face fell and my stomach twisted into a tight knot. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Guys! I have some coupons for the local ice cream place!” Mira yelled, running down the hall. “How about we head down there today? If you guys are free, of course.”

August agreed immediately, but I paused for a second.

The useless bubble-gum blowing tutoring class can wait, I thought. And tennis.

I grinned. “Let’s do it.”