A big black suitcase sits between the bunk bed my twin sister and I share and our bedroom door. Day by day it grows larger, my sister emptying in more clothes and supplies out of the drawers and shelves in our room. In less than three weeks, she will be hauling that suitcase through our door, leaving an empty bed above me.
When people ask me what it’s like being a twin, I describe my sister and I as “an old married couple.” We understand each other almost completely and finish each other’s sentences not because we have telepathic abilities, but because we’ve lived side by side our entire lives. My sister and I have never spent more than two weeks apart.
In elementary school, when the summer heat became oppressive, I remember my sister and I secluding ourselves in the shade under the playground equipment. We would crouch side by side and draw designs in the gravel dust that collected on our connected knees. Now, at seventeen, our lives are still interwoven. The crack that separates our individualities is hard for me to distinguish. Yet, soon we will be 8,095 km apart, separated by land, sea, and country borders.
As the day of departure draws near, I keep waiting for some pang of emotion to overtake me: excitement, sadness, or fear. I remain as emotionally blank, though, as the exposed white base of my sister’s emptied drawers. I think this is because I just can’t imagine life as a singleton.
Soon, though, I will find out!
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