Within/Without

chapter three.

    "Sounds nerdy."

    "You," he says, gesturing at me with chopsticks, "write sad little love poems in a tiny journal that you won't ever let anyone read. Don't talk to me about nerdy."

    "Not just poems. I do prose, too."

    "God, I can't believe we're related," he says, shaking his head. If I had a quarter for the amount of times Noah has said this to me, I could have bought every single one of my faces a brand new car. (That is a lot of quarters, in case you were wondering.) "Look. Just leave me and my motor alone and I'll leave you and your poems alone. Fair?"

    "Fair," I agree, "but I feel like we've made this deal before and it did not work out."

    "You are probably right," Noah says, then sighs, setting his safety glasses down. He regards me with considerably less mirth now, like a judge presiding over a court. Noah has never been interested in law and yet somehow manages to mirror a judge's cool, reticent expression with the utmost accuracy. It's almost scary. Okay, no. It is scary. "What did Mr. Ripley want?"

    I suffer a mini heart attack. "I didn't tell you—"

    "You came home from your philosophy class slightly later than usual. Usually that means Mr. Ripley paged you," Noah says. Promptly, he rolls up the sleeves of his flannel. I hate flannel. He knows I hate flannel and I'm pretty sure that's why he wears it all the goddamn time. "So what did he want?"

    I could lie. It would be so easy to lie.

    Except it's my brother, and if anyone knows me inside and out, it's him. I've never been able to lie to him, not all twenty-one years I've been alive.

    Just so I don't have to look at him, I lean forward, resting my head on the table. My hair falls around my face, shielding me from the world, just the way I want. "He said I'm getting sloppy, and that people are gonna start getting suspicious if I don't fix it," I say. "He also asked me the future question."

    "Shit, man," Noah says, scarfing down another roll. "You're screwed, aren't you?"

    "It could be worse, couldn't it?" No reply. "Noah. Please be a good person and tell me it could be worse."

    "It could, I guess. You could be exiled out of the country. Or you could have contracted a terminal illness, like ebola," Noah agrees. I turn my head to the side, just so I can glare at him. "Thank goodness it's not either of those, right?"

    I grit my teeth. "You're insufferable."

    Noah smiles at me. He got Mom's dimples, two perfect little divots in each of his cheeks. I did not get Mom's dimples. I got this stupid ability to not hold on to one face, the origin of which is still yet to be known. I'm a walking enigma, and it's because of people like Mr. Ripley who say things like what Mr. Ripley said that I am growing slightly tired of it.

    "One of my many charms," Noah says. He flicks his safety glasses back on his face and picks up his screwdriver again, leaving the empty sushi container in front of him like a devastating casualty of war. Because I'm a somewhat considerate person, I pick it up and drift off towards the kitchen, where I drop the chopsticks in the sink and chuck the rest of it in the trashcan.

    Then I stop.

    I know what he's going to say, once I tell him—so by all means this is a bad idea. For some reason, though, I'm going to do it anyway.

    "Noah?"

    "Hm?"

    "I'm...going out with Val again."

    I almost expect him to throw something, so it's twice as scary when he calmly sets his screwdriver down and just looks at me, silently. Even then I'm expecting him to start yelling. A fair half of the memories I have with Noah, he's yelling. But he isn't now.

    "You're sick," he says, "and not in the cool way. How many times does she have to reject you until you get it?"

    "I—" I cut off, not entirely sure how to finish the sentence. The chopsticks clang as they settle near the drain and then I'm crossing the room, pulling a chair out for myself and sitting beside Noah, close enough that he seems vexed. "It's not me, exactly. I don't force whenever we meet; it just happens. And it just so happens that this time, I was wearing my face. This face. Simon St. John. Not Oliver, not anyone else."

    Noah scowls at me. His breath still smells like soy sauce. "You really think that's going to make a difference?"

    "It has to," I say, fumbling with my fingers. "I mean...I want it to."

    Underneath the faded overheads, Noah's eyes are pools of honey, but not quite as sweet. They're cool and collected and frighteningly matter-of-fact. Nothing slips by them, not even me, one of the most elusive creatures on the planet. Perhaps it's only fitting that a natural-born deceiver would get stuck with a brother whose only priority is the truth.

    You're a shapeshifter, I remember him telling me once, when I was still in high school, that doesn't mean you have to be a liar all the time.

    "Simon."

    I expect him to go on, but instead he just sighs and ruffles my hair gently. Mine's way redder and thicker than his. My hair is made for a mountain man. Noah's is made for magazine covers—blond, neat, not too fine and not too thick.

    "Simon," he starts again. "I know what you're afraid of. I know you mean well, but you have to promise me something."

    "Sure," I tell him, as he drops his hand. "Anything."

    "If...if it doesn't work out," he says, lowering his head slightly and regarding me from underneath his eyelashes, "you've gotta let her go."

    You've gotta let her go.

    The words hang in the air between us like a scent lingering days after its source was introduced. I've thought about it before. Val's and my childhood together isn't like most others; it's nothing like the movies say. I can't say that it's much of a childhood together at all, really. How can it be, when only one of us remembers every piece of it?

    So I've thought about this before. One day I'm going to have to move on. I want to believe I keep running into her for a reason, but maybe it's just the most painful sort of coincidence.

    No one could ever trust me. No one could ever trust me, because no one knows me.

    When it comes down to it, that's the truth.

    Noah's peering at me now, like I'm one of his disassembled robotics projects. Like he can click a button or weld a wire and fix me, easy, but he just has to figure out which. God, if only.

    "I promise," I tell him, getting up again. I don't want to look him in the eye. "Okay, Noah. I promise."