Story Three: Deridre’s Doppelganger
This story, like my previous “Kacey’s Rebellion,” owes a lot to Hikari’s “Serenity: The Eyes of Amy,” and so I would like to dedicate it to Hikari again. If you haven’t read those, it’s not a big deal, this story works perfectly fine as a standalone piece.
Warning: This fictional story contains references to suicide and child abuse. Although the story only explores these themes secondarily, if you are sensitive to these topics, read at your own discretion.
They say that somewhere in the world, there’s a person who looks exactly like you. Your doppelganger. But the odds of ever meeting this person are so slim that you’d realistically never meet.
Well, I think today, I just found mine.
Let’s back up a bit and I’ll tell you who I am first. My name is Deirdre. I’m a seventeen-year-old girl with a petite build, curly brown hair, and small boobs. I don’t really like how I look, but then again I don’t think that makes me particularly special among the teenage girl population.
So today I was taking a walk in the mountains, just skipping class like usual. I was on a hiking trail, but there weren’t really so many people. I guess it was a Wednesday after all. But that’s when I run into her, my doppelganger. She’s just sitting there in the rest area. It’s as if I had found my living reflection. Only she’s clearly very sad, sobbing almost uncontrollably into her hands.
I’m quite shocked at first. She looks like what I would look like if I was somehow cosplaying as Sailor Moon or something. She’s wearing this schoolgirl uniform that I swear is right out of a Japanese anime: white shirt – tucked in, blue pleated skirt, cardigan, dress shoes, and even a little blue scarf tied around her neck.
I guess I must have been staring at her transfixed for quite a while, because she notices me with a squint of her teary eyes, immediately stops crying, and with embarrassed awkwardness puts on a pair of blue framed glasses to look at me. I think the glasses must be pretty strong. The lenses make her eyes suddenly look far away and smaller.
Her eyes widen behind the glasses as she sees my face. She must have noticed that we look almost exactly alike. She quints a few times in disbelief, and takes the glasses off to clean the lenses.
“Hey there,” I say. “Sorry to have startled you. Is everything OK?”
She places her glasses back on and gives me another look, still clearly perplexed. “You…” she starts but trails off. “Who are you?”
“I’m Deirdre, your doppelganger, apparently. Nice to meet you!” I say, with a humorous tone. We both chuckle a little.
“I guess so, huh?” And then, with regained composure: “Forgive my manners. I’m Janice.” The way she talks, it seems like she’s some sort of rich private school girl. “Would you mind telling me how… Well, why are you here, exactly? How did you find me…?” She asks, with no small amount of confusion.
I laugh and reply, “Dear, I was just hiking through the mountains when I saw you crying. I’m just as confused as you are, cause right now it kinda feels like I’m looking at a mirror.”
“Yes, I can definitely empathize,” she agrees, still tense as ever. “I apologize for my state, I have been under quite some stress recently, and I came here because I needed to compose myself.”
“That’s OK, no worries. How about you tell me what’s the matter? I don’t have anywhere to be today anyway, and I’d love to get to know my twin double.”
So with that, our friendship started. We both sit down and talk for hours. She tells me all about her fancy private all-girls school. Someplace nearby called Serenity College. She tells me the school is good and that she’s happy, but I get the feeling she’s hiding something from me.
I tell her all about myself too: how my parents divorced each other a few years ago and just kind of abandoned me with my grandma, how I skip school all the time, and how I basically do whatever I want whenever I want.
“That sounds nice,” says Janice. “I wish my parents would just leave me alone…”
“Believe me, it’s not that great. I’d trade places with you in a second, I’m sure. I wish I had rich parents who would care for me and love me. Chances are, at this rate I’d be lucky to make it out as a stripper.”
We keep talking about our lives until sunset, when she tells me she has to go. Her school’s days off are Wednesday and Sunday for some reason, but she has a curfew today and technically shouldn’t even be off campus. We reschedule to meet again, same time, same place.
And so as easy as that, we become really good friends. We talk for hours every week, about everything and nothing. We’re sort of secret doppelganger best friends. I could tell, though, that there is something really rough about her that she wouldn’t – or couldn’t – tell me.
On the fifth week, as I’m making my way to our meet-up spot, I run into some friends who invite me to smoke some weed and chill with them for a bit. Of course I say yes, and I almost forget about mine and Janice’s meeting. I do remember eventually, though, and rush there three hours late.
Thank God I decided to go, because as soon as I get there I see Janice lying on the ground unconscious, an empty bottle of pills next to her. Immediately, I think “oh shit” and start thinking about what I can do to save her. We’re too far in the woods for me to call her an ambulance, so instead I try to get her to vomit any way I can. I give her the Heimlich maneuver, I put my finger down her throat, I force water down her throat. Eventually it works, and she comes back to life.
“Deirdre… You came… Sorry,” she mutters under her breath, still visibly unwell from the poisoning.
“It’s OK, Janice. But if you ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself, OK?”
So that day, I finally confront her about what’s bothering her, and she spills the beans on one of the most horrific stories I’ve ever heard. It turns out her dad has been systematically sexually abusing her since the age of 8, and her mom is either in on it or she’s in intense denial. She feels like there’s no way out of the situation, and she has no idea what to do about it. She just doesn’t want to live anymore.
“Sometimes i just wish I were like you, with no parents and all that freedom. I just really don’t have the strength to face it anymore, Deirdre.”
I give her a long hug and try to comfort her, but I really feel like she’s going to do it again if I don’t think of some way to help her.
Then, excitedly, I think of the perfect solution and tell her: “Janice, we’re each other’s doppelgangers, right? No one would be able to tell us apart. Why don’t we switch places for a while, and you can get to experience the freedom I’ve got. You’ll see, my life isn’t a piece of cake either, but at least you’ll be able to avoid your father for a bit. What do you think?”
My main motivation is that I want to make sure she won’t commit suicide again, and I want to show her a way out. I’ve lost friends this way before and I swore I wouldn’t let it happen again. I hoped that she would accept, and thankfully, she did. We started to make plans.
“One thing you have to remember, though,” Janice told me, “is that at Serenity, you have to always be wearing your uniform, and over there that includes glasses. I don’t think you can wear mine though, so that’s a problem. Here, try them on, you’ll see what I mean.”
I really wasn’t prepared for just how strong her glasses were. As soon as I put them on, my vision plunges into a deep, all-pervasive blur.
“I see what you mean,” I reply, taking them off and blinking a few times to readjust my vision.
“So what we need to do is replace the lenses in here with clear ones. At the same time, I can get myself some contacts so I can pretend to be you. When we switch back, I can just pop my lenses back into the frames.”
That’s exactly what we do, and the plan worked. Before I knew it, I was wearing her exact outfit. I was now Janice, the nearsighted A student who goes to Serenity College, and she was Deirdre, the soon-to-be high school dropout. We’re in front of the school now just before sunset, and she shows me the secret entrance that she takes to go back. We say goodbye to each other as we rehearse a few key details of our respective lives. Then, we part ways, our identities reversed. The only person I run into that night is Janice’s roommate, Kelly. She’s wearing a uniform exactly like Janice’s, and even is wearing similarly strong glasses.
My first few days at Serenity College go by without a hitch. I basically know every one of her friends; we had really talked about everything. And it’s kind of nice having a fixed, full routine, teachers who care, and a positive working environment for a change.
One day though, soon after I arrived, my head teacher demands to see me after class. “Janice, is there anything wrong with your uniform these days?” the teacher asks me, sternly. She herself is not wearing a uniform, but is wearing the white-framed glasses that identify her as a teacher, as opposed to our blue-framed ones.
I review the details of the uniform that Janice briefed me on and answer truthfully that there’s nothing wrong with my uniform. “Is that so? Then were you not aware that contact lenses are prohibited in this establishment? Or did you think no one would notice that you’re wearing clear lenses over your contacts? What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”
I try to think on my toes, and come up with a probable excuse: “I, uh, broke my glasses the other day, so I’ve been wearing my contacts with another student’s clear glasses. Sorry, ma’am.”
Her tone softens at my admission, and she says, “Well, that’s quite all right. You should have told me sooner, dear. I’ll have the nurse send you a new pair, they should be ready by tomorrow. I better not see with contacts again, do you hear me, young lady?”
I nod my head in agreement and go back to my room, quite shocked. How am I going to manage now? I can’t actually wear her glasses – I won’t be able to function at all. In just a few days, it’s going to be Wednesday, so I tell myself I’ll see Janice at our regular meet-up and call off the whole thing off. There’s no way this will work now that I can’t wear the clear glasses!
The next morning, there’s a package with Janice’s name on it at the foot of my bed. I know what the package contains, and I’m already dreading the idea of having to wear them today.
“Maybe they’re not that bad?” I tell myself, fetching them out of their box to give them a try.
Putting them over my eyes, my world enters into a profound, powerful blur. My hands become barely recognizable at any distance from my eyes, and it takes me a while to find my balance. I look around some more, trying to make anything out, and I notice while looking outside that the bright, sunlit trees outside are actually somewhat in focus. With some effort, I keep my eyes focused in the same way as they were for seeing the trees and turn them towards the room to look around. This brings the room barely into focus, but the effort gives me a headache and hurts my eyes in a way I never felt before, so I take the glasses off.
That’s when I notice my roommate is awake in bed, staring at me. “I’ve never seen you without your glasses, Janice. Are you still wearing your contacts?”
I think fast. “Oh yeah, I forgot to take my contacts out last night.” With that, I excuse myself and go to the bathroom to “take them out.” In the privacy of the bathroom, I take a few deep breaths and examine the glasses more carefully. They look exactly like Janice’s glasses. I always noticed how the lenses would stick out from the back of the frames when I looked at her from the side. Rotating them around in my hands, I could see countless white circles forming inside the lens. “How could anyone need these to see?” I thought incredulously.
Then, with a sigh, I resolved to put them back on and keep them on for the day, lest I get into even more trouble. I looked at my reflection in the mirror through the glasses for a minute or two, my eyes watering, trying to bring it into focus. Suddenly and with great effort, my vision snapped into focus for less than a second and I caught a glimpse of my reflection. I really looked like the spitting image of Janice now.
The next few days went by agonizingly slowly. I was barely functional. In class, I had splitting headaches the whole time and mostly gave up trying to follow anything. After all, trying to see actually made my headaches worse. I tried my best to pretend I was sick as often as possible so I could rest and take the damn things off sometimes. Thankfully, Janice has a reputation as a good student, so the teachers are lenient and believe I’m really sick.
Finally, it’s Wednesday and I am preparing to sneak out and go meet up with Janice to switch back and end this nightmare. I get to the hole in the fence that she used to sneak in and out, but I can’t find it anymore. Panicking, I look around everywhere but find no trace of the hole. They must have fixed it recently. Am I really trapped here? Tell me this can’t be happening.
Desperate, I go to the front gate and ask to be let out. I make something up about my parents picking me up. It doesn’t work though, and the woman at the gate sends me back to school. I even try to call Janice, but for some reason her phone – my phone – doesn’t work. I am really trapped.
That night, defeated, I go back to my room and cry. How would I make it here at all? I was barely able to keep up with my studies with the clear glasses. Now, I have to try and really be Janice, glasses and all, for who knows how long?
My roommate Kelly interrupts my crying by walking into the room. I make a show of putting the glasses back on before she lies down on the bed next to me and asks me what’s wrong. “Nothing,” I reply unconvincingly, but she leaves me alone. A few minutes later, I remember she wears strong glasses too. Given that I might have to wear them too for the foreseeable future, I ask her: “Kelly, what do you think about wearing glasses? Do you like it? Is it OK?”
“What do you mean?” she responds, surprised. “I mean, don’t you already know what it’s like? You’ve had them since forever.”
“Well, yeah, but I’m just curious is all,” I say. “What do you think about it? Do you like it, or do they bother you?”
She pauses for a bit after my question and asks me: “Well, actually… Can I tell you a secret? Promise not to tell it to anyone.” I promise. She takes a deep breath. “Well… believe it or not, when I first got here I didn’t need glasses. They gave me some with clear lenses in them. But I was really jealous of you, cause I knew you had some of the strongest ones in our grade. Your glasses looked so cool, so real, so mature, while mine were so stupid and fake looking. So on the first day… you remember there was a problem with your glasses and they weren’t in your room? That’s cause I kind of like… stole them…”
I am shocked at this point. She did this on purpose?! “You mean, you took them and wore them as your own? How did you do that?”
“Yeah, I did. It’s been four years now and it’s as if I always needed them, I’m really like you now. I actually really like it. Of course, for the first few weeks I couldn’t see anything, but I just had to have a few rules and be disciplined with myself at the beginning. The rest wasn’t so hard. Please, promise not to tell anyone, OK? You’re the only one who knows.”
After she says that, I’m speechless but kind of curious. I had no idea someone could do that to their eyes. “What were your rules?” I ask.
“Well, it’s pretty simple. First, wear them all the time, no batter what you’re doing. Bathroom, sports, even sleeping. You can’t afford to take them off. Second, study and read a lot, and always bring the paper as close as you possibly can to your eyes. If you can avoid looking at things in the distance or going outside, that’s best. Finally, try not to relax your eyes. When I was doing it at the beginning, my eyes would constantly try to come out of focus to rest. Every time they did this I would force back to focus, and over time it just became natural. I did this for a few months, and now, there’s no way I could take them off. Not that I even want to.”
We continue talking about it for a long time before bed, and I have to admit that her fascination is kind of rubbing off on me. I can really feel that when she talks about her glasses the whole energy of the room changes and becomes more intense. The next morning, though, I am thinking clearly again and I avoid my glasses as much as I can get away with.
After two weeks of this torturous situation without any real chance of escape and no message from Janice, I give up. I’m stuck here, so I might as well use Kelly’s tricks and accept the glasses. Maybe I’ll even have fun doing it like Kelly seemed to be having.
By this point, through wearing the glasses most of the time most days, I am able to see pretty much anything with the glasses on as long as I focus hard enough. Taking Kelly’s advice, I start studying for hours on end every day, holding the books close to my nose. I take showers with them on, I keep them on in the pool, I even sleep with them. I try to maintain focus through the glasses as long as possible without breaking focus. Ten minutes in a row, half an hour, an hour, three hours…
And before I know it, I no longer feel the presence of the lenses. The headaches are gone, and even if I try to unfocus my eyes through the lenses, the picture remains clear.
My finals are over now, and I am sure I did quite well. Janice will keep her perfect grade point average this semester too, despite everything. Before leaving for winter break I look at my reflection in the mirror. What I see is what I am, Janice, the highly nearsighted straight A student. Out of curiosity, I take the glasses off for the first time in months and let my hair down. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see Deirdre staring back at me. The glasses go back on and their now familiar weight and feeling comfort me. I guess I understand how Kelly feels now.
I almost forgot that I had to spend my winter break with “my family,” which now included a father who liked to touch his daughter. I made a plan before seeing them that I would record all of my conversations with Janice’s parents, and I would catch them red-handed if they ever tried to do anything to me.
Well, my plan worked perfectly. On my first night back in Janice’s house, her father came up to my room and tried to do his regular routine. Except I wasn’t his daughter and I had no trouble getting him to say a few incriminating things on tape, as well as getting him to back off by threatening him. Then, I confronted the mom about it and got the evidence I needed to prove she was an accomplice. That same night, the police came to our house to arrest them, and I was temporarily placed in a home.
It’s the next day now, and I’m finally going to meet Janice after all this time. Or should I say, I will meet Deirdre. She had taken to my identity like a fish to water, and was doing better than I could have ever done running a drug sales operation in the school.
She was surprised and a little horrified at seeing me wearing her strong glasses, so I tell her the whole story. She feels really sorry and told me that she lost my phone in the first few days and so couldn’t contact me at all. She tried to come to the school but saw that the fence was repaired.
“Don’t worry about it, Janice. Actually, I think I needed glasses all along, because I can see really well with these,” I lie. This makes her feel better.
She then tells me the story of what happened with her as Deirdre. She’s making close to $10,000 a month selling all kinds of things in school, and she’s got big plans. We decide that we’re both better at living each other’s lives than we ever were at living our own, so we decide to swap identities for good, at least for now. She doesn’t wanna go back to Serenity, and I certainly don’t want to go back to a broken home and a life of drugs. We say goodbye and promise to stay in touch.
The holidays are over, and I’m finally back at Serenity. I find out that they’ve decided to change our rooms, so I’ve got a new room and roommate. I see my roommate’s neatly folded uniform waiting for her on her bed, as well as a glasses case with the name “Kacey Aims” on it. I can’t contain my curiosity, so I open it to see the strongest pair of glasses I have ever seen. Unable to resist, I slip them on, my vision descending into a familiar, powerful blur.
I think to myself: “I could get used to this…”
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