This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All characters depicted are 19+ years old.
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Jason hurried across the street on his way to Bennett Center. His mind racing; he finished his engineering final 15 minutes ago, and checked his voice mail to hear Beth asking, begging, him to meet her at the coffee shop on the first floor of the Student Union building. He could almost hear the tears in her voice.
"Jason? It's Beth. I know you're in class, but when you get this ... I need to see you. I duh," she stopped in the middle of the syllable, paused a moment, let out a sob, and continued, "It's ... it's important. I'll be in the Front Room. If you don't see me, wait for me near the menu board. ... "
There was a long pause at the end of the message before she hung up the phone, almost like she debated saying something more. Like most normal people, it was out of character for her not to say, "goodbye," at the end of a phone call. He tried to tell himself he was reading too much into it, but he had so little information that his mind kept inventing details to fill in the gaps.
The real question in his head was, "Why call me?" His mind raced as he frantically searched the coffee shop for the tall, slender brunette. Beth was more than a friend to him, but only just. Beth is the identical twin sister of Bonnie, Jason's girlfriend.
More specifically, Beth and Bonnie are mirror image twins; a mirror image twin is exactly what it sounds like. Both twins are like reflections of each other, to the point that they will even favor different hands. In this case, Bonnie is left handed and Beth is right. Bonnie also cut her hair in a short, pixie cut after having so many people comment they had trouble telling the two apart. Of course, Jason would know other ways of telling them apart, having seen Bonnie naked. She said that was only a viable solution if they exclusively wore bikinis, and Jason acted like that was a fantastic idea.
When he got to the menu board, he saw Beth standing up from a table and walking toward him. She'd been crying, her face and eyes were noticeably red and she wasn't wearing make up. She moved quickly, head down and with a purpose. Before he could say anything, Beth pulled at his jacket sleeve and lead him out of the coffee shop.
"Hey, Wha..." He started.
Beth turned toward him and silenced him with a finger to her lips. He could see by the expression on her face that she was trying not to burst into tears again. She then pointed to the stairway in the middle of the lobby, and beckoned him to follow. The pair walked in silence up a flight of stairs, and down a hall to an empty meeting room. Almost any student reserve one these rooms, and Beth must have done so since she has a key. Her hands tremble as she fumbles with the lock for a moment. Once inside, she closes, and locks the door.
"Jason," she says quietly without turning away from the door, "I fucked up."
She turned around, slumped against the door and slid all the way down to the floor with her hands over her face.
He had the whole walk to this room to think about what he would say, and how he'd say it. She is obviously upset and reaching out to him, so he wants to be careful with his words. He crouched down in front of her, and placed his hand on her shoulders. "Beth? Honey, what happened?" he asked, subconsciously trying to emulate the cadence his father would use when he was little. Then, after a measured pause to judge her reaction, and stilted to sound like an afterthought, he asked, "Where's Bonnie?"
She took a deep breath, gathering her strength before she looked up into his eyes. "She's cheating on you, and it's my fault!"
Her words were a punch in the gut. He stumbled backward a few feet and found a chair to sit down. Never has a punch in the gut like that raised and answered so many questions at once. Jason knew there had been a problem in his relationship with Bonnie for a few weeks. None of his classes overlapped with hers this quarter; he was an engineering major, and the twins were both working on biochemistry. She had broken five dates in as many weeks, she'd been spending an extraordinary amount of time in study groups, and when she did make time for him, they couldn't be alone. It's never been unusual for Beth and Bonnie to be joined at the hip, but it seemed like Beth's new boyfriend, Matt, was always in the room too.
Matt was in the Pre-Med program, and all three were in the same organic chemistry class. That's where Beth and Matt met. About three weeks into the quarter when they started going to a study group together, almost every night. He had suspicions there was more going on, but absolutely no proof.
It suddenly dawned on him, their study group was supposed to be here, in this room. It usually started at 7pm, so there were a three hours before he could expect anyone to show up. But if Beth can check out the key to this room, that means she is one of the group officers. Almost any student reserve one these rooms, but it's not as easy as asking, you need to form a student-run organization or club, and have four named officers, a president, vice-president, a secretary, and a treasurer, who will be responsible for the actions of the organization. Over the past couple months, they both repeatedly said that they would be kicked out of the group if they missed too many meetings or showed up late too often. Last week, Bonnie even said they threatened to kick her out if she missed one more this quarter. That seemed overly strict then, and doubly unlikely now that he knew Beth's status.
Pieces of the puzzle started clicking into place, and he didn't like the picture that was starting to emerge.
"Okay." he finally said, "Okay, start from the beginning."
