Discrepancies

I am up early for school. I decide to take it upon myself to actually cook breakfast for once. We have some eggs and I scramble about 6 of them and add some cheese. When I’m done I call my mom and my sister. My sister asks me what I put in them and I tell her it’s just egg and cheese. My mom feels my forehead and insists on taking my temperature.

When she’s satisfied that I haven’t come down with anything, she sits down and eats her eggs. Lisa is eating her eggs and I’m just staring at her. She feels my stare and looks up at me.

“What?” she says.

“You just look familiar.” I answer. I saw someone who looked a lot like Lisa and I was trying to remember where I saw them.

“Of course I look familiar, we live in the same house.” She responds.

“I mean I saw someone that looked like you and I’m trying to remember where I saw them.” I correct.

“You mean you saw someone who looked exactly like me?” She asks.

“Well, the person I saw was older but she did look a lot like you.” I say out loud. Then it hits me, Lisa was the person in the library book. She was the one who helped build the AI. My sister Lisa is going to take part in the most important event of the 21st century! Hold up. Wait a minute. I was just dreaming that, right? My brain selected Lisa because she’s someone I know not because she really is smart. I decide to test my theory by asking her a question.

“Lisa, What math class are you in?” I ask not so subtly.

“Trigonometry” She responds.

“Trigonometry? How did you get into trigonometry!?” I ask totally shocked. If she is doing Trigonometry she’s a lot smarter than I am.

“I had to pass an entrance test.” She responds proudly.

“Wow! I am really impressed.” I admit. This new information gives me a lot to think about. There is already a blurry line between my own life and Nia’s but now I am starting to think that maybe I’m not dreaming. Maybe I really am living Nia’s life without her

permission and screwing it up. I could handle screwing my own life up but Nia didn’t ask for me to screw her life up too.

I get out the door and I’m on my way to school. It was so much nicer walking through Nia’s well-kept village than taking the bus and I was starting to resent my own circumstances. Why do some people get nice things while other people have to wallow in

mud? It just doesn’t seem fair. When I get to school I don’t see Mark anywhere. It’s not unusual not to see Mark, a lot of kids go to my school.

In class I try to catch Kayla staring at me but each time I look over at her she is looking at her text book. I suppose she could be staring at me but if she is she doesn’t want me to know about it this time. I guess I screwed up my chance. How can I be so smooth as Nia but so dorky as myself? When class is over I move in Kayla’s direction to say hi to her but when I get there she is already gone. I am such an idiot. I catch up with Mark at lunch.

“So how did it go with that girl?” He asks.

“I screwed it up.” I told him.

“I totally called that” He says like he had bet someone on the outcome.

“Thanks for the confidence” I say sarcastically.

“No problem” He shoots back.

“I’ve dreamed about being that girl again.” I said, “And her life is way better than mine.”

“Well, duh” He said, “That girl looked pretty hot. I bet she has guys lining up wanting to bang her.”

“Dude, that is so not cool.” I say wanting to throw up.

“Dude, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to bang her.” He says accusingly.

“Yeah, but not while I’m being her!” I say, “And it’s really messing me up. Not only am I screwing my own life up, I screwing her life up too.”

“So what if you’re screwing her life up. It’s just a dream. It’s not real. You’ve made it all up in your head because your own life sucks so deal with it.” Mark says.

“But it seems so real and that thing I got from the flea market has three clear scenes in it now and all the clear scenes are from my dream and you can’t tell me you didn’t see the first one.” I said, “So I’m not crazy.”

“You just need to relax and get a grip.” Mark says, “You need a vacation.”

Maybe I do need a vacation. The lines between reality and fantasy were starting to blur and I was starting to not be able to tell the difference. I wonder how I am going to face Lidia after kissing her and how am I going to patch things up so their relationship isn’t ruined. I really felt like I was in over my head.

When I get home from school I notice Lisa is doing her homework. I never thought of Lisa as an actual contributing member of society before. I have always thought of her as my annoying little sister. I now look at her in awe and realize she is on a whole different level than I am doing things I couldn’t possibly understand. I just stand there and stare at her.

“What?” She says annoyingly.

“Nothing, just thinking” I answer.

“You were thinking. That’s pretty unlikely.” She shoots back.

“I was just thinking about how I never noticed how smart you were.” I answer.

“Really? You think I’m smart?” She asks.

“Yeah, I think you’re smart. I just never noticed before.” I confirm.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She asks with genuine concern in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just never noticed before that all.” I say.

“Okay” She says really slowly in a voice that someone uses when they think something is weird. I check out the refrigerator and I notice there is some ground beef that needs to be cooked so I make Lisa and myself a couple of hamburgers. I think about adding some onion but I can’t find any. I do find two slices of American cheese though which turn our

hamburger’s into cheeseburgers. It isn’t much but it is something. Lisa enjoys eating her cheeseburger.

“So what is going on with you?” She demands after she is finished eating.

“I don’t know” I answer truthfully. I’m not sure if I should let her in on the details or not.

“Well, something is going on, you’re not usually this nice to me.” She states again.

“If I tell you will you promise not to tell anyone?” I say. She nods her head.

“Okay.” I go and get the antique I bought at the flea market and hand it to her.

“Look through all these little holes and tell me what you see?” I ask. She holds the antique up to one of her eyes and starts turning it around and looking through the holes.

“I see darkness” She says.

“I still see darkness” She says again as she continues turning it.

“I see two girls hugging in a bedroom.” She says finally.

“I see a girl and guy standing in a hallway” She continues.

“I see two girls kissing.” She says finally, “So?”

“When I got that thing, all the holes were dark.” I say. Every night I have a dream and every morning a scene becomes clear through one of the holes and I’ll prove it to you tomorrow. There will be a new scene.”

“So am I in your dreams?” She asks completely ignoring the scope of what I’m saying.

“No, you’re not in my dreams.” I answer, “But the two girls hugging are sisters and it made me realize that since dad’s not here and mom’s gone a lot, we need to stick together because we are all each other has.” I said this because I don’t want to tell her that she will be thought of one day as an important historical figure. She would really think I was crazy if I told her that. I give her a hug to emphasize how much I feel a connection to her.

“Do you have these dreams every night?” She asks.

“Every night since I got that antique.” I answer.

“What happens in the dreams?” She inquires.

“One whole day from when the older girl wakes up to when she goes to bed at night.” I say back.

“Are you in the dream?” She asks.

“No.” I answer.

“Maybe the antique is cursed. You should get rid of it.” She reasons.

“Or maybe it’s telling me a story while I sleep” I countered, “I really want to see how it ends.”

When mom gets home I hear a knock on my bedroom door.

“Come in” I call. My mom comes in.

“Hey Kiddo. You know, I am really starting to worry about you. It’s nice that you fixed breakfast this morning and made dinner tonight, but you’re not acting right. Do you want to talk about it?” Mom offers. Mom wasn’t the best person for talking your problems over with so I decided to keep them to myself.

“I’m fine. I just realized that with dad not being here and you being gone a lot that Lisa is all that I’ve got so I have to look out for her.” I offer hoping mom will buy my explanation. The expression on her face softens.

“That is so grown up of you to want to look out for your little sister.” For a moment I think she even tears up a bit. Mom leaves my room and closes the door behind her. I start to get really anxious about going to sleep because when I wake up as Nia I’m going to have to have that conversation with Lidia.