This choice: Go along with Chelsea's games • Go Back...Chapter #20Not My Circus by: Seuzz   Oh God! Oh Jesus! It was a fake that you were shopping with this afternoon? It was a fake you were this close to spilling out all your secrets and insecurities to?
Michelle isn't Michelle? She's one of those robot things that you make with a mask? You gape at her.
She looks back blankly at you. Well, maybe not entirely blankly. There's a glint of faint curiosity in her eye. But she doesn't look much interested in you or in what Chelsea has said. Mostly she looks tired.
"How long?" you ask Chelsea when you find your breath and your voice again. "How long has, um, Michelle been—" You gulp, and wave your hand in front of your face.
"Oh, a couple of days now, I guess," Chelsea says.
"Last night?" you gasp, and go cold all over when Chelsea nods. It comes back vividly, that talk you and Michelle had in the kitchen: Michelle cradling you, and comforting you, and telling you that you've nothing to be afraid of and that you've got to live your life without being afraid that it will end suddenly. Such sweet, warm wisdom ... and all coming from a fake who is under Chelsea's control!
Your stomach turns over.
"Now, you girls were hanging out together," Chelsea continue, and you flinch as she grasps your wrist and fake-Michelle's both. "What were you doing?"
"We were at Le Metropolitain," Michelle instantly replies, "talking about friends."
"Yes?" Chelsea says. Her eyes glint. "Who?"
"James Randolph and Tanya Firth."
Chelsea frowns. "I don't know them."
"No reason you should," Michelle says with cool indifference. "He's a sophomore, she's a junior. They're sleeping together."
"Sleeping together?" you squeal.
"Casually. I guess it's a casual thing," Michelle continues. She turns to Chelsea, even though Chelsea hasn't said anything. "They do it at her place a couple of times a week, on account of her parents have work. She says he's pretty good in the sack, even though he was a virgin when they first—"
"Alright, I'm not that interested," Chelsea snaps.
"You told me you wanted me to tell you everything—"
"Until I tell you to stop, and now I'm telling you stop." Chelsea turns to you with a giggle. "Isn't it amazing? I'm so glad you showed me how to—"
"Why did you do this to Michelle, of all people?" you shriek. "And why are you telling me about this?"
"So we can coordinate through her. Dur!" Chelsea rolls her eyes. "I'm not really friends with this girl you're pretending to be, you know." She tweaks the front of your blouse. "I probably wouldn't be, either. She seems a little neurotic, tee-bee-aitch. You could stand to dial it back a little, Will, when it's just us. Anyway," she continues as you goggle back at her, speechless, "anything you have to talk about to me, you can pass on through Michelle here."
"Is that why you—? Her?" Again, you wave your hand in front of your face.
"Sure. Well, kind of. Mostly? Don't worry about it, Will. You knew it was going to be someone, right? This way it just works out perfectly."
And as you grasp at some kind of reply, she looks between you and Michelle, then tweaks your blouse again. "Michelle doesn't really know you, she tells me," she says. "Not the real you, I mean, Will. But maybe you could make some introductions, and she could get to know you, and then maybe you and her could work together to figure out your girlfriend situation?"
You gulp, and to your own surprise find yourself nodding.
"That's great!" Chelsea says. "So, I think that's all we have to talk about. Unless you've got some other news already you want to share?" Her eyebrows go up, and her gaze turns twinkly.
"No. No, I think that's all." Your knees start to shake.
"Okay then!" Chelsea coils up the garden hose. "I have to talk to Michelle now. If you think of anything or need anything, text or call her from now on." She dimples at you. "You'll get along great. I'll make sure that Michelle will like Will Prescott and want to help him. If she doesn't, let me know."
At least you make it home without vomiting inside the car.
* * * * *
It makes a grotesque kind of sense, you decide, when you're back in your bedroom, huddled up on the bed. You were pretty sure that Chelsea was going to use that mask and that goop on another cheerleader—probably Lin or Yumi or some other girl who was always causing trouble for her. Michelle, you know from Alexis's memories, doesn't make trouble for Chelsea, but she could be useful as a spy. And as Chelsea herself pointed out, she's a convenient conduit for passing messages along between yourself and her.
But as the afternoon wears on you find yourself getting used to the idea. Chelsea is in charge, and she was right this morning when she reminded you that the plan is to get you a girlfriend. She was also right when she told you that you were letting Alexis do your thinking for you. Michelle is Alexis's friend, not yours, and the quivering horror that you feel in your gut is Alexis's horror, not yours, at seeing her friend turned into an automaton.
"Alexis Krystal Lachance," you address yourself in the mirror, and fix yourself with a good, hard stare. "You are not the boss of me. I am the boss of you. Sure, I'll hang out with your friends and do things with them, and I'll—" You can't help shaking a little bit when a vivid, almost three-dimensional mental picture of a shirtless Roman Robey pops into your head. "And I'll even act like them with you," you continue after catching your breath. "But I'm here to do my own thing. And you're just a disguise I'm wearing to help me do it. So get off my tail."
The girl in the mirror doesn't look terribly certain of her words as she mouths them back at you. But fuck her. You've got a meeting to set up.
Still, your fingers slip and hit multiple typos as you start to tap out a message to the "Will Prescott" who is the current owner of your old phone. Alexis isn't used to texting strange guys out of the blue.
* * * * *
"Will!" you call out to the lanky scarecrow after he comes sauntering into the Starbucks. It's not Alexis's usual kind of coffee hangout, but that's why you chose it for this meeting: Like The Shoppes on the other side of town, you're not likely to run into Alexis's friends here for this secret rendezvous.
Prescott turns around at his name and squints at you. He looks like he's twelve years old, you think, and flinch at the thought. This is the guy you're supposed to find a girlfriend for? A slope-shouldered goofball in baggy tees and shorts with unkempt hair sticking out from under a shapeless ball cap?
As if he's reading your thoughts, Prescott pulls his cap off, rakes long fingers through that thatch of hair, and jams the cap back down over it. "Are you the chick I'm supposed to be meeting?" he asks as he saunters up to your table.
Chick? Since when do you call girls "chicks"? That's totally a Tilley kind of thing to say!
Well, whatever. Maybe he's just as nervous as you are. "You know me," you retort. "Alexis Lachance." You put out a hand, but instead of shaking it, he slaps it as he tumbles into the chair opposite. "Do you remember reading up on me and my social media?"
"Sure." That squint of his narrows. "Um, am I supposed to still be reading up on that stuff? Because I kind of have the feeling that I have to do what you tell me." He makes a face.
Well, that's a relief: It sounds like you don't have to explain certain facts to him, probably because he's got your memories. But the question embarrasses you, too, particularly given that you'd just snapped a picture of your coffee just before he arrived, and had been on the point of uploading it.
"No, not if you don't want to," you assure him, "but I might be sending you texts. No, wait." You snap your fingers. "Michelle will probably be sending you texts. Actually, you'll probably be hanging out with her, a lot." You swivel in your seat, searching the parking lot for Michelle's car. "We're going to be—"
"Michelle who?"
"Michelle Estrich. From the cheerleading squad?"
"Oh, you know her?"
"Sure, and you're going to get to know her too. We'll have to invent a story, because—"
Now it's your turn to make a face. Because who the hell would believe that Alexis Lachance and Michelle Estrich would know and hang out with this goofball? "Well, because you're going to be hanging out with her quite a bit. She's going to like you," you add, though you can hardly believe that even orders from Chelsea will get the fake Michelle to go that far. Except, you reflect philosophically, Michelle is sweet enough to like most people. Probably.
But Will has perked up at your words. "Like me? Like how like me? Like like?"
"No, just as a friend. But we're going to get you a girlfriend, you know. That's why you need to be friends with her."
But your doppelganger, instead of looking pleased, looks confused. "Does this have anything to do with Yumi?"
Now you look confused. "Yumi? What about Yumi?"
"Well, she invited me out to a party last night—"
Oh, that's right.
"—met a girl out there." His brow furrows. "You and Chelsea didn't have anything to do with that?"
"No." You go cold all over. Your doppelganger met a girl? At a party? "Who?"
"She goes to Eastman—"
"Eastman?" you exclaim.
"Hey, it's better than nobody!"
"Well, what's her name?"
"Eileen Piper. She's cute." He squirms. "Real cute. In fact," he says as he checks his phone, "I'm supposed to meet up with her in an hour or so."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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