012. 10 Out of 10

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012. 10 Out of 10

At Aquino High, skipping a class is like slipping further down the totem pole.


It's Monday, and I'm not prepared.

So much has happened since last Monday that I'm not even sure that I can bear to walk into school and see a Post-It note on my locker, flapping as people walk by. It's a symbol of the concerns of my past, but now I have so much more to worry about. Now it's just something that adds fuel to the flame, that makes Taylor more confusing and my life more complex.

I wake up grumpily at the sound of my alarm at six forty five. The house is dead silent, as if I'm the only one inside even though I know that Allison and my dad are in their respective rooms, likely still sleeping soundly. Allison is meticulous about her appearance in the mornings, but she has gotten it down to an art that somehow still takes less time than I do to get ready.

However, even after I get dressed and am downstairs in the kitchen figuring out breakfast, I still don't see my sister. It's not until I'm sitting at the breakfast room table stabbing halfheartedly at a coffee cake I heated in the microwave that she appears.

"Why aren't you ready for school?" I ask, curiosity weighing out my refusal to speak to her.

She tugs at the bottom of her pajama shorts, as if suddenly she's more self-aware of them. "I'm not going to school today."

My eyes bug out. Allison has never missed a day of school all year, except a time last fall when she had the stomach flu and literally couldn't even roll over in bed without being sick. Skipping school for her was like admitting defeat to me; that I had better grades than she did and a better shot of being number one in the class. It was like skipping classes because they didn't even matter anymore.

"Why?" I ask around a mouthful of coffee cake.

"Because by now, everyone in the entire school probably knows about me and Taylor. Do you think I can bear to show my face?"

She doesn't look at me as she says it, as if she's embarrassed for even me to hear. The guilt that I'd managed to compact and shove away for most of the weekend pulses in my gut, slowly expanding once more.

"The only people who know about that are Taylor, me, and you," I insist. "And Taylor would never tell anyone—he's just as bad off as you are if people find out."

"Why are you trying to convince me to come to school? Isn't this good for you, that I get to miss class and get behind on my work?" Now she's rummaging through the pantry, opening drawers and shoving aside boxes of crackers as if she's looking for something in particular. Finally, she turns around to make eye contact with me for the first time, and her eyes bug open wider. "You're eating my coffee cake!" she exclaims.

I immediately stop chewing. "You didn't label it. How was I supposed to know?"

"So now I have to label all the food in my own house?" She swallows noisily, a sign that when she was younger indicated she was about to begin a rare fit of tears. "Is that supposed to reduce me to some mere outsider status?"

"What do you mean?" It's never been unusual for me to label a plastic bag of nuts or candy if I didn't want Allison or Dad munching on it. Dad even labels all his Tupperware with leftovers, writing feigned threatening notes in Sharpie. "Everyone labels their food."

Allison slams open the cabinet that contains our cereals and grabs a box. "I guess that's just supposed to be some other reminder that I'm adopted," she spits out as if she hadn't even heard me. "Taylor and I don't even look alike, and now someone drops the bomb that we're supposed to be twins?"

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