The Wrong One

Sian tried to open her eyes, she really did, but it wasn’t working. They felt unbelievably heavy and she regretted the night before. She groaned and tried to roll over, but Zacky wouldn’t let her. His arms tightened around her and he moaned in protest. She sighed, and put her head back down, getting comfortable again.

She was in that state of consciousness where you’re not really awake, but you’re not really asleep when Zacky’s phone started ringing. She groaned and rolled over. Zacky didn’t stir and she reached over him to shut his phone off. She didn’t bother looking at who was calling and turned it on silent. It was then she knew that she wasn’t going to get anymore sleep.

She turned back to her side of the bed and really opened her eyes. She sat up and stretched before she stood up. She was going through the suitcase trying to find something to wear when a white envelope fell out of the clothes from the night before.

Putting a strand of hair behind her ear, she bent down to pick it up. She flipped it over to see her name scrawled in Sam’s writing and her heart stopped. Immediately, she looked up at the bed to see Zacky still sleeping. He was wearing a pair of basketball shorts and didn’t have a shirt on. She smiled as he rolled over to face her side of the bed and cuddled up to her pillow.

She grabbed her clothes and locked herself in the bathroom. She sat down on the closed toilet lid and stared at the envelope sitting on the counter. She took a deep breath and lifted it up. She noticed her hands were shaking and she laughed at herself. She flipped it over and slid her finger under the flap, opening it. Inside was a single sheet of paper with one word written on it.

“Serop.”

Sian was confused. She didn’t understand what the word meant, but knew it was written in Samantha’s writing.

Suddenly, it all made sense. She remembered vaguely when she and Samantha were younger, how they thought being twins was the coolest thing in the world. They were the only ones in their school, in their city, even, and they used that to their full advantage. They confused their parents, they confused their brother, as well as other people, and they did everything together. They even made up their own language to write so people wouldn’t know what they were talking about. Sam was using that language, now.

She smiled and reached for her makeup bag, looking for a pen. Not finding one, she found her eyeliner and figured that would do. She switched the first and last letters and worked on deciphering the rest of the word. They switched the first and last letters, and then for the vowels, they went to the next in line. If someone said all the vowels, they’d go in order “A”, “E”, “I”, “O” and “U”. They didn’t want to count “Y”s and didn’t use them. For the “E”, she put an “A”, and for the “O”, she put an “I”.

“Paris,” she said out loud. “Of course she went to Paris.”

Sian smiled and stood up. She took a shower and got dressed. She came out of the bathroom towel drying her hair. Zacky was sitting up in the bed looking at his phone.

“Everything alright?” she asked, noticing his face.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. They’re just stuck on the new album. They can’t do a whole lot because I’m not there.”

“You should be at home with them,” Sian said, sitting down on the bed.

“No, they understand why I’m here. I just wish I had brought a guitar or something so I could work on some of the stuff, but that would’ve been a lot of things to carry and it would’ve been awkward.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to go home?”

“Sian, I’m sure I don’t. Everything’s fine. They’ll be okay. We just need to focus on us and Samantha.”

“Speaking of Samantha,” Sian said and handed him the piece of paper. “She’s in Paris.”

“Sian, this says ‘Senop’. This doesn’t say anything about Paris.”

“It’s our language. When we were younger, we thought being twins was the coolest thing ever, and we wanted to make it even cooler.”

She leaned forward and explained to him about their code and how she got Paris from the made-up word. She had to explain it a second time because he didn’t follow. She laughed as he finally got it.

“Well, then I guess there’s no real need for us to stay in Germany anymore,” Zacky said with a smile.

“Not unless you want to,” Sian said and she stood up to move back to the bathroom.

“I think that means we can head to Amsterdam,” Zacky said as he followed her into the bathroom.

Sian blushed a bit as he started undressing and leaned into the mirror. Even leaning in didn’t stop her eyes from wandering to where he stood waiting for the water to warm up. He was only in his boxers, but soon those were being pulled off as he stepped inside. Sian averted her eyes, but they were back on the shower as soon as she heard the curtain being pulled closed.

“Why are we going to Amsterdam again?” Sian asked as she pulled herself up on the counter.

“You wanted to know what I’m really like,” Zacky replied from inside the shower.

“Oh yeah,” Sian said absentmindedly as she braided her hair to the side.

She got lost in her own world while Zacky finished his shower. By the time she snapped out, Zacky was standing in front of her with a towel wrapped around his waist. When she realized she was staring at the area where the towel met his skin and she shook herself.

“You alright?” Zacky asked as he towel-dried his hair.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I guess I should go pack, then,” she said and hopped off the counter to leave the bathroom quickly.

She put all of her stuff back into her bag and Sam’s suitcase and was ready to leave within minutes. Zacky came out fully dressed and watched as she pulled on a pair of sandals.

Soon after, they walked side-by-side to the train station. Sian took one of Zacky’s cigarettes from him and stayed outside while he was inside buying their tickets. She looked over the city and how beautiful it was and kind of wished they could stay longer, but at the same time, she was anxious to get to Amsterdam. Zacky had seen her drunk twice now, and it was high time she saw him how he really was.

Shortly after, Zacky came out to announce their train was going to leave soon. He smoked a cigarette before they went inside to find their train.

_________________________________________

They were in Amsterdam by mid-afternoon. They quickly found a hotel and went inside. Zacky explained to her that he had a few places to run and he didn’t want her coming along. She was confused, but he wouldn’t explain more than he didn’t want her going. Before she could argue anymore, he was out the door. She took a pack of cigarettes that he’d left her and she went to the balcony to light one.

Zacky was gone for four hours. It was after five when he got back to the hotel. Sian was asleep in the middle of the bed and the television was playing something he didn’t understand. He watched her sleep as he made his way to the desk. He took the three bags out of his pockets and set them on the table. He moved to his toiletry bag and took out the razor that was hidden in one of the zippered pockets. He sat back down that the desk and opened one of the baggies.

“Zacky, what are you doing?” Sian’s sleepy voice came from behind him.

He froze in his motion and turned around to see Sian's horrified facial expression.

"Welcome to my life," he said only and turned back to the desk.

Sian watched as Zacky cut line after line of the white powder. She moved to the desk to lean beside him. In one bag was a bunch of pills, and the other bag contained something she wasn’t sure what they were. She lifted that bag up to examine it just as Zacky lifted his head, holding his nose and inhaling.

“Zacky, are these shrooms?”

“Yep, they sure as fuck are,” he said, lifting his eyes to her. “You want some?”

“No, I don’t,” Sian said and dropped the bag almost as if it had burned her.

“Come on, Sian, you don’t want to go to Wonderland with me?”

“No, ‘Fear and Loathing’, I don’t want to go with you,” Sian said, referencing the drug movie with Johnny Depp.

“Looks like you know your shit,” Zacky said.

Sian watched his eyes and she swore she could see his pupils change. She watched as he cut up another line and leaned down, his nostril meeting the tip of the dollar bill. She watched in fascination as the white powder disappeared through the green paper.

Five lines down, Zacky looked back at Sian. She was chewing on her thumbnail, an obvious sign she was worried.

“Sian, don’t look at me like that.”

“Zacky, I’m not sure I’m okay with all of this.”

“I’ve done this dozens of times before, Sian. I promise everything is fine. Want a cap?”

She watched as he opened the bag of shrooms and pulled off the end of one. He held it out to her.

“No, I don’t want one, thank you,” she said and moved back to the bed.

“Awesome, well we’ve got about thirty minutes before I start tripping. Where do you want to go?”

“’Go’?! Zacky, I don’t want to go anywhere with you on shrooms.”

“Sian, liven up,” Zacky said and he stuffed two of the bags in his pockets and walked out the door.

Sian had no choice but to follow him.