Elijah had never wanted to be a twin. It was as if I had ruined all of his plans of a life of success. He always tried to be different. If I wore black, he wore white. He did this even in infancy. He even dyed his hair and bought colored contacts when we made our world debut. He hated me most of the time and despised the sheer image of my face or sound of my voice.
“Yet another sea of overjoyed sleepwalkers… I’m so darn happy my name is Elijah Jackson…” Elijah cracked. “Oh, be quiet. They might hear you and it’ll be on the ten o’clock news,” I said to him with a small chuckle. Hearing what I said, he looked at me with annoyance then immediately put on a smile. It was fake and he appeared to be trying out for a beaver commercial, but it was real enough for the fans. I was almost as sick of it as he was. The fame was getting to us both. It never seemed to bother Athena or Nathan, though. They still carried their heads high as a stranger announced our band, Anonymous Dreamer, onto the stage. Athena always seemed to have fun. She was the one that had nicknamed our extreme fans the “sleepwalkers”.
As we ended our journey down the hallway that connected stage and backstage, I could feel the screams of our swarming fans. The walls of the hallway vibrated with each wave of sound. I peered around the corner. There they were again. The sleepwalkers and the mild ones, even a few haters that had appeared for their little sisters were there. They were all there. Tonight, for a little while, they were the sharks. And we were the red meat dripping with blood.
Nathan trailed behind us a little. His smile was real. I could feel his grin pressing against the back of my skull and spreading around my ears. I knew he had already spotted the group of most outrageous looking girls. He planned for an attack on himself, and he was glad. At least he wasn’t the different one, the “gorgeous” one with the blue eyes and “cool” voice, which in my opinion, sounded like crap tonight. He wasn’t the one who played most of the guitar. I lowered my eyes and shook my head. Athena had sung like the goddess she was named for, sweet and beautiful. Her ballad of a lone piano and her angelic voice made the screaming crowd grow to almost serenity. In my head, she was perfection’s vessel.
There, I almost zoned out and forgot to place my feet in front of each other. I soon realized I was behind Nathan and Athena now. “Come on, Aubrey,” Athena said as she turned and flashed me a sweet smile. I put a smile on my face, a twin’s replica of Elijah’s, and began shaking hands, signing Anonymous Dreamer CDs and posters and posing for little cameras that they managed to sneak into the concert.
The “sea” soon dwindled to a trickle within an hour’s time. Everyone was yawning and drifting toward their cars with all the evening’s prizes in tired arms. It was then that I realized a girl was still there and still staring at me. I walked over to her with a polite smile. “Do you need something?” I asked her. Elijah, Athena, and Nathan were already making their way to the tour bus. I watched Athena for a little bit before returning my gaze to the young girl before me. The girl’s skin was creamy white and her hair was like fire. I looked into her young face and her green eyes seemed to hypnotize me. The edges of her lips turned up in a small smile. “Yes, you can help me,” she said and reached for my arm. I was almost glad, for she was beautiful, but I started feeling off-balance and my head began to spin. I saw her smile grow bigger as my knees began to crumble. She held onto my arm as she kept her gaze upon me. Everything became a dark blur and the world slipped away beneath my feet.
The first conscious thoughts I knew I had were shouting to me, “Get on the tour bus! Get to the bus!” Like awaking abruptly from a slumber, I snapped my eyelids open. When my vision cleared, I saw Athena was sitting beside me. She was holding an ice pack to the back of my head. “Sheesh, what happened to you?” she asked as soon as he saw that I had registered her presence. “I don’t know… the girl,” I trailed off in a dazed fashion. Athena laughed. “What are you talking about? There wasn’t any girl. Man, you must’ve hit your head harder than I thought.” Athena said as she shifted the ice pack on my head. “Athena, girl, get that off me… my head is seriously cold now,” she removed it, “where are we?”
“We are on the way to the fabulous world of Los Angeles.”
“L.A.?”
“Yeah, you forget or something? L.A. is pretty close to home. I thought you might be excited and want to go there. I hope you didn’t lose anything else on your fall.”
I laughed a little. “Well, if I forgot it, I can’t tell,” I said with a small grin and shifted a little bit on the couch that was in the bus. Elijah walked in and his gaze fell immediately on my figure. Apparently, I had looked like a crumpled puppet the moment they brought me in to receive care. “You okay?” he asked as he sat on the very edge of the couch beside Athena. I nodded and my brain felt like it was in a floating fishbowl. “Where’s the rest of the crew?” I asked. I wanted to make sure my baby sister, Jordan, and mother wasn’t upset. “They all fell asleep waiting for you to get up,” Elijah answered me and scooted more onto the couch. “Oh geez, what time is it?” I said and sat up a little, giving a little grunt as I did. “It’s almost three in the morning,” Athena said. Elijah yawned as if on cue. I looked at them with skeptical eyes. Three in the morning? That was a long time since the end of our concert, which was at 8pm.
“You mean I’ve been zonked out on the couch for almost six hours?” I said. Athena and Elijah both nodded. “The doctor came in and said you would be okay but you couldn’t go to sleep right after you got up. He was afraid you might have a concussion and that’s why he said that. He bandaged up those scratches on your neck too. Some of them were pretty deep, so you have some stitches too, dude,” Elijah informed me. My neck? I put my hands right below my cheek and ran my fingers downward. I soon felt the coarse bandages and medical tape that covered the left side of my throat and the tiny stitches embedded in my skin. “How long am I supposed to stay up?” I asked, wondering if I should try to overdose on caffeine. “The doctor said seventeen hours is good. That would be about 10pm so don’t push it during the day. You’ll need your energy for the concert,” Elijah said. ‘English Translation of Elijah’s statement: caffeine pills, hooray!’ I thought with sarcasm. Athena must’ve seen the look on my face. “Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper, Aubrey. None of those pills for you today.” she said, wagging her forefinger at me as she spoke. A grin stretched across her face. “Darn you Athena,” I said with a broad smile. Athena chuckled then yawned. “I’m going to bed now. ‘Night Aubrey,” Athena said and stood up. Athena gave a friendly smile and a little wave and then she went to her bed. Elijah stood there a minute before following with Athena.
I sat there, alone and silent. Bored with myself, I returned to lying down on the couch. I immediately felt the cold beneath the back of my neck. I reached behind my head and found the plastic bag of ice swimming in cold water. I watched it as it shifted in my hands according to the motion of the water inside it. Then I started tossing it back and forth between my hands. Slowly at first, then I began to toss it faster and faster. The excitement of throwing the ice bag lasted about three minutes before I missed and it sailed across the bus and burst open on the window, knocking it open. Partially melted ice flew everywhere and water slid down the wall. I hurriedly went to the window to close it. I took the handle in my fingers and began to shut it when I actually looked outside. Trees passed by my view as if they had the speed of Superman. The darkness, which was highlighted by headlights, seemed to fascinate me. I felt like tying myself to the bus with a rope and flying behind it. I could almost feel the wind against my face and my body whipping in circles in the air. I shook my head to clear my mind. I dismissed those ideas and quickly shut the window, sealing me from the darkness outside.
I tried to gather my thoughts and myself as I opened a cabinet door and took out some paper towels. I got down on my knees and began to wipe the water up with great haste. After I threw the wet paper towels in the trashcan that was in the tiny white bathroom, I pondered on what I should do for the next six hours. At 10am we had an interview for the teenager magazine, Jumpin’ Beans and that was going to be a disaster. They were going to ask about the scratches and stitches on my neck, either that or the bandages that might cover them. I thought I would just take them off all together. We also had a photo shoot with them. I might not wear the bandages and let them cover everything up with makeup or a turtleneck.
Curious, I looked in the mirror. A huge bruise was now attached to my forehead and it seemed like I had a neck brace on. It looked like Sammy Sosa had attacked me with a baseball bat. I peeled the bandages from my skin, then I regretted it. My scratches were purple with blood in the skin and black with the blood that had dried to clot my wounds. The stitches looked worse than the scratches. They reminded me of a pirate’s cheek, bunched up flesh and paled where they stitched it. With so much butchery done, I looked like I should be posing for police cameras that monitored abuse and not studio cameras that monitored my music career. I scrunched up my nose and pressed the medical tape back against my neck. Those were gross.
The non-social event of having to stay up all night was starting to jade me. So I lay on my back on the sandy colored couch and I stared up at the creamy ceiling of the bus. It wasn’t like staring up at the ceiling at home. At home, there were designs of spirals or shadows to stare at, not just silver bolts to count. Frustrated with the silence, I turned over onto my side and picked my laptop up off the floor. I carelessly typed with my face squashed against the couch’s cushions. I let the tiny computer dial up and connect me to the home website. I typed in the address of some stupid little website I went to regularly. I checked my personal email and deleted a few things.
Then I logged out. I was too bored to even use the Internet, and for me, that was shocking. I lay the laptop back on the floor, realized it would probably get stomped on like the last time I left it there, and put it on the couch at my feet. I closed my eyes and started to drift off. When I realized I was falling asleep, I snapped my eyelids open. I wasn’t going to last until later.
On sudden impulse, I grabbed the television remote and pointed my arm toward the television. The black screen suddenly leaped to life with a scene of Goofy strolling across the screen and tripping over a rake and hose while comical music played in the background. I continually hit the button labeled “Channel” until I fell across Goofy once more. I pressed a certain button and the screen fell dark once more. I dropped the remote to my side and let it fall from my limp fingers. It clattered on the ground loudly. I didn’t move to show my recognition.
I sighed and looked around the tour bus at the silent walls. I had a premonition that my night wouldn’t be very lively.