I'm Seeing Double

As soon as the duo finish eating, they throw away the wrappers. James keeps the bag because he still has half of one left over. The brunette takes his hand gently and starts leading him away from the food court. Rory has no idea where her sibling is right now, but it shouldn’t be that hard to find her. She’s not that hard to spot considering what she wears, her hair, and mostly her height. The hazel-eyed girl takes the escalator up to the next floor and starts looking around. She spots the younger sibling on the other side. She starts running over there, dragging James along the way. Luckily, he’s able to keep up with her since she isn’t that fast. When they get over there, she turns her head towards the blond boy and drops his wrist.
“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine.” He turns his head away from her.
“Do you want me to give you a hug?”
The blond smiles a bit and turns back to face her. “I’m OK.”
“You sure that you don’t want a hug?”
“I’m sure.”
“Why are you offering this guy a hug?” Rory’s sister asks.
Her sister is fourteen, but is half a foot taller than the older of the two. Of course this does have to do with the fact that the eighteen-year-old is only 5’1”. The sister has very short blonde hair. It’s like a boy’s haircut, but she pulls it off just fine. Her eyes are a greyish-blue, and she is quite thin. If she was taller, Rory would say that she was lanky. Her choice in clothing is also different than Rory’s. Rory likes to wear tight band T-shirts, skinny jeans, and a fedora. The younger of the them prefers slightly bigger shirts, skinny jeans, and just looking nicer in general. It’s not that Rory doesn’t dress nicely. It’s just that her sister looks nicer when it comes to clothing.
James turns his head in the direction of the foreign voice. The sibling’s eyes widen. The brunette looks at James to see how he’s doing since her sister obviously knows who he looks like. He looks just like he did when Rory had saw his face. Although the brunette doesn’t understand socializing, her writing helps her a bit with this. She gently takes a hold of his hand in what she hopes comes off in a comforting way. It does, and James calms down a bit.
“Why does he look just like-”
“Well, it’s not a long story, but to put it simply, he’s a clone. James, this is my sister, Caroline, but she goes by Carrie. Care, this is James. Now let’s go find Mom.”
“Mom? Why do you need to find Mom?”
“Well, I was hoping that...”
“Wait. Do you think that she’s going to let you bring him with us?”
“Um, yes?”
“Well, I don’t know if she will.”
“I have to try though.”
“Alright.”
“Now, allons-y!”
Rory goes running towards FYE with the other two right behind her. Her hand is still in James’s, but neither of them seems to care. The reason why they are going to this store is not because their mom told them that she would be there. It is because she is just that predictable. Just like her daughters, she has a thing for rock music, and she is most likely looking at CDs. They enter the store with Rory in the lead which is actually quite unusual. Rory has always been more of a follower. It is obviously to anyone that know her that she is quite serious about this. Their mom is exactly where they thought she would be. She is over by the CDs in the rock session. The trio go over to her. Their mother is 5’ and has blue eyes and long brown hair. She is in her lower forties, but she actually looks younger than that. She looks more like younger thirties.
“Mom,” Rory says. “I’ve got to ask you something.”
Their mom turns to face them and raises her eyebrow at the addition to their group before turning back to her eldest. “What is it?”
“Can we take him home?”
“What?”
“Can we take him home? He has nowhere to go, and he’s... um.” She whispers the next part. “He’s a clone.”
“Sure, he is,” she says sarcastically. “We are not taking a stranger home with us.”
“But we have to! He’ll probably die without us, and the only way to explain his looks is by that. Even if it isn’t true, he’s a seventeen-year-old boy with no one to help him. We have to do something about it. It’s going to be Christmas this month. You... You can even do it as a Christmas present for me.”
“You’re acting like he’s a lost puppy.”
“Well, he does look like one...”
“Rory.”
“We have a guest room that he can stay in. I can buy him new clothes. We can make this work.”
“You’re not going to shut up about this unless I say, right?”
“Yep.”
“Fine.”
“Fuck yeah!”
“But you’re in charge of him. Great. Now I’m making it sound like he’s a puppy as well. Anyway, are you done with shopping?” Rory and Carrie nod. “Oh. I didn’t catch your name.”
“James,” he says softly.
“I’m Marie.”
“Now,” Rory says, “allons-y!”
“Would you stop with the ‘allons-y’,” Carrie says.
“Never!”
The group of four make their way out of the building and to the car. It doesn’t take all that long to get there, and on the way, Rory can’t help but skip. This is all so exciting and unreal. She never thought that something like this could ever happen, especially to her. It sounds more like something that would come out of one of her fan fictions that she writes. Well, maybe not. She would be more likely to go for a fantasy thing than a sci-fi thing, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s actually happening. When they get into the car, Marie obviously gets in the driver seat, Carrie gets in the front passenger seat which she always does, Rory sits behind Marie, and then James ends up sitting behind Carrie. Once the car is on, Carrie goes to put another CD in, but Rory can’t let that happen.
“Hey,” the short girl speaks up, “I thought I was picking the CD for the ride back!”
“Fine.”
Rory takes a CD out of her purse and hands it to her sister. She puts the CD in, and “The Reckless and the Brave” fills up the car. The hazel-eyed girl smiles in content. This is a lot better than something Carrie would have put in. Well, Carrie does have good taste in music, but it’s just that Rory is in an All Time Low mood. Of course that makes sense. When isn’t she in a mood for them?
“Em,” she hears James say. She turns her head to look at him. “Which band is my... you know... actual self apart of? Is this them?”
“Let’s call him your ‘original’ self. That makes it easier. Anyway, no, this isn’t his band. His name is Niall, and he’s in a band called One Direction. I can put them on if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. How far away do you live?”
“Just about an hour. We can listen to this beautiful music while we get there.”
“Are you always like this?”
“Of course. I’m Rory, and this is how Rory is.”
“I think I might be a little bit scared.”
The smirk on his face is telling her otherwise. For being scared in the beginning, he appears to be warming up to her. She wonders. Can she take this a bit further? She rests her head on his shoulder and waits to see what he’ll do. At first, he stiffens up, but then he seems to relax. Now, let’s see if she can make it a bit more comforting. She takes ahold of his hand gently. Again, he stiffens but then relaxes. She leans up to his ear just to whisper to him.
“I don’t know what you’ve been through to make you like this, but I won’t let it happen again. I’m your new personal guardian angel. I’ll be there for you, and you can trust me because there is this one thing about me.”
I never lie.

Notes