MY FAKE BOYFRIEND CAN HEAR MY THOUGHTS
Chapter Two: Larkspur Rules
By the time I found the folded note shoved into the back corner of my locker at Larkspur Academy, I had already broken four separate rules of a contract I hadn't technically read, worn my sister's uniform skirt approximately one inch too short because nobody warned me the pleats ran differently at this school, and nearly called my new chemistry teacher "Mom" out of pure, exhausted panic.
The note said, in handwriting that was definitely not mine and definitely not Elowen's either: I know you're not her.
Okay. Cool. Great. Love that for me.
But I'm getting ahead of myself again, because you should probably know how I even ended up walking through the doors of Larkspur Academy in the first place, since Larkspur is not, and has never been, my school.
Here's the thing about the Whitlock family plan, as explained to me at seven in the morning by my mother, who had clearly been up since five rehearsing this exact conversation in the mirror: Elowen didn't just skip a party. Elowen skipped an entire school. Larkspur required her, as Thomas's official Contract Girlfriend, to attend at least three days a week for the semester, "for optics," which is a word rich people use instead of "because we want to control how this looks."
Which meant I couldn't just fake my way through one Very Public Party and go back to my actual life at Brookhaven Arts Magnet, where I had an actual portfolio due to actual scholarship judges in actual, terrifyingly few weeks.
I had to become Elowen at an entirely different school. For three days a week. Starting immediately.
This is not what I signed up for. Well. It is literally what I signed. But it is not what I thought I was signing up for.
Brookhaven let me "shadow a college prep partnership program" for two weeks, which is a very fancy way of saying my mother made one phone call and my entire education briefly ceased to be my own business. My art teacher, Ms. Alvarez, only agreed to it because I promised, swore, pinky promised, that I would still turn in my portfolio pieces on schedule, scholarship deadline unmoved, universe unbothered by the fact that I was now also secretly pretending to be my own sister at a school full of people who had never met me.
So there I was. Monday morning. Larkspur Academy, all ivy and old brick and the specific, expensive quiet of a place where nobody has ever had to raise their voice to get what they want.
I did not know a single locker combination. I did not know a single class schedule. I did not, and this felt like the most important detail somehow, know a single face.
Elowen had left me a list, at least. Taped inside my suitcase, three pages, titled in her perfect handwriting: HAZEL'S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO BEING ME.
Rule one: Your locker combo is my birthday, obviously. Rule two: Sit with the debate team at lunch, do not talk about art, they will ask follow up questions you cannot answer. Rule three: Thomas walks you to first period. Let him. It looks better for the cameras and also he already knows everything, which, sorry, I should have mentioned that part before you left.
SHE SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT PART BEFORE I LEFT.
I stood in the main hallway at seven fifty two in the morning, reading that line for the third time, feeling something between fury and relief settle into my chest at the same time, which is a truly uncomfortable combination of feelings to have before first period.
"You're staring at a piece of paper like it personally wronged you," said a voice behind me, low and unfairly amused, and I didn't have to turn around to know who it belonged to.
"It did," I said. "Your girlfriend left me an instruction manual and casually mentioned, on page two, that you already know I'm not her."
Thomas Hale fell into step beside me like we did this every day, hands in his pockets, that same permanently entertained expression on his face, the one that made it very hard to tell if he found the whole situation funny or fascinating or possibly both.
"In my defense," he said, "I only found out about twelve hours before you did."
"That does not make me feel better."
"It wasn't meant to." He glanced sideways at me, and something in his expression shifted, quieter, more careful than the teasing tone suggested. "Look, I'm not going to tell anyone. If that's what you're panicking about right now."
How does he know that's what I'm panicking about.
"I can hear you panicking about it," he said, answering the question I hadn't asked out loud, and I nearly walked directly into a very expensive looking marble pillar.
Right. The pen thing. I kept forgetting, in the way you forget a sunburn exists until you lean back against something, that every single thought I had within apparently ten feet of this boy was not, technically, private anymore.
"That's so unfair," I said. "You get my inner monologue and I don't get anything."
"You get my devastatingly charming company," he said, deadpan, and I laughed before I could stop myself, a real laugh, the kind that startled me a little because I hadn't expected to laugh at all today.
He's actually kind of funny. Great. This is going to make everything so much harder.
I saw it land, that flicker of a reaction he'd get whenever he heard something I hadn't meant to project, a small pause in his step, gone almost as fast as it came.
He didn't say anything about it. I decided, watching him not say anything about it, that this was somehow worse.
We made it to first period exactly on time, and Thomas peeled off toward his own class with a small, easy wave for the benefit of two girls I didn't recognize who were very obviously watching us from across the hall, phones already out.
Rule three: let him walk you to class, it looks better for the cameras. Great. Wonderful. I am a prop in my own life now.
By second period, I had a new problem, one Elowen's survival guide had not prepared me for at all. Someone named @LarkspurLowdown, an account with roughly the entire school following it and zero actual identifying information about who ran it, had posted a photo of me and Thomas from that exact hallway moment, captioned: new season, same power couple? Elowen Whitlock looking a little different lately. New haircut, or new energy.
I have not gotten a haircut. I am literally the same hair, on a different girl.
I read the comments during passing period, which was a mistake, because half the school appeared to have opinions about my posture, my walk, and one boy who was apparently very confident that "Elowen" had gotten taller over the summer, which, considering Elowen and I have been exactly the same height since the fourth grade, told me at least that particular commenter had never actually looked at either of us very closely.
First period was fine, if you count "fine" as sitting through an entire discussion of a debate topic I had never studied while a boy named Marcus kept looking at me expectantly like I was supposed to have opinions about trade tariffs. I nodded a lot. I said "that's a fair point" twice, in a tone I hoped sounded like Elowen and not like a girl actively drowning.
Lunch was where it fell apart.
The debate team, exactly as Elowen's notes had warned me, wanted to talk about strategy for regionals, and I nodded along until someone, a sharp faced boy with an expensive watch and an expression like he already knew every answer before he asked the question, leaned across the table and said, "You've been off all morning, Elowen. Didn't sleep?"
This is Julian. Thomas's cousin. Elowen's notes said watch out for Julian.
"Something like that," I said, keeping my voice light, the way I'd practiced in the mirror at six that morning.
"Funny," Julian said, watching me with an attention that felt less like curiosity and more like a test, "you usually take your coffee black. You just put three sugars in that."
Oh no.
The entire table looked at my cup. I looked at my cup. Three sugars sat there, undeniable, dissolving into evidence against me.
"New thing I'm trying," I said, too fast.
"Sure," Julian said, and smiled in a way that did not reach his eyes at all, and went back to his sandwich like he was perfectly satisfied with an answer I could tell he did not believe for one single second.
He knows something's wrong. He doesn't know what yet. But he's looking.
I didn't see Thomas again until the end of the day, at my locker, where I found the note.
I want to be clear that finding a folded, unsigned note reading I know you're not her in your locker is significantly more alarming than a boy telling you the exact same thing to your face over a plate of party appetizers. At least Thomas had the decency to say it with his whole chest, in a low voice meant only for me. This was just sitting there, in the dark corner of a metal box, waiting for me to find it alone.
"Whose is this?" Thomas asked, appearing at my shoulder the way he apparently always would from now on, reading the paper over my arm before I could hide it.
I don't know. That's the terrifying part. I don't know who else knows.
His jaw tightened, just slightly, the amusement draining out of his face in a way I hadn't seen yet. "That's not my handwriting. And it's not Julian's."
"How would you even know Julian's handwriting well enough to rule him out that fast?"
"Because I've spent my whole life reading everything my cousin writes for the parts he doesn't say out loud," Thomas said, which was, somehow, the most honest sentence he'd said to me all day. "This isn't him. He's louder than this. If Julian knew for certain, he'd already be telling someone important, not leaving anonymous notes in a locker like a bad mystery movie."
"So who does that leave?"
"I don't know yet." He folded the note carefully, tucking it into his blazer pocket like evidence, like something he intended to actually investigate rather than ignore. "But I intend to find out before it finds you first."
He said "before it finds you," not "before it finds us." Like he's already decided this is his problem to solve, not just mine.
He looked at me then, something unreadable crossing his face, and I had the distinct, uncomfortable sensation that he'd heard that thought too, filed it away somewhere the way he seemed to file away everything I accidentally handed him.
"You should get home," he said instead, voice back to its usual easy calm. "Same time tomorrow. I'll walk you in."
"Is that rule three, or is that you?"
Something flickered across his face, quick and almost startled, like the question had caught him somewhere he hadn't expected to be caught. "Ask me again when I've figured out the difference."
He was gone before I could decide whether that answer terrified me or did something significantly more complicated to the inside of my chest, leaving me alone at my locker with an empty space where the note used to be, and the growing, uneasy certainty that whoever had written it was still out there, watching, and knew exactly which twin I actually was.
I texted Elowen that night, sitting cross legged on my bed with her survival guide open beside me like a cursed textbook I hadn't asked to be assigned.
someone left a note in my locker. yours, i mean the locker. saying they know i'm not you. also there's an anonymous gossip account that has apparently been tracking your every move for MONTHS and I need you to explain that to me immediately.
She didn't answer for almost an hour, long enough that I'd started composing increasingly unhinged follow up texts in my head, before three dots finally appeared and then vanished, twice, like she couldn't decide what to say either.
that account has existed since freshman year. everyone just ignores it. also. hazel. i'm sorry. i really thought two weeks would be simple.
Nothing about this is simple, Elowen. There is a boy who can hear my thoughts and a stranger who apparently already knows I'm a fraud and I have a portfolio due in nineteen days.
i know. i'm sorry. just survive larkspur rules and i'll fix everything when i'm back. i promise.
I stared at that message for a long time after she went quiet again, turning Elowen's own handwriting over in my head, page two of the survival guide, the line she'd tucked in almost as an afterthought. Thomas already knows everything, which, sorry, I should have mentioned that part before you left.
She knew. She knew he'd figure it out, or already had, and she left anyway.
I didn't know yet whether that made me more angry at my sister or more curious about the boy she'd left me alone with, but I fell asleep that night with my phone still in my hand, the Silver Promise Pen's warning looping quietly at the back of my mind like a song I couldn't shake. What's signed in silver must be signed in truth. Whatever that meant, I was fairly sure I hadn't signed anything close to the truth yet, and somewhere out there, somebody already knew it.