Twin Studies

They always told us that we were connected. Telepathic, psychically in-sync. And I believed them. Your pain was my pain, and when I was scared by big kids on the playground or horrible nightmares, you came to my rescue.

You were the knight to my dragon, even though you said it was good and proper for me to be a princess. Thank you for only pretending to be mad. It meant a lot to me.

Mom always pretended to confuse us, calling me you and you me. We giggled and corrected her, but we still tried to pass as each other. Remember? When your hat hid my hair and you just barely fit in my dress, we thought our plan was fool-proof. I suppose we were wrong.

We thought we were so special. Dad told us stories of psychologists like him, who spent their entire lives studying people like us. Even Hitler, an older kid proclaimed, attemting to scare us. It worked, but I held your hand and Mom told us that Hitler, the serial killer with the weird moustache, was dead. We felt invincible.

Now, older kids leave me alone, but their whispers sting more than the gravel they pushed me in. The nightmares are worse, and each night I still expect you to sneak into my room and talk about nothing, until we both fall back asleep. Instead, I try to stop crying on my own. I'd rather wake up to you curled on my comforter, the name of which is now a cruel joke.

I suppose Hitler and the psycholgists and all those adults were wrong, because I've been sending you letters in my dreams, and I don't think you're getting them.