The Wrong One

Zacky and the rest of the guys sat outside of Zacky’s house. They were having a cookout that night and they were pre-gaming before everyone got there. He’d texted Sian to invite her, and she promised she was coming with McKenzie and Lexi both.

The truth was, he didn’t feel like drinking, but the alcohol was the only thing calming his nerves. He wasn’t sure why he was nervous, he was just planning on asking Sian to be with him. He only wanted her to quit school, forget her internship with NASA, her dream job, and come on tour with him around the world; nothing too major.

“Not like I’m asking her to change her whole fucking life,” he mumbled to himself, taking another swig of the Jack and Coke sitting in his glass.

“Relax, dude,” Matt said, coming up to him.

“I wasn’t even this nervous when I asked Samantha to marry me,” Zacky said and wiped his forehead.

“If she would go to Europe with you for months, I’m sure she would come on tour,” Val said from beside Matt.

“You don’t understand, though; that was to find her sister and she wasn’t in school. She’s getting ready to start school back in a couple of months, right before we go on tour, and she’s taking an internship at the Jet Propulsion Lab for NASA. That’s her dream job, dude. I want her to come with me, but I have this huge feeling she’s going to reject me.”

“If you never ask, you’ll never know,” Val said before people started pouring into the house.

Zacky tried to focus on his friends and family who were there to celebrate the completion of their fourth and self-titled album, he really did, but he couldn’t. Every few seconds, his eyes would fly to the front door or to the patio door to see if she had come in. If he didn’t see her near the door, he would scan the crowd. When he didn’t see her, he’d sigh, take another sip of his drink, and continue to chat about something that didn’t interest him.

He saw Lexi and Shiloh before he saw Sian. When she finally came into view, he felt almost relieved. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt as all his nervousness went away as soon as he saw her. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and tied with a leopard print bow. Her smile almost reached her ears and he smiled in response. Her tank top fell loosely around her upper body and when he turned he could see a strapless black bra peaking out. Her jeans were a bit too short for his taste, but he was finally glad to see her out of her shell. A black and white checkered scarf was wrapped around her neck and it went well with the feathered band on her arm. Her watch was on the other and he watched her delicately reach up to check her hair as she talked to Jimmy.

Every once in a while, her eyes would scan the crowd, and he knew she was looking for him. They would go back to Jimmy just to prove she was listening to what he was saying, and she would nod, but then her eyes would go back to scanning.

Zacky turned back to the guy that was talking to him, but he wasn’t paying attention. Thankfully, his attention was turned when someone screamed out.

“ZACKY, YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS HERE!” Jimmy bellowed from where he and Sian were standing.

Everyone’s gaze turned to Jimmy and the girl beside him who looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. A few chuckles rang out and everyone went back to their conversations. Zacky, on the other hand, broke his conversation off and moved in the direction of Sian.
She smiled shyly as he approached and he leaned in for a kiss.

“I missed you,” he said smiling at her.

“Missed you, too,” she said, returning the smile.

“You hungry or thirsty?”

“Thirsty,” Sian said as they moved over to the drink table.

He moved to mix her a drink and she excused herself for a minute. He went through the motions of mixing a Jack and Coke for her before dropping a few ice cubes in the Solo cup and turned to his left to see where she disappeared to.

“Is that for me?”

He turned around to see Sian standing behind him. She was smiling at him and he nodded, handing her the drink. If someone could look different in the matter of a minute, Sian did.

“I thought you went somewhere?”

“I just wanted to check something,” she said, shrugging.

“Oh, okay,” Zacky said as they sipped their drinks in silence for a minute. “I’ve got something to ask you.”

“Anything,” she said and smiled.

Unfortunately, Matt came up, saying there was a problem with the grill and he needed Zacky. He excused himself and followed Matt.

A few minutes later, he scanned the crowd again to find Sian, and he found her next to Lexi and McKenzie. They spotted him coming their way and they moved away from Sian. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was different about her.

“Are you okay?” Zacky asked her.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why?”

“I don’t know…something seems different,” he said.

She was about to say something but Matt’s holler cut her off. They both looked to the grill where huge flames were shooting out of it. Zacky excused himself again, and took off toward the grill.

When he was done, he looked back to where Sian had been standing to find her gone. He looked through the crowd yet again and found her on the opposite side of the lawn, on her phone. He made his way to her and that’s when he knew something was definitely different.
She hung up just as he approached her and she smiled at him.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine. So look, about this question,” Zacky said.

“What question?”

“The question I was going to ask you?” Zacky said again.

“Oh, yeah…right! Ask away!”

Zacky knew then that something was up. She lifted the drink to her mouth and he realized two things at once.

“Samantha, where’s Sian?”

“What are you talking about, Zacky? I’m Sian,” the girl said, confused.

“No, you’re not. You’re Samantha,” he said and then he leaned into her. “You forgot to put on your watch when you switched.”

She looked down at her wrist and cursed. She pulled her phone out again, pressed a few buttons and looked at him.

“Is that how you knew?”

“I knew something was different about you, but when I saw your engagement ring, I knew something was different. Sian doesn’t really wear rings, and she always wears her watch.”

“Well, fuck me running,” Samantha said.

A girl appeared at Samantha’s side and he saw Sian smiling at him.

“Hi, Zacky,” she said.

“Has it been you the whole time?” he asked Samantha.

“No, I walked in first, and then we switched,” Sian said.

“Why?”

“To see if you could tell the difference. Obviously, we forgot a few things,” Sian said as she hip-bumped her sister.

“My bad, dude,” Sam said, throwing her hands up.

“Let’s see how many more people we can get,” Sian said with a mischievous smile on her face.

“That’ll be fun,” Zacky said.

_________________________________________________________

A few hours later, no one else suspected a thing. Zacky watched as they confused person after person who didn’t think Samantha would be there. He watched one of them disappear into the house and he jumped up the steps to the deck to wait for her to come back out.

Brian appeared beside him.

“Have you asked her yet?”

“Nah, not yet, dude,” Zacky said, finishing off his drink.

He bent to the table and fixed himself another one.

“Holy shit there’s two of them.”

Zacky whirled around to see both of the twins standing in front of them. He looked down to see that both of them had removed their jewelry from their wrists and he could barely tell the difference.

“Hi Brian, hi Zacky,” they both said at the same time.

“That’s just fucking freaky,” Brian said and blinked a few times. “That’s like some The Shining shit, right there. Fuck this.”

The girls just laughed at him as he walked away before turning their gaze to Zacky.

“This is your real test,” one of them said.

“You have to tell us apart,” the other said. “If you fail, you lose Sian.”

“Why, though?”

“She wants to prove to herself that you really do love her,” the first one said.

“The only way she can do that is if you pick the right one,” the second said.

Sian was excruciatingly nervous as she watched Zacky look over both of them. They knew they were identical; they’d made sure of that. She made sure tattoos and her scar was hidden before they left the house to face him. He connected eyes with her for a minute before moving back to Samantha.

She let out an almost defeated sigh as she watched him move over to Samantha and lean into say something in her ear. She dropped her head and tried not to cry. He couldn’t tell them apart.

Suddenly, he moved away from her sister and stood in front of her.

“Hi Sian,” he said, smiling.

“How could you tell?”

“I spent the better part of three months with you in Europe. I woke up to your face for three months, Sian. I know your face and I know you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Even when I was in Europe and should’ve been thinking about Samantha, I was thinking about you and what it would be like to have you as mine. I wanted to spoil you and give you things you’d never had before. I memorized everything about you Sian, because I’m in love with you. I don’t know why you don’t see that.”

She laughed even though she was tearing up. “I do see that, Zacky.”

“Good, now you won’t have to pull anymore shit like this, right?”

“Right,” she said and wrapped her arms around his neck. "What'd you tell Samantha?"

"I told her congratulations on her engagement."

"Aww, that was sweet," Sian said with a lopsided grin.

“About that question…”

“Ask me anything,” she said, pulling back a bit so she could see his face but still have her arms wrapped around him.

“Be mine, Sian.”

She looked into his eyes, those gorgeous blue-green eyes she couldn’t get out of her head and wondered why she was hesitating.

“Of course,” she said and leaned in to kiss him.

When they pulled away, she was still smiling.

“I’ve got one more thing to ask you, Sian.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Come on tour with me.”

Sian froze. She’d dreamed about him asking her that, but now that he was, did she really want to give up everything she’d worked so hard for?

“I know I’m asking a lot of you to take a year off of school and stopping your internship. I know that’s what you’ve wanted for so long, to work at NASA, and now you’re doing it, but I don’t think I can be away from you Sian. All I’m asking is that you give it a year, come on tour with me for a while, and then you can decide. If you come back, it won’t change how I feel about you or the fact that we’re together. It just means that it wasn’t for you.”

Sian looked at Zacky as she thought for a few minutes.

“Zacky, I don’t know…”

“I know, it’s a tough decision, and you don’t have to decide right now, but just know that whatever you choose I’ll love you still, and I’ll be there for you.”

Sian opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, the other guys started shooting off fireworks. Their attention was turned to the fireworks, but Sian’s gaze remained on Zacky. She wasn’t sure that she could really leave JPL. Sure, she hated the monotony of the job, but it’s what she’s been dreaming of since she was younger. She couldn’t leave the job.

A few more minutes passed before she squeezed Zacky’s hand.

“I’ve made my decision, Zacky.”