CHAPTER THREE
After school, Torrie approached me in the parking lot and held up her wallet. I chuckled in response.
"Let me guess; you want to go shopping."
"You know me so well."
"I'll drive behind you," I smiled.
We parked on the second floor of the Rocktrack Shopping Center in front of Cotton On.
"I'm in need of some new flannels," Torrie told me as we walked through the entrance.
"Welcome guys," a less-than-enthused retail worker looked up from the jeans she was folding to greet us.
"I'm thinking about getting a summer job here," she told me, "You want to go on a job search together?"
"I'm down; getting paid with my best friend sounds good to me."
Torrie and I had our first jobs just babysitting neighborhood kids a couple years ago. Last year, we spent a short stint working in local ice cream parlors and candy shops. It was only a matter of time until we decided to move on to being the cliché teenagers working in the mall for part-time hours.
We spent the next thirty minutes searching around the store and trying things on. Torrie settled on a black and green flannel, and I ended up buying a simple blue-white button-down.
As we walked out, I placed my arm in front of Torrie, stopping her and pulling her back through the doors.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Did you forget something?"
"Look," I said.
I pointed to a couple, standing in front of the maternity store across the main walkway. My heart sank as I watched my father kiss Laura.
"That's sickening. You want me to go over there and say something?" Torrie asked.
"No. I just—I don't even know why I stopped. I saw them and I—"
"It's alright," she told me. "Everything will be okay."
I glanced again and muttered, "Oh shit."
Laura and my father had spotted us, and they were heading in our direction.
"Ava, sweetheart," Dad greeted me.
"Hi," I simply said.
"And Torrie, it's nice to see you again," he added.
"Mhm-hmm," she hummed in reply.
"Love, I think I hear a salty pretzel calling my name in the food court. Can we please go?" Laura requested.
"Sure. But I—um, Ava, how are you doing?" Dad asked.
"Get Laura her pretzel; just go. Don't act like you still care."
"But I do; you know I do," he claimed. He reached out to pull me into a hug, but I stepped back.
"Sir, I know Ava is too much of a good daughter to say this, but fuck you," Torrie interjected and grabbed my arm. "Let's go."
I followed her to the nearest bathroom, leaving my father and his new woman.
"Thanks for that," I told her. "I couldn't get myself to walk away first."
"I've got your back; it's cool."
"It's weird seeing them together," I admitted.
"She called him Love."
I frowned. "I know. My parents used to call each other that."
"Hey, cheaters belong together," Torrie stated, "They deserve whatever's coming to them."
"But they look happy. I just don't understand how they deserve to be happy when they're the ones who did wrong, while my family and I have to suffer."
"The world's unfair and full of bullshit that we can't understand."
"Yeah, I guess it is. Utter bull—" My phone started vibrating.
I pulled it out of my bag and saw that my mom was calling.
"Hello?"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she howled.
"Mom? What are you talking about?"
"Your father just called me and told me that you just slapped Laura."
"I did not slap Laura!" I yelled.
Torrie eavesdropped in disbelief. Her jaw dropped.
"You're at the mall, right?" she inquired.
"Yes."
"Come home." She hung up.
I put my phone back in my bag and looked up at Torrie.
"That woman and your father just lied to your mom," she realized.
"Yeah, and the one time she chooses to speak up is to discipline me for something that defends them. You know, that's the loudest I've heard her speak in months."
"We should go to the food court."
"Why?"
"To confront your dad and Laura," she said. "We need to fix this."
I hesitated for a moment but ultimately nodded in agreement. We headed to the food court and found the couple sitting in front of an Auntie Anne's Pretzels.
"Oh, she's back," Laura spat. "You've got some nerve, Ava."
"I am so disappointed in you," my father stated.
"Why did you both lie to my mother like that?"
"Lie? You're the one who slapped me!" Laura argued.
"I didn't slap you. Torrie and I were in the bathroom."
Laura turned to a family seated nearby.
"You guys saw that, didn't you? This girl slapped me earlier." The whole family nodded.
"Great, and you got strangers to lie on your behalf. That's really low," Torrie said.
"You're the ones who are lying," my dad pushed his argument.
The whole situation was just confusing me. It was out-of-the-blue, and I didn't know how we were going to fix it.
"It's really none of my business, but seeing that you're in a fix, may I suggest looking at security footage?" the father of the family advised.
"That's a great idea, and you'll see that I was in the bathroom!"
"Don't get so excited, sweetheart; I suggested it to be on your parents' side. That slap was pretty damn harsh," he told me.
"I didn't do anything," I groaned, "And they're not my parents."
"Well, sweetheart, I will be eventually. You can call me mommy," Laura teased. She smirked, making me even more heated.
"Let's head to the security office," Torrie said. "Shall we?"
"You two lead the way," my dad told us.
"Yeah, we wouldn't want you making a run for it," Laura said.
Torrie and I led them to the back corner of the mall. We walked down a long hallway and approached a window with a security guard seated behind the glass.
"Is there a problem?" she asked, leaning forward. Her badge read the last name Costa.
"We were hoping to request to see some video footage of the past half hour," Laura explained. "This girl, right here, slapped me in the food court. However, she claims that she was in the bathroom."
"We need evidence to prove that I did not slap this woman," I told Costa.
"Alright, please enter through that door on the left. I'll have my partner bring up the footage for you."
We walked into the office and Costa pointed to a large man leaning against the wall.
"That's Rex; he'll take care of you guys."
"Rex, like T-Rex?" Torrie whispered to me.
I tried to stifle a chuckle as I observed the guard. He was very tall, had a thick neck, and he was definitely toned and defined, but his arms looked a bit short—disproportionate like the dinosaur.
Rex gestured for us to enter the room next to him.
"So you need footage of which locations?" he asked, taking a seat in front of a bunch of computer monitors.
"The tables in front of Auntie Anne's pretzels, and the bathroom closest to Cotton On and the maternity store," Torrie answered.
"Alright then," he said, "And you mentioned that you want the past half hour?"
"Correct," Laura nodded.
Rex pulled up a couple files.
"Alright, here's the food court," he explained, zooming in on one of the screens. He skipped through a few screenshots, and then Laura told him to stop.
"There!" she said.
Rex pressed the play button and the footage showed a girl slapping Laura.
"Sure looks like you," Rex told me.
"That's impossible!" Torrie shouted. "Now check the footage of the bathrooms."
"I don't see how it's going to do you any good, but okay," Rex said, switching to a different monitor. "The time stamp on the food court video was 5:17."
He fast-forwarded the bathroom clip to about 5:13 and the screen showed Torrie and I heading into the bathroom.
"There's your entrance," he said. Now, let's see when you two left.
Rex, Dad, and Laura were expecting to see us run out of the bathrooms within the next couple of minutes. However, that's not what happened. The footage showed us leaving the bathrooms around 5:22.
"See, we were in there the whole time," I said.
"That's very strange," Rex said. We were all thinking the same thing, as we observed both of the stills from the footage.
"You don't happen to have a twin, do you? Like, you're not just messing with everyone?" Rex asked me.
"No," I answered.
"How is that even—I mean, it looks like you," Torrie said.
"You're wearing the same clothes; same face. I mean, you even walk the same," my dad rambled.
"What kind of fuckery is this?" Laura asked, deadpanning. Her eyes met mine as if she were trying to suck out any evil in me.
"I can't explain what happened; I don't know what that was," I explained.
"Well, I think you guys owe Ava's mom a phone call," Torrie told Laura and my father.
Laura shook her head, still in disbelief. "Derek, you were there. You saw what happened."
My father sighed and pulled out his phone.
"Just so you don't get in trouble, Ava; I'm sorry," he told me as he dialed my mom's cell. "Hello, Juliana?" my father stepped out of the footage room.
"Can you throw your body or something, like people can throw their voice?" Rex guessed.
"If I could, I'd throw my body out of this mall right now."
"Fair enough," he said. "Now, was that all you guys needed? My lunch is coming up soon."
"Yes, it was; thank you, Rex," Laura stated.
"No problem, ma'am," he replied and escorted us out of the room.
My father hung up his phone as we walked out.
"Well, you're in the clear, sweetheart."
"Um, thanks, Dad," I replied.
"Rest assured we will find out what happened, though," Laura said.
"How? You're not a detective. Besides, it's all over, so let it go," Torrie told her.
"Look, I know you're Ava's best friend and everything, but I hardly believe that any of this concerns you. You're just a bystander," Laura responded.
"Hey, she's family," I argued.
"Yeah, I am!" Torrie agreed.
"Torrie, can we just go?" I requested. "I don't mean to cut the shopping trip short, but I don't want to be here anymore."
"Yeah, of course," she said.
"Yeah, go, Ava, run away from your troubles," Laura stated. "And Derek, we should go to." She kissed him the cheek, and I tried not to gag.
I hated this woman—yes, I know hate is a strong word, but it wasn't even strong enough to describe how she made me feel. I was just so angry. I tugged on Torrie's arm and we walked away from the awful couple.
We gave a quick nod to Costa as we exited the security office.
"Let me know how things go at home," Torrie told me as we separated in the parking lot.
"Yeah, I'll text you."
When I got home, I expected my mother to yell at me. She approached me at the bottom of the staircase and just looked at me for a moment.
"Whatever you thought happened, I'm sorry, but I told you, I didn't do it."
"Didn't I just see you?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You just walked into your room about five minutes ago."
"I just got here. Mom, are you okay?"
"I swear we just had this conversation."
"Maybe you need to lie down."
"Yeah, maybe," she said. "I'm going to the kitchen to make some tea."
She looked flustered and confused, which worried me a lot. I got a weird feeling in my gut, an intuition if you will, that something just wasn't right.
I headed upstairs into my room and Maia opened her door just to throw a book at me. It hit me in the shoulder and I flinched.
"Maia!"
"That's what you get for doing it to me first," she said and slammed her door shut.
"What is going on around here?" I muttered as I entered my own room.
I closed the door and I felt like I was being watched. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see a figure sitting on my bed. I slowly turned and my eyes widened.
"If you scream, I'll kill you," it said.
What was this thing that was in my room? I leaned my back against my door, afraid to make a noise.
Was this a way of foreshadowing? A harbinger of bad luck? Hallucination? An out-of-body experience? I thought to myself, "you can perceive the situation in any form you wish, but you're still going to end up with the same conclusion. All of this was fucked up."
It approached me, and I held my breath. I pushed away from the door and I looked at it up and down.
I observed the likeness of the creature that stood in front of me. I still hadn't decided if I want to refer to it as a human. It stared at me, smirking, as I circled around its body, observing every inch of the living nightmare in my presence.
"Why? How—this isn't real; this can't be real."
"Are you suggesting I'm simply a figment of your imagination?"
"I'm hoping you are. I must be hallucinating. Maybe I fell at the mall, and this is all a weird thought."
It leaned closer to my face and uttered, "Boo!" It laughed at me, mocking me, as I took a couple steps back.
"You're afraid, aren't you?" it asked me.
It chuckled and placed a hand on my cheek. It sure felt real. I froze as its cold fingers lingered on my skin. I was too afraid to move. What if it decided to attack me? What if it tried to eat me? What if it suddenly decided to cut my cheek open and then gauge my eyeballs out?
"Indeed, you're very afraid," it said.
"Am I going to die?" I asked.
"Not today," it simply stated. It pulled back its hand and started twisting a strand of hair around its pointer finger like a flirty preteen.
"What the hell are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" It turned me around to face my vanity mirror. I stood next to it, and we both stared at our reflections.
"Are you a clone?" I asked.
"Close, but no," it replied, "There's only one word for me."
"What? A psycho?"
My thoughts travelled to what I had read so far in Being Doubled, but I was in pure denial.
It widened its evil grin and said, "Doppelganger."
"So, you're who my mom saw earlier?"
"Yep."
"And you threw a book at my sister?"
"Yep," it continued to smirk.
"And...were you at the mall, too?"
"Bingo," it sang.
I sunk down to the floor and took a seat, trying to fathom the whole situation. I kept repeating to myself, "This isn't real. This isn't real."
"I'm real," it said to me. After that, I just remember things getting hazy.