Segment VII: unedited

(Caution: chapter could be triggering. Proceed at your own discretion.)

He was addicted to causing himself pain.

When the infraction began, that had been what he was thinking of. Everything he did was to strategically invoke pain – physical, mental, emotional. He left his lips bloody and his thoughts in tatters, because everything that dragged him away from his tight, quiet little insanity was worth the suffering it brought with it.

He couldn’t bring himself to pierce his skin. That was what he feared most – becoming so intent on causing himself pain that he took more solid, forceful steps towards it. Sometimes he would lie awake in bed and think of Keane and the argument he had instigated. The bruises that their fight had left, paintings of agony on his ribcage and eye sockets, collarbones and veined forearms. Then he would fall asleep and dream of the pain becoming a temporal force, rampaging from his mind to his fingertips.

The nightmare always went like this: he was sitting in a bathtub. One that curved up around his ears, high enough to touch the wooden ceiling. He was holding a razor, a shaving blade that he had dislodged from underneath his grandfather’s sink. When he was dreaming, he could never see himself moving towards the skin. Sawing through it.

That was something he felt, white-hot, worthy of screaming and crying and recoiling. The blood was crimson, horrifyingly bright as it splashed over the marble lip of the tub. It dribbled into the lukewarm water and dissolved into the space over his stomach, tendrils curling down to penetrate beneath the skin.

And when he awoke, sheet cleaving to his chest, his arms would be throbbing, the pain as vivid and telling as if it were part of his new, terrible reality.

***

For the first time in weeks, he couldn’t remember the nightmare. His arms ached and his head was pounding, but he couldn’t remember that dismal scene, feel the slippery metal between his palms.

His mind was strangely clear. His thoughts were not humming and his sheet was not tangled about his chest, but the strangest thing of all was the sunlight, brighter and clearer than it had ever been before.

It did not come to him for a while. He pushed the comforter away and stood up, shaking his hair out of his eyes. He slipped his night shirt over his head, headed downstairs to wash his face in the bathroom sink. There, hands cupped around his cheeks, water dripping off his forehead, his nightmare surged back.

And he realized that this dream was his reality, now. It was all too painstakingly real. His heart clenched, and he dropped his hands against the sink basin. His knees sagged and his skin crawled, and he let his forehead fall forward. His mind was suddenly too heavy to bear.

His fault. Everything was his fault. Keane – or lack thereof – would not let him forget it.

Upon hearing the news of this fault, his grandparents had pitched a fit. His grandmother had wailed and his grandfather had pursed his lips, sunk into his plaid armchair with his coffee cup and his acid disappointment. They had tried to talk him out of it. The world was ugly, they had told him. There were dangerous thing in reality, none of which he was prepared to face.

What they didn’t realize was that he – Keane Edinberg – was one of the dangerous things.

And since Keane got whatever he wanted, because he was beautiful and charismatic and rebellious, his latest infinity had come true. He was moving into an apartment all of his own for the fall, and for the summer he was going to vacation in Munich with one of his rich friends.

His fault. His grandparents had blamed him. After the schoolyard fight, they had finally caught wind of the disillusionment between the twins. But Gideon didn’t feel guilty – not one miniscule, nightmarish bit. Why should he be guilty? Keane’s anger and roaming spirit was not his fault. Lumi’s sudden appearance in Keane’s life was not his fault. And the fight had not been his fault – Keane had spurred it, and Keane had fought it to the finish.

His brother, Gideon discovered, was the perfect excuse to all of his problems. Everything that had failed in his life was Keane’s fault. None of it was his own, and that was a beautiful thing to realize.

But maybe it was that very thing that was keeping Lumi away.

“Gideon!” His grandfather pounded on the bathroom door. “You have school in fifteen minutes! Get moving, boy.”

“I’m going!” Gideon yelled back. He rose from the sink, shaking the droplets from his face and hair. He brushed his teeth quickly and sprinted back up into the attic, where he changed into a wrinkled shirt and his favorite jeans. He grabbed his shoes on his way back down the stairs, laces slapping his bare arms. The sensation reminded him of his nightmare – the instantaneous flash of pain, a crackle across his skin and then the dulled stinging, a terrible distraction from his angry thoughts.

The kitchen was empty. The driveway was empty, Keane and his black car safely en route to school without Gideon. The knowledge stung more than the shoelaces upon his skin, even though he was supposed to hate his brother. He did hate him. But it was still hard to get used to, coming downstairs to an empty kitchen. The familiar panic of abandonment crept through him as he slouched down the front steps, shoes still bare and stomach grumbling.

Keane was leaving him behind again. This time, their fight had been purposeful. The divide was something that could not be bridged or measured, and Gideon should have been glad. Instead, he felt empty. Empty and angry, and as he walked to school he wished that he was still dreaming.

That way, nothing would be real. Nothing would affect him. To be untouchable was to be courageous. This was something Gideon had always thought he wanted – but now he discovered that he simply wanted safety back. His old routine, albeit one of tension and hatred.

With that routine, he knew what to expect. This strange gap between him and Keane unsettled him, as greatly as the sight of Lumi walking alongside the road.

His fault. Lumi.

At first, it didn’t register. Then he realized that it was Lumi, blue head bent against the morning air. Her knees socks were sagging and her backpack trailed from one hand, banging against her legs as she walked. But somehow she still looked beautiful. Was it because she was untouchable? Was it because she belonged to Keane?

Keane had chosen her because he wanted to hurt Gideon. Because he knew how Gideon felt about beauty, and those who defied the societal standards of it. This fact was as apparent as daylight, clear as the ugly smirk on his face. But he failed to realize that Gideon would want Lumi simply because she was unattainable. She was Keane’s, and he could not have her. That in itself was alluring.

But Gideon tried not to think of his revenge upon Keane, or Keane’s revenge upon him, as he crossed the street. He had to jog a bit to catch up to her, and by the time he did his gelled cowlick had come undone. He shook the sandy strands out of his eyes, taking her in.

“Hey,” He said carefully.

Lumi’s head jerked up. She stared at him, the black of her mascara and the blue of her eyes stark against her milky skin. “Hello.” She replied, just as carefully. She pulled her backpack up and slung it over her shoulders, holding it against her body like a shield.

Gideon licked his lips. Courageous. He wanted to be courageous, and here was his golden opportunity. “I wanted to apologize. About last week.”

Lumi was silent.

“I mean,” he fumbled, “it was cruel. Keane was cruel. And I wanted to apologize.”

She tilted her head. “Are you apologizing for him?”

“No! No, uhm.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, thinking. He was making a mess of things and he hadn’t even been talking for five minutes. “For making things worse. And for what happened. Because, I think, it was my fault. That Keane didn’t help you.”

“Nothing,” Lumi said stiffly, “could impair Keane from helping me. That was a conscious choice, on his part.” She paused. Over the hill the spire of the schoolyard loomed, foreboding as the words between them. “Thank you, though. For helping me.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” She raised one eyebrow. “And here I thought you weren’t so bad, for a duplicate. At least, you weren’t as duplicated as I thought you would be.”

Gideon blushed. Talking to her was like walking on broken glass – he was never sure how she would react, what she would say to wound him. It was at once thrilling and painful, and he was reminded against of his addiction. Causing himself pain. Was Lumi a necessary pain, feeding his strange addiction?

“Thank you.” He said. What else was there to say?

They had reached the town by now. The buildings surrounded them, trapping their words between them. The sky was as blue and wondrous as her dandelion hair. It all seemed so hopeful that his arms stopped aching and his mind ached instead, because it felt like too much to take in on a Monday.

But with her next words, Lumi picked up that broken glass and dug it straight into his skin. She took a deep, tortured breath and said, “Don’t thank me. I haven’t decided if it's a good thing or not.”

For a split second, it sounded like a beautiful statement. But then Gideon realized that she hadn’t left Keane yet. She hadn’t decided to burn her bridges, as he had. She was still holding onto his twin brother, and no matter how hard he tried or how different he was, she would still value Keane over him.

And how could an infraction occur, if the girl at the heart of it was still holding onto her present misery for dear life?