It's A Twin Thing | j. clarke [1]

twelve

-:- House of Scares / House of Fakers -:-

 I woke up the next morning with a bad feeling in my stomach. I skipped breakfast—my throat was getting tight just at the thought of it. With my extra time I decided to straighten my hair to hopefully lighten my weird mood. I didn't straighten it often, but I liked the way it looked. My hair was shorter than Nina's by a few inches and fell at just below my armpit. Nina's went down to her mid-back, and it still amazed me how long she chose to keep it. Examining myself in the mirror, I realized how long it'd been since I'd seen myself with this hair. It had been months at least, and it was a strange sight—a good strange.

I was knocked out of my trance when Amber and Nina came back from breakfast. Amber let out a squeal at the sight of my hair, running over to see it closer.

"It looks so much better," Amber gaped, reaching a hand out to touch the ends of my hair. "Why haven't you done this before?"

"Yeah," Nina said, coming to observe it for herself. "Why the sudden change?"

I shrugged. "I'm just feeling a little off today, so I decided to do something to make me feel a bit better."

"I love it," Amber said enthusiastically. "You simply must keep doing this."

I laughed at Amber's theatrics before she turned to get ready herself. Nina gave me a curious look, and took two steps toward me so she could whisper without Amber hearing.

"Is everything okay?" She asked me.

"Yeah," I said softly. "Like I said, just feeling a little off."

"Are you sick?"

I shook my head.

"I'm not sure what it is," I explained. "I just feel a bit anxious, like something bad is about to happen."

"What type of bad?" Nina asked, eyes growing wide. "Does it have to do with the clues?"

"I don't know," I responded. "It doesn't exactly work like that."

"You're right," she sighed. "Sorry, that was a little insensitive of me."

I gave her a smile to show I wasn't angry at her, and went to my bed to pack my bag. On our way leaving Anubis House, Nina, Amber, Patricia, and I saw people taking down the security cameras in the hallways. Victor was sneering at the workers, watching his access to our pieces disappear in front of his eyes. I almost laughed at the sight, it was satisfying to have won the fight against the cameras after the work we'd put in. Technically, it was Amber who got rid of them, but I'm sure our peaceful protests helped.

"So, Lizzie," Amber started once we were outside. "You never told me about that ex-boyfriend of yours."

My gut twisted at her words. I'd purposefully avoided her during lunch yesterday so I didn't have to explain my disastrous romantic history. I thought I was home free when she didn't mention it at dinner or this morning, but clearly, she hadn't forgotten.