The Amnesia Twins

Chapter Twenty-Three: Not Crystalline, but not Vi

Vi walked through the Alejandro family's front door, still red from all the sobbing she did back in San Francisco.

"Where have you been, young lady?" Mr. Alejandro asked.

"San Francisco," she said.

Mrs. Alejandro exhaled with relief. "Thank goodness you're alright. Why were you all the way over there?"

"Because you raised a bitch, Ma." Vi went to Crystalline's room and slammed the door. She collapsed on the bed, tired and ready to sleep.

* * *

An hour went by, and Vi still couldn't sleep. She couldn't stop thinking about how happy her family looked with Crystalline. How okay they were with her being gone. Even Aiden.

She looked at the alarm clock. Two a.m. Monday. It'd been over three weeks since they traded places.

Your short stories are due in three weeks, on Monday. She remembered that's what Mr. Thomas said. Who cares, anyway? It's not as if it was her assignment. It was Crystalline's. She didn't care. She didn't.

It was Crystalline's assignment, but it's still your story. After she had that thought, she still got up in a rush and turned on her laptop. She gathered all the notes she made, and began typing. She typed and typed and typed endlessly, and she probably had a lot of words spelled wrong as well as grammar mistakes, but she didn't care. She didn't write to be great. She didn't write for Crystalline. She didn't write for class. She wrote for her.

* * *

The goddess slaid Marquez. He was a harsh dictator, but why did she cry for him? She whispered one last thing to him. It surprised them both. "I'm sorry." He plopped on the floor. The Goddess looked at the sky. She really was sorry because now she knew how hard it was to be human. She knew what it was like to feel weak.

Vi typed that last paragraph and printed it. Now, she could finally sleep.

"Sweetie." Mrs. Alejandro opened the door. "It's time to get ready for school."
Vi grumbled, but complied.

* * *

When Vi walked to her first class, Mr. Thomas was there, collecting the stories from everyone as they walked in.

Vi walked up and handed in her story.

"Hello, Ms. Alejandro," Mr. Thomas said. "I'm happy to see that you decided to submit your story after all." He skimmed it. He opened his mouth to speak, but Vi spoke before he could.

"I don't care if my spelling is wrong," she said. "I don't care if my punctuation could be better, or if my characters still aren't good enough. I don't care. I worked hard on my story, and I'm proud of it, no matter what you say."

Mr. Thomas smiled. "Very good, Ms. Alejandro."

Vi blinked. "What? You aren't going to lecture me about how I'm missing the backbone of a story?"

He shook his head. "All the things you listed are important, but you have the most important thing now that you've lacked these past few weeks."

"And what's that?"

"Passion. The want to write. The need to express your life lessons and emotion with the pen." His cheeks, which were covered in a scruffy beard, were from ear to ear in a warm smile. "I'm proud of you, kiddo."

"I . . ." Vi was speechless. She didn't remember the last time an adult said they were proud of her, not because she sued a restaurant and saved their house, or got the upperhand of some gossipy woman at a charity event, but because they were actually proud of her for her accomplishments. Her growth. She swooped in to give Mr. Thomas a hug. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for everything."