Twin Flames

The library's third floor was a tomb for the ambitious and the desperate, and I was firmly in the latter camp. My laptop screen glowed with the grim reaper's face: a half-finished paper on the socioeconomics of the Dust Bowl, due at midnight. The cursor blinked. I blinked back.

A shadow fell over my keyboard. I didn't have to look up to know who it was. The scent of clove cigarettes and cherry lip gloss was a dead giveaway.

"You look like you're trying to solve a quadratic equation with your face," Misti said, sliding into the chair across from me.

Her sister, Christi, dropped a stack of books onto the table with a thud that made me flinch. "Leave him alone, Mist. Can't you see he's in the zone?"

"He's in a coma," Misti corrected, tapping a manicured nail on my screen. "The zone implies brain activity."

I finally looked up. They were a matched set of chaos, identical in the way that made you do a double-take. Same fiery red pixie cuts, same freckle-dusted noses, same emerald eyes that seemed to see right through my bullshit. But where Christi wore a soft, oversized sweater and a smile that could disarm a cop, Misti was all sharp edges. Ripped jeans, a Misfits t-shirt that had seen better decades, and a silver ring in her nose that caught the fluorescent light.

"Due at midnight," I mumbled, gesturing at the screen.

Christi leaned over, her hair brushing my arm. "The Dust Bowl? Professor Albright?"

"The one and only."

She winced. "He's a nightmare. Gave me a C-minus on my thesis because I used a semicolon wrong."

Misti snorted. "You used a semicolon in a sentence about the Joad family's truck. It was a hate crime against grammar."

"Whose side are you on?"

"Always the side that gets me out of here faster." Misti stretched, her t-shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of pale skin and the dark line of a tattoo I couldn't quite make out. "We're getting coffee. You're coming."

It wasn't a question. That was Misti. She didn't ask, she declared. Christi was already gathering my notes, her movements quick and efficient. "You've been here for six hours. I saw you when I came in for my morning class. You're going to stroke out."

"I can't. I have to finish this."

"You have to eat something that isn't a vending machine granola bar," Christi said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Come on. My treat."

I should have said no. I had a paper to write, a deadline to meet, a future to secure. But Christi was looking at me with those green eyes, and Misti was already walking away, expecting me to follow. So I did.

The campus coffee shop was a glorified closet with pretensions, but it was warm and smelled like burnt espresso and cinnamon. We grabbed a table by the window, and Christi ordered for all of us without asking what I wanted. A black coffee for me, a vanilla latte for her, and something that looked like pure sugar and regret for Misti.

"So," Christi said, wrapping her hands around her cup. "What's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"You're in Albright's class. You sit in the back. You never talk. You're either incredibly shy or you're hiding something." She tilted her head, studying me. "Which is it?"

Misti kicked her under the table. "You can't just ask people that."

"I just did."

I took a sip of my coffee, buying time. "Neither. I'm just trying to get through the semester."

"Boring," Misti declared. "Everyone's trying to get through the semester. What else?"

I didn't have an answer for that. Not one that wouldn't sound pathetic. I was a junior, a transfer student, a guy who'd spent the last two years working nights at a warehouse and taking classes during the day. I didn't have a story. I had a transcript.

Christi saved me from having to respond. "We should study together. The three of us. We're in the same class, and Misti's about to fail the midterm."

"I'm not about to fail," Misti protested. "I'm strategically postponing success."

"Your last essay was about the cultural significance of punk rock in the Great Depression."

"It was a metaphor."

"It was three pages of you ranting about the Sex Pistols."

"Which is a metaphor."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. The sound surprised me, and it surprised them. Christi's face lit up, and even Misti cracked a smile.

"See?" Christi said. "He's human. There's hope for him yet."

They walked me back to the library, but we didn't go inside. We stood on the steps, the autumn wind cutting through my jacket, and Christi pulled a pen from her bag. She wrote her number on the back of my hand, the ink cold against my skin.

"Text us," she said. "We'll come to your place tomorrow. Study session."

"My place is a disaster."

"So is mine," Misti said. "But I'm not offering mine. Christi's apartment smells like cat pee."

"It does not."

"It does. You just can't smell it anymore because you've gone nose-blind."

They argued all the way down the steps, their voices overlapping, their laughter carrying back to me. I stood there, looking at the number on my hand, and felt something shift in my chest. Something that felt a lot like possibility.

The next afternoon, they showed up at my apartment with a bag of chips, a six-pack of cheap beer, and a determination to get through the study guide. Christi took over my kitchen table, spreading her notes out in a system that only made sense to her. Misti sprawled on my couch, her boots propped on my coffee table, scrolling through her phone.

"This is nice," Christi said, looking around. "Small, but nice. Very bachelor."

"It's a shoebox."

"A shoebox with potential." She smiled at me, and I felt it in my stomach. "Okay. Chapter seven. The New Deal. Go."

We worked for an hour. Christi was a good teacher, patient and clear, and Misti, despite her protests, actually knew the material. She just hated showing it. But every time she got an answer right, she'd shoot her sister a smug look, and Christi would roll her eyes.

"I'm going to get more beer," Christi said, standing up and stretching. "There's a bodega on the corner. Don't kill each other while I'm gone."

The door clicked shut behind her.

The silence that followed was different. Heavier. Misti stopped scrolling and looked at me, really looked at me, and I felt like I was being weighed and measured.

"You're not what I expected," she said.

"What did you expect?"

"Some boring business major who'd talk about his internship and his plan to work on Wall Street." She sat up, swinging her legs off the couch. "But you're not. You're weird."

"Thanks."

"It's a compliment." She stood, crossing the room in three steps, and stopped in front of me. She was close enough that I could smell the clove cigarettes and the cherry lip gloss, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her green eyes. "Christi likes you."

"Does she?"

"She does. And I'm starting to see why." She reached out, her fingers brushing the collar of my shirt. "You're quiet. But you're not shy. You're just... waiting."

"For what?"

She didn't answer. She kissed me instead.

It wasn't gentle. It was a challenge, a dare, her lips pressing against mine with a force that made my head spin. She tasted like sugar and defiance, and I kissed her back without thinking, my hands finding her waist, pulling her closer. She was small, but she was strong, and she pushed me back against the kitchen counter with a growl that vibrated through my chest.

"Tell me to stop," she murmured against my mouth.

I didn't.

She kissed me again, deeper this time, her tongue sliding against mine. Her hands were in my hair, tugging, demanding. I grabbed her hips and lifted her onto the counter, and she wrapped her legs around my waist like she'd been waiting for this, like she'd been planning it all along.

The door opened.

Christi stood in the doorway, a six-pack in each hand, staring at us. Her face was unreadable. For a long, terrible moment, no one moved.

Then she set the beer down on the floor, walked over to us, and kissed me.

Her lips were softer than Misti's. Sweeter. She tasted like vanilla and something else, something warmer, and when she pulled back, she was smiling.

"You started without me," she said.

Misti laughed, breathless. "You were taking forever."