Doppelganger (13 page)

“Hi, Mrs. Denby,” I said. “Sorry to just show up like this, but I was wondering if Echo could maybe stay over tonight. It would just be one night.”

She looked a little confused. I could tell she was trying to figure out what was going on.

“Everything's all right,” I added. “We just had something come up, that's all.”

“Oh dear,” she said. “What happened?”

“Dad's really sick,” Echo broke in. “And Mom's away visiting my aunt.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I'm taking care of him, and we all thought it would be better if Echo stayed with a friend tonight. You know, one less thing to worry about.”

“Sure,” Mrs. Denby said. “Tina would love to have Echo for the night.”

For a second we all kind of stood there. I could see Mrs. Denby working our story out in her mind. Then
Echo's teeth started to chatter.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. Mrs. Denby sort of started a little.

“Oh. Now you're sure your father's all right? Maybe you should take him to the hospital.”

“He's just got a sore throat, that's all. He can hardly talk. But I think he'll be better tomorrow.”

“I hope so,” she said. She looked down at Echo and, for the first time, smiled. “Come on in, Echo. It's cold out.”

Echo started to go, but I took her hand.

“Could I just talk to her for a second?” I said to Mrs. Denby.

She nodded and closed the door. I kneeled down in front of Echo.

“You're okay with all this?”

She nodded. She looked just like she had that first morning I saw her—with that sort of far-off expression on her face, like she was somewhere else.

“It would probably be a good idea if you didn't talk about what happened tonight,” I said.

“I know that,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “Just go to school tomorrow, and I'll see you when you get back.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”

“Don't hurt him any more,” she said.

“I won't. I promise.”

She nodded and walked into the house. I watched the door close, then left.

I walked back down the street, but when I reached our yard, I suddenly picked up speed again. I couldn't go back
into that house, not with him in there. I'd promised Echo I wouldn't hurt him again, and I didn't think I would, but I wasn't sure I trusted myself. Not now.

And so I kept on going, down the street, farther into the cold.

I tried waving someone down for a ride a few times, but no one stopped. Still, it was so freezing that I walked fast, and soon I was crossing the wide lawn and going around behind the house, where I could see Amber's bedroom light was still on.

I flicked a pebble up, then another. She appeared at the window for a brief moment, then disappeared.
Maybe she didn't see me
, I thought. I wondered if I should throw another rock up. Then another thought occurred to me as I stood there in the freezing cold. I remembered the look that had crossed her face after we kissed. Maybe she did see me. Maybe she'd changed her mind. I blew into my hands to try to warm them up and waited a minute, but when she didn't come back, I started to walk away.

“Chris.”

I turned to see her standing in the back doorway in sweatpants and a T-shirt, her arms wrapped around herself against the chill. She beckoned with one hand, then turned back inside, leaving the door open, and I hurried to follow her in.

Amber shut the door of her bedroom behind me as I stumbled in. I pulled off my jacket and collapsed onto the bed. For a minute I just lay there, feeling my nose and cheeks begin to thaw. The burning felt good.

Amber, meanwhile, sat at her desk, watching me.

“What's going on, Chris?” she finally asked.

“Not much,” I said, sitting up. “Just thought I'd pop in for little visit. So how you doing?”

She laughed. “Right,” she said. She fixed me with a look. She'd let me slide before; she wasn't going to now.

I shrugged. “There's some stuff going on at home,” I said. “I just needed to get out of there for a little while, that's all.”

What was I supposed to say? That the family was falling apart piece by piece? I tried to think of what was left of the Parkers. After tonight, it seemed like nothing.

“Okay,” she said.

“Barry's such a creep,” I muttered, seeing him shove Echo's face into the food all over again in my head. I knew
he'd done far worse—to her and to Chris—but for some reason the gesture really bothered me.

“Who?” Amber asked, her eyes narrowing.

Whoops
. “I mean Dad,” I said, looking down.

She got up from her chair and came over to sit beside me on the bed, and took my hand.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for letting me in. I wasn't sure if you saw me out there.”

“I saw you,” she said.

“Good thing. I was just about frozen. After I dropped Echo off, I walked all the way over here. No one would stop to pick me up.”

“People don't stop anymore. It's too dangerous—you never know who you're going pick up.”

“Well, they're right about that,” I murmured.

“Why didn't you just drive?” she asked suddenly.

I hesitated. “I couldn't,” I said at last. “It's a long story.”

“Is Echo okay?”

“She'll be fine. Things will be fine,” I said. “I think so, anyway. I hope so. I mean, I did what I could to put an end to it, an end to all of…well, you know what I mean.”

“No, I don't,” she said. “I don't know anything about it. You've never told me.”

“Oh,” I said.
Idiot
. Why would I have ever thought that Chris would tell her about Barry, about Echo and Sheila and everything that was going on between them? Then I remembered that night of our first date, how Amber had cringed when I stepped toward her, just like Echo had with Barry, and suddenly I knew why. I guess, deep down, I'd known all along.

“I'm sorry,” I said, turning toward her. “I'm sorry for everything.”

She reached up and drew me toward her like she had at the lake and kissed me again, just once, a long, slow kiss.

After it was done, she pulled back and looked up into my eyes. I felt like she was looking right into me, right through Chris and deep inside, into my ugly old screwed-up self. It was too much. I had to turn away.

From the corner of my eye, I watched her stand up and walk back toward the desk. But halfway across the floor she slowed, then stopped and looked up. She turned toward me and paused for a moment.

Before she even said it, I knew it was coming. Looking back, I think she was even giving me a chance to stop it, to step in and distract her from what she didn't want to say, and then we could have both gone on pretending.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

I tried to act like I hadn't heard her, but she said it again, louder.

“What do you mean?” I said, standing up. I tried laughing, but it stuck in my throat.

She didn't move from where she stood. She looked beautiful, like a statue with her hair pulled back and her arms wrapped tight around her just as she had appeared standing outside earlier in the open doorway. She even seemed to shiver a little, though the room was warm.

“I don't know who you are. But you're not Chris.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “But it's true.”

We were both silent for a minute. Every second that went by, every second I sat there saying nothing, confirmed it.
But all of a sudden, I realized I wanted her to know. What's the point of loving someone if they don't even know who you are or that you exist? Or worse, if they think you're somebody you're not? But Amber didn't think that anymore. She deserved to know the truth.

“How'd you know?” I said at last.

She shifted from one foot to the other and shrugged.

“Lots of things,” she said. “The way you've been acting lately—it's not Chris. Trust me. And then this afternoon at the lake. It was like you'd never been there before. You had no idea what happened there. The first time or the second. Right away I could tell.”

I looked down at the carpet. I couldn't help wondering if that's what our surprise trip had been about.

“So you were testing me?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Not on purpose, anyway. Not in that sense. I guess if I was testing anyone, it was myself, trying to see if everything I'd been feeling about you these last few days was real, or if it was all some crazy mistake.” She paused. “But when I kissed you, that's when I knew for sure.”

“How?”

She shrugged again. “You didn't kiss like Chris did. You just…it's hard to explain.”

I nodded and tried to smile.

“Where's Chris?” she asked suddenly.

The question took me off guard, though it shouldn't have. I took a deep breath.

“He's dead,” I said at last.

For a second she didn't say anything. I watched her eyes fill with tears.

“Oh God,” she gasped, and closed her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and turned away. All of a sudden, my heart began pounding. I started to reach out for her, then stopped. Something told me it wasn't a good idea just then. So instead I hung back and waited and tried to stop my chest from beating so loud.

Finally she turned back to me. “So who
are
you?” she asked. “Don't tell me you're some long-lost twin brother or something like that.”

Actually, that wasn't a bad explanation. I used to see stuff like that all the time on the soap operas. For a brief moment, I was tempted to go with it.

“No,” I whispered. “Nothing like that.”

She hesitated. “Then
what
are you?”

I thought back to the old man in the boxcar. He'd asked me the same question.

“I'm an angel,” I said, remembering what the old man had said. I shook my head and started to laugh, but it came out all bitter sounding.

“Just tell me the truth,” Amber said, disregarding my laugh.

“You want to know the truth, huh?” I sat back down on the bed. “Okay. The truth is, I'm a monster.”

“Don't say that,” she said, shaking her head. She came over and sat back down beside me.

“No, really, I am.”

I started explaining to her what a doppelganger was. I told her about the shape changing, the stalking, all that stuff. Except for the mating part. I didn't feel like bringing it up. Instead, I told her about my mother and where I'd grown up. I even told her what had happened with
Chris—how I came to meet him and how he ended up dead. She was quiet through the whole thing with this funny kind of look on her face, like she was taking me seriously, but at the same time trying to decide whether I was crazy or she was crazy or both of us were.

She didn't stop me until I got to the part about Chris.

“So it was an accident,” she said, like she was explaining it to me instead of the other way around. “You know, like self-defense.”

“Well, not exactly,” I said, hesitating.

“Yeah, but he attacked you first, right?”

“I guess.”

“And you didn't really want to kill him,” she went on.

“No. I just wanted to be left alone.”

She nodded. We were both quiet for a minute.

“How many other people have you killed?” she finally asked.

“Just the old man, that's the only other one.”

“That's not so bad,” she said. She stood up and came over to me. It's like she was sticking up for me. I should've been happy—I mean, it was the last thing I would've expected. To tell a girl that you're a killer—that you killed her boyfriend, no less—you'd think she'd be screaming for her parents and bolting for the door. Not Amber.

“I mean, you said you don't really like it, right? You don't really want to kill people, do you?” she said.

That's when I knew Amber loved me, at least on some level. When you love somebody, you make excuses for them. You rationalize all kinds of things. Echo had done it for Barry, Amber was doing it for me now.

“No,” I said. “And yes. It's hard to explain. It's like an
urge inside you. You end up giving in. I felt it before. I know I'll feel it again. It's only a matter of time.”

“But I don't understand,” she said. “I mean, you said before that doppelgangers can eat just about anything, that they're tough creatures. Why don't all of you just go live out in the woods and eat bugs or something? Why do you have to come after us?”

It was a good question, the same one I'd asked my mother.
Because that's just the way we are
, she'd told me. But I'd never liked that answer. It wasn't even really an answer.

“I don't know,” I said.

She turned and walked away from me toward the door. I had a sudden fear that she was about to take off, make an escape. But then she stopped and turned around.

“I want to see you,” she said. “You know, underneath. What you really look like.”

“No, you don't,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “Otherwise I don't really know. I want you to prove it to me. Prove who you really are.”

“I can't, Amber. I wish I could. But if I let go of Chris, he's not coming back.”

It wasn't completely true—I could've shown her a glimmer, like the ones I'd seen in the mirror. My mother used to do that, especially when I was little and she'd come home as someone else and I'd be scared. She'd blur the form for just a second or two, enough for her real, hideous self to show through for a moment. But I'd never done it before on purpose, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it right. Besides, the last thing I wanted was for her to see how monstrous I really was. I mean, if we could hardly stand to see ourselves, how could a human stand to see us?

“You just have to trust me,” I said. “Please.”

She nodded and came back over to me. The next thing I knew, she was putting her arms around my waist and leaning her head against my chest. I slowly put my arms around her, too, and for a couple minutes we just stood there and didn't speak. It felt good to hold her, to feel her warmth after all that cold.

“I won't tell anyone,” she said.

I hadn't even thought about the possibility that she might, but as soon as she said it, I felt a sudden relief.

“So you really do believe me, then?” I asked. I probably shouldn't have pushed my luck, but it seemed strange, her taking the news so well.

She looked up into my eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Why? I mean, it's ridiculous.”

“It is,” she said. After a moment she shrugged. “I don't know why. Maybe I just want to.”

Finally, we both let go and stood back.

“It's pretty late,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was ten thirty, and we both had school the next day.

“You have a lot of tests tomorrow?” I asked. Tomorrow was Friday. The teachers always gave tests then.

“Yeah,” she said. “I've got a big one in geometry,” she said.

It felt weird to suddenly be talking about ordinary stuff like school. I didn't like it. I don't think she did either.

“I better go,” I said, and headed for the door.

“Wait,” she said. She grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Stay here tonight. It's a long walk home. You already froze once.”

Hearing her say that was a big relief. I didn't care about the cold so much, but I sure didn't want to run into Barry again, at least not tonight. “As long as you don't mind sleeping with a monster in the room.” I smiled, but she shook her head.

“There's more than one way to be a monster,” she said.

She went into the bathroom and got ready for bed. I took off my sweater and my jeans but that was it. I was starting to get a little nervous as I listened to her brush her teeth and all that stuff. I'd never slept with another person in the same bed before. And then there was that other thing. You know, the whole sex thing. I got a sudden flashback to the last time I was in her room, and felt even more nervous.

In the end, it wasn't a big deal. She came out in a pair of pajamas, and we crawled into bed, turned out the light, and just sort of snuggled up under the covers. She had a pretty nice bed, and lying there next to her, with the smell of her hair heavy around me, I don't think I'd ever felt more comfortable or safe, and I wondered if she felt the same way.

“We'll have to be careful in the morning,” she said. “I'll have to sneak you out.”

“I guess your parents wouldn't be too excited about you having a guy sleep over.”

“I don't think they'd care too much about that. It has more to do with you. They're not so psyched about you since you left the team. They like the old Chris better,” she said, and snorted.

That didn't surprise me too much. “Wait till they find out you quit cheerleading,” I said.

“They already did,” she said. “I told them tonight at dinner.”

“How'd it go?”

“It was bad,” she said. “Whatever.”

“They probably think it's my fault.”

“They tried to blame it on you, that's for sure.”