Em says I’m Avril Lavigne’s clone. He wouldn’t be wrong. I think I have a thing for punk aesthetic. The fishnets, the leather jackets, the patches, the music, everything.
“The Empire State Building is in New York, genius,” I reply easily.
“How is it that you and Emerson are even related? I mean a man who looks like him, related to you? It’s kinda pathetic actually.”
I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t get stuck.
My twin, Emerson, who was blessed with all of the good looks is your friendly, neighborhood bad boy. The title is hysterical. Honestly, it sounds like someone needs to write a Wattpad fanfiction about him. However, it was kinda true. All the dude does is fuck and fuck shit up. Em is addicted to adrenaline, of feeling like he’s on a high every second of his life.
There is something about girls my age who love a man with sharp edges and Emerson? Well, my twin was made of edges.
“Well if you’d have paid attention in biology you’d know that when two eggs are fertilized at the same time —”
“I know how it fucking happens.” She snaps at me like a rabid dog.
I’m almost intimidated.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I say as I pull my over ear headphones up over my head, getting ready to block out her nasally voice.
“She’s just jealous,” one of her minions retorts as if it’s the most epic burn in the entire world.
There were a lot of things I was. Eccentric, odd, peculiar, awkward, blue haired, irrational, but jealous? I was never that.
“Me? Jealous?” I scoff.
“I play five instruments, my IQ is higher than both of yours combined. I’m a child prodigy, who is a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, and you think I’m jealous of the girl who is gonna peak in high school and failed remedial math? That’s a joke, eh?”
Harsh, but truthful. Plus, I may be invisible in our high school food chain but that didn’t mean I was going to let her walk all over me. I was peaceful but not a pushover. I was kind of glad Emerson wasn’t here, he would’ve said something about how her pussy stinks and that’s a little much.
The shocked looks on their faces amuses me. I’d love if someone would snap a picture and put it in the yearbook with the caption:
‘The moment we realized how irrelevant we are.’
“Alright students, if you will head up to your rooms for the evening, we will meet in the lobby tomorrow morning,” one of our chaperones says before Stacy can come up with another comeback.
I wave and smile sarcastically at them as they walk to the elevator.
Just one more year, Charlotte, senior year is fast approaching and then you can leave. You won’t have to deal with people like this anymore. You are going to leave for college, and be surrounded by people who enjoy the same things as you.
They are going to want to study, to play music, and talk about things that matter. I’m going to have to drag Emerson by his hair to college, but I’m not letting him go straight into the draft out of high school.
If he gets hurt, he’s fucked, he has no backup plan, and he is not sleeping on my couch drinking his life away. I want him to have options, because he deserves to have a successful life, and hockey doesn’t have to be the only plan.
Instead of going to my room like we were instructed, I manage to wiggle my way out the front doors of the hotel without being spotted. My violin case is on my back, and my headphones are over my ears. I had everything I needed. Today we went sightseeing, Millennium Park, Navy Pier, Willis Tower, all the things the city of Chicago has to offer.
But tomorrow, that’s when the real magic happens.
The entire reason for this trip was to watch the Chicago Orchestra perform. We were a group of band and choir members from a small high school in Canada. Although I’m not sure why Stacy was in choir. I think she likes the sound of her own voice.
I enjoyed anything that involved the violin so I jumped at the opportunity to leave my home and discover another part of the world. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life yet. I was expected to achieve great things, but honestly I just wanted to play music. So I was exploring every option possible to be able to do that.
I walk down the sidewalk a bit, enjoying the fact that the streets are less busy than downtown Chicago, but there is still enough hustle and bustle that I can people watch.
I press play on my music, letting the sweet sounds of Blink 182 fill my ears. When I’m listening to music, when I’m playing music, I’m somewhere else entirely. It’s the safest high in the world. There is no place I feel myself until I have my violin in my hands, then I can make home anywhere.
Music is a part of me, deep down in my soul I know that my spine is made of double whole notes. My ribs are a collection of thirty-second and sixteenth notes. My fingers are an extension of the strings on my violin. Sheet music coats my DNA, when I die and they cremate me the fire will crackle and release the sounds of Green Day and the Ramones.
With my head in the clouds, and my mind on music, I don’t even notice my untied shoelace. I continue my path down the sidewalk, just wanting to walk around a little longer before returning to my hotel room.
I was on the side closest to the road, enjoying the crisp wind on my face when I noticed the large brick wall on the opposite side of the road. The bright colors and striking image pull me in. It’s a huge mural, expanding from the top of the building all the way to the bottom. My eyes can’t figure out what to look at first. The depiction of the tall man huddled over a group of children, or the war scene that is taking place in front of them. Each piece of the drawing tells a story. The soldiers on one side are holding shields made of feathers, while the man protecting the child has two large scars down his back.
Fallen angel.
I’m so enthralled by the graffiti mural I don’t even notice myself tripping on the aglet of my shoelace.
I intake a breath, diving head first toward the asphalt road, hearing the sounds of horns honking knowing I’m about to crash into oncoming traffic.
I tense my entire body hoping that when I hit the ground and get run over it’s a quick death.
I wait for the feeling of a rubber tire but it never comes, I’m met with the softness of skin, and the smell of oak and leather. Warmth is wrapped entirely around me, and I nervously crack one eye open holding the other closed.
The first thing I see is the long brown hair and my head immediately starts spinning, my stomach churning.
“Jesus?” I whisper.
I hadn’t expected the son of God to look so much like a real-life Adonis.
The light brown hair that hangs straight, brushing his shoulders a few pieces falling in front of his face. His pillowy lips are drawn into a hard line across his face, but the corner twitched meaning he wanted to smile, but refrained. His face was so strong and defined, his features molded from granite almost.
I was swooning over Jesus. Here I am in heaven, freshly dead, just strutting through the gates, and I’m too worried about the bone structure of this man.
Dark eyebrows, which sloped downwards in a serious expression as his eyes ran across my face and body. Checking for injuries, I think. My mind was a boggle of mud, I wasn’t thinking properly. I wasn’t sure if it was from the near-death experience or how handsome the man holding me is.
There wasn’t one feature in particular that made him handsome, but his eyes, they came close. Hazel, but more green. Like fresh dew glinting in the sunlight off a leaf of green emerald. The inner circle around his pupil was the purest form of yellow I’d ever seen, like freshly discovered citrine. For the cherry on top there were speckles of light brown scattered throughout, like stars in a colorful galaxy.