Truths and Lies

The cold morning air breeze hit my face. My entire body felt chilly as I continued walking. My mind was playing the whole incident in my head on repeat. There was not one second I didn't think about that girl. I don’t want to go back to my grandparents’ house ever. It all started several hours ago.

 ***

The smell of chocolate filled the air as I carefully took out the baked brownies from the oven. “I hope Grandpa and Grandma will love this!” I exclaimed. We were all supposed to meet at their place for a family dinner. It is like a tradition that we held every year and that was usually the time I would get to meet my cousins from Canada. After packing the food, mom, dad and I made our way to their house. 

After sometime we pulled over and I was practically bouncing in glee. I was going to meet my cousins after such a long time and I really couldn’t wait. As soon as I entered the house, I spotted my grandma and instantly my face brightened up and the corners of my mouth curved as I flashed my best smile at her. Grandma always loved my smiles and also loved me the most as she claimed that I reminded her of someone. I never did bother asking her who because every time she would pretend she never heard that question and continue talking. 

“Oh darling! Oh how gorgeous you have become! You have started changing into a young lady, oh how wonderful!” Grandma exclaimed as she gave me a tight hug. I swore I saw her eyes water but I was distracted by other things. There sitting on the couch in the living room, were my three cousins. Ava, 16 years old same age as me, Trisha, 15 years old and the youngest and grandpa’s favourite, Ben, who was 11 years old. In a blink of an eye, they rushed up towards me and squealed in delight and hugged me. Ava and I locked eyes and in that same exact moment, all of our memories together floated infront of our eyes. We are only 4 days apart and Ava is my ride or die. We were the definition of inseparable from kindergarten to eighth grade when she had to move away to Canada. I enveloped her into a tight hug, feeling so happy that I reconciled with my best friend. 

“So, guys, what do you want to do? I say, let’s explore the house!” Trisha suggested.

“We did that 2 years ago Trish and knowing that grandma and grandpa do not change anything around the house, it will be useless. Why not we play outside with the frisbee we had?” Said Ava.

“Yeah, Ava, and let’s just forget the fact that our frisbee was burnt down because of you. If you had not thrown it to the neighbour’s barbecue grill, then I am pretty sure we would have been able to play it,” I sarcastically remarked.

And that was when the argument began as Trisha started telling me how Ava broke her bed because she was jumping on it and Ava being Ava started to deny everything she did. The two bickered back forth and I just stood there and listened with interest.

“Guys STOP! Look it’s raining outside so we can’t play outside. Everything has to be indoors. Why don’t we look through the photo albums?” Ben suggested. 

We all looked at each other and agreed. Grandma gave us the keys to the cupboard filled with the photo albums in the attic. My eyes nearly popped out of its sockets as the others gasped at the stacks of photo albums neatly arranged in the cupboard. “You all better arrange it back like how it was after you’re done okay? Or else no dessert for you,” she said and walked back downstairs. We all started looking through our baby pictures era and giggled when one of us came across any embarrassing baby pictures of us. In half an hour or so, we arrived at our parent’s era. Me and Ava started gossiping in delight when we saw our mothers’ fashion sense in the 80’s and 90’s. “Oh my look at your mom, she looks absolutely stunning especially with those hoops,” Ava claimed. I smiled as I looked at the picture, my mom did look beautiful and she still is. 

“Wait, what?” Ben gasped. Our heads turned towards him and he looked at me eyes wide open. He came towards me and sat across me. I was confused, why would he look at me like that. He was holding a picture in his hand and he constantly looked down at the picture and up at my face again, eyes widening further each time and his mouth agape. 

“Ben you just can’t come to me and say nothing,” I explained.

He shook his and replied “Thea, just look at this picture.”

I took the picture from him and looked at it. It was my mother’s family picture with her sisters and parents. Ben stifled a groan and pointed at a person in the picture. My heart skipped a beat. That girl looked exactly like me and she was standing in between mom and aunt christy. I didn’t even have a clue who that girl was, but something was fishy about it. Her brown hair was the same colour and the same type, wavy, as mine. Her melanin was brown just like mine. Her facial structure looked like an exact photocopy of mine. This cannot be possible I thought. Ava and Trisha looked at that girl with the same confused look on their face. 

“Who is she?” Trisha asked. I shrugged my shoulders. 

“The real question here is why do I look exactly like here?” I asked them. 

“Reincarnation…maybe?” Replied Ava. I looked at her as if she was mad. 

“No Ava, reincarnation does not happen and it’s not possible because if I, or, if she was reincarnated, then I would not be me. I would be her,” I replied back. That did not make sense at all. 

“Let’s go ask Grandpops, maybe he would know,” Ben suggested. 

“No, even if they knew, grandma would not allow grandpa to tell us and then she would tell us to forget what we saw. Say, is there anymore pictures of this girl?” Ava asked. 

We started looking through albums and albums but to no avail of that mystery girl. I pondered over the girl as I looked around the attic. Suddenly, one of the boxes caught my eye. It had my name on it as well. I thought my baby items were all kept at my house, why would be here? I wondered. I advanced towards the box and opened it and I think I felt a huge lump in my throat as I looked through the box. 

The box contained some clothes from the 80s and 90s and many posters as well. “Guys come over here!” I called out to them. They quickly rushed through my side and started inspecting the box. There was a smaller box inside the box and a diary too. I opened the smaller box and it was filled with pictures. All of them containing that same mystery girl. I came across one picture with the girl, mom and aunt christy and it was labelled ‘Sisters by blood but best friends by heart!’. It dawned upon me that the girl should have been a family member…but what happened to her and most importantly why the hell does she look like me? I opened her diary for some answers but instead only found one entry and it read:

‘Dear Diary,

Lets do introductions first. Hi! My name is Thea Ricky and I am 16 years old. I have two sisters, Molly and Christy and I love them with my heart. My parents are Nahida and Arthur and I am the youngest the in the family. I like to read and write but I don’t think I’ll write in this diary for long…

I have to sleep now, goodnight diary!

Yours,

Thea’

“Her name was Thea too,” I said to them as they all read the diary. My stomach churned uncomfortably. I didn’t like the situation I was in. Some secrets cannot be held for too long. 

“What is this?” Trisha asked holding a paper in her hand. I took it and scanned through it. It was a lab sheet and it had Thea’s name on it. 

“No!” I gasped. I ran downstairs to the living room as fast as lightning, startling them as I arrived panting and with my face looking as white as a ghost. 

“You never told me. YOU NEVER TOLD ME,” I shouted. All the anger inside of me exploded. I couldn’t control my emotions at all. How could they have kept this secret from me? Why did they? 

My mom, grandma, grandpa and aunt Christy exchanged wary glances. They knew that one day I would figure out, they knew that someday the cat had to be let out of the bag. 

“What is going on Thea? What do you mean they never told you? I don’t understand! What is going on?” Ava questioned with a worried look on her face. 

“Can’t you see Ava? Read this paper loud and clear!” I replied looking at mom, her eyes brimming with tears. Ava took the paper and started to read aloud, 

“This is to clarify that Thea Ricky’s previously extracted cells from her body will be taken out of preservation and would be used to be fused with Molly Dawson’s enucleated egg cell-“ she gasped. She looked at me with wide eyes, trying to make out words but couldn’t. She was shocked. 

“I don’t understand, what does that mean?” She retorted back, trying not to think of the possible outcome. 

“Ava, you bloody well know what I am. I am a clone. I am the clone of the late Thea Ricky and I have been lied to,” I choked as the reality dawned upon me. 

***

The birds cooed and the wind blew gently. My mind was still not stable. What am I? I looked up at the sky. Who am I? I looked at the white clouds. Am I still a human? I looked west, to the dark ominous clouds coming my way as a lightning stuck far away and the thunder shook the ground.