I'm Seeing Double

The brunette groans. You would think that a Christmas shopping trip would go great in Cleveland. It is a city after all with a mall. Well, it isn’t. The short girl and her family are at Tower City, otherwise known as the place where all they have is food, F.Y.E., and Gamestop. So far, she hasn’t found anything at all... even for just herself. Why did she ever agree to celebrate her last Christmas the right way? It would be so much easier if she just went with Yule and celebrated by herself. Yeah, the Wiccan is unhappy with her decision. If only she knew the Doctor or had a T.A.R.D.I.S. of her own.
Her green eyes with a blue-green ring and gold flakes scan the area that she walked to unknowingly. It looks like she’s in the food court. Even though she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention, she walked to the one place that she really wanted to. She’s quite hungry. Although, she’s always hungry. She spots the Auntie Anne’s and knows what she is going to get, a cinnamon and sugar pretzel.
Thinking of a mouth watering, sweet, amazing, and beautiful pretzel, she gets into the medium sized line. The line may not be long, but her craving is making her compare it to a concert line. Damn. She really should have eaten breakfast. Now her stomach is yelling at her. “Feed me! Feed me!” When this happens, she really questions how people can just not eat. She almost finds herself leaving to get something else, but she knows how good Auntie Anne’s pretzels are. It’s like when she met All Time Low. She waited patiently and was rewarded by a hug from Jack. Although a hug from that man is much better than just a pretzel, her grumbling tummy is telling her otherwise.
“Hurry up line. Hurry up line,” she sings in her head until it’s finally her turn. As soon as the paper touches her fingers and the warmth can be felt, joy fills her hazel eyes. Her life is so good. No, it’s great because this pretzel will taste so good. As soon as the brunette gets her change, she takes a bite and starts walking away. The sweetness dances around her mouth in the best way, and her stomach says, “Thank you!” Yeah, she really needs to learn to eat breakfast.
The short teen’s eyes start to look for a place to sit. She’s lazy, and sitting sounds really nice right now. Most of the tables are taken, but the hazel-eyed girl manages to find one by the windows. She sits down and continues to munch on the sweet snack. She looks out of the window and starts to daydream about her meeting all of her favorite band members but in a different way. She starts to twirl her medium length brown hair with blonde streaks without her knowing it. She is going to be playing a very girly Christmas elf in the Drama Club’s Christmas play. She does it a lot as her character, and it’s making it’s way into her real life.
Hazel eyes leave the window for a second and just happen to look in front of her. At the table across from her is a boy that looks about the age of around seventeen, staring at the pretzel in her hand. She takes in his appearance. He looks a little bit pale except for his slightly pink cheeks. His cheeks aren’t that full, but the brunette can tell that they normally are and he hasn’t eaten in some time. His ragged clothes help her know that that is the case. His nose is a little bit higher above his chapped lips. His tired eyes are a pretty blue with a yellow ring around the pupil. Although the hood of his dirty blue jacket is up, she can see that is hair is blond and brown roots are coming though.
That poor boy. He looks like he’s homeless. Perhaps she should give him some of her pretzel. Now, in school she was told to stay away from homeless people, but he looks about her age, he’s cute, and he kind of looks like...
Holy shit. He looks like a seventeen-year-old Niall Horan.
The short teen’s eyes widen, and her hand covers her mouth. The blond sees her reaction and quickly gets up, pulling his hood around his face more in the process. No, he can’t leave. She can’t just let him go. She has to do something. The brunette quickly gets up and goes over to him. She grabs his wrist lightly, but it’s enough to make him flinch from the contact. His blue eyes are wide with fear, and he doesn’t move a muscle.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him as she lets go of his wrist. Surprisingly, he doesn’t move. He’s still stuck there. She uses that as her chance. “I’m sorry about my reaction. It’s just that you look a lot like...” He nods in understanding and starts to walk away. “Wait.” He does as told and turns to face her again. Her hazel eyes can see sadness in his. “I just wanted to know why you look so much like him. The resemblance is uncanny. It’s like you’re his younger twin.” The Niall look-alike tries to hide his face again with his hood. “I’m not saying that as a bad thing. It’s just... wow. Um, how about I make a deal with you. I’ll get you anything that you want to eat if you tell me why you look just like him.”
The brunette has a hunch about this. He looks like he’s starving, so he’d probably do anything for food. Plus, he looks like Niall. If he is like him personality wise as well, he probably loves food and loves eating. If you put the two of those together, she should get him telling her his life story. When she sees his head moving up and down rapidly, she knows that she was right.
The short teen gives him a warm smile. “What do you want?” His nudges his head towards the Subway. “Alright then. Allons-y!” She starts walking but quickly stops when she realizes that the Niall look-alike is not following her. She goes back over to him and raises her eyebrow. Oh. Maybe he really is just like him. That would mean... “You don’t like tight places or big crowds, do you?” He nods. “Will you flinch again if I take your hand?” The blond doesn’t really look so sure. “Trust me. I don’t bite at all unless it’s biting food, and I may be a witch, but I don’t fatten kids up to eat them.”
The short girl can’t believe it when she sees him smile. It’s rather cute with his crooked teeth and all. Well, he’s just cute in general, but he’s really cute when he smiles. She takes ahold of his hand with just enough pressure to let him know that she is here to protect him but not to the point where he’d think she’s going to kidnap him to take to her gingerbread house. The two of them walk through the little bit of large groups of people. The blond being right behind the brunette the whole time.
When they get up to the line, the blue-eyed boy tries to bring his hood up around him more again with his free hand. It makes the brunette feel pretty bad. It would really suck having to hide who you are. Stupid people. Stupid fangirls. Stupid fanboys. OK, maybe not all of them are stupid. The brunette is a fangirl after all along with one of her good friends. The two of them wait in line patiently. Well, one half of them is. The line isn’t that long, but the short teen still wants to hurry up and give this cute guy some food, so she decides to give him a piece of her pretzel. She can always just buy a sub for herself as well.
She breaks a piece off for him and hands it to him. The blond eats it slowly. It’s gone by the time that they reach the counter. The brunette tells them that she wants a meatball marinara with jalapenos. The hazel-eyed girl turns her attention to the boy that is still holding her hand and asks what he wants. He shrugs, so she just tells the counter girl that she’ll have two more of the meatball marinara but without the peppers and two bottles of water. You can’t go wrong with meatballs. It’s impossible.
The short teen is about to grab for the bags of subs and water after paying for them when the cute blond grabs them instead. He gives her a small smile, which she returns, before the duo make their way back over to the table that he had been sitting at. As soon as the bags are out of the blue-eyed boys hands, the brunette quickly grabs the plastic and starts looking for hers. Luckily, the first one that she grabs actually does belong to her. She allows the cute teen to grab his two. For the brunette, the first bite has a kick to it that makes her really happy. The blond takes a bite of his first one and swiftly goes for another in barely any time.
“So,” the hazel-eyed girl starts, “what’s your name? I’m Aurora, but everyone calls me Rory.”
The blond somehow manages to swallow everything before talking. “She called me James, so that’s my name.” Wow. He even talks with an Irish accent.
“Wait. Who’s she?”
He stops eating, puts his sub down, and takes a drink of water. “I promised you that I’d tell you, so here it goes. Em, I woke up in this woman’s basement that had a bed, a table, and two chairs. I didn’t know how I got there, but later she told me that she somehow carefully sneaked me off of the laboratory grounds and to her house. Em, this is where it gets weird. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. You’ll think that I’m lying.”
“Trust me. I doubt that you’d be lying.”
“Well, she told me that I’m a clone of her favorite member of this boy band. It made sense too since I had some memories that I didn’t really feel emotions towards. It’s almost like they aren’t mine, ya know? Anyway, she kept me there for some time until she got careless and left the door unlocked. I ran as far as I could. I’ve just been trying to live off the streets for I think a week and a half. My clothes wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for someone trying to take them from me. It’s cold outside, and everyone was trying to keep warm.”
“Damn...”
James sighs. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“No, I do. It’s just that it is hard to believe. I mean, cloning a human is illegal, and I can’t believe that you were cloned to the age of...”
“I think I’m seventeen, or at least my body is.”
“Yeah, it’s just a lot to take in. Is there any proof?”
“No. The only thing that could be proof is the number tattooed on my wrist. Besides that, the story is up to you to decide.”
“Well, I’m going to side with you. It’s just that there are too many coincidences.” She takes a sip of her water. “It’s going to be hard to convince my mom...”
“Why would you need to tell your mum?”
“Um, well, I don’t know if you’re up for it, but I was thinking of trying to take you home.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. I can’t just leave you like this even if you really aren’t a clone. I have to do something about it, and I can only think of taking you with me. So, will you let me if my mom is OK with it?”
James lowers his head and smiles. “You’re the first person to actually care about me. Yes, I’ll go if you’re mum says OK. It’s hard to believe that you’re even willing to do this.”
“Well, believe it because you’re going to be staying with me. Now, let’s hurry up and eat, so I can track down my sister.”
Rory has no idea what she has gotten herself into, but she could care less. She’s helping out this poor boy, James, and that’s all that matters. It’s hard to believe that she’s doing this. She’s not that kind of girl, but there is just something that is telling her she needs to go for it. Everyone always tells you to go with your gut on a test, so how could that be bad in real life?

Notes