Switched at Birth © Lizzy Weiss
WEEDS
chapter 1
your corner of the Forest
It all started, like many bad-horrible-terrible things do, in Ms. Gold's biology lab.
Despite what her brother told their parents, his friends, and his friends' parents, Bronwyn didn't simply dislike Ms. Gold for burning a good inch and a half of her hair off with a Bunsen burner the year before. Bronwyn absolutely despised Ms. Gold for failing her the year before and making her repeat that stupid class all over again.
Bronwyn could probably pass freshman-level biology even if she decided to sleep through each and every single day's unoriginal, crappy lesson.
Again.
Well, maybe Ms. Gold had a valid reason for failing her last year. Bronwyn would never admit to it - it's not like staying awake in biology took any sort of precedence over her early morning cheer practices that left her drained by the time she got to school.
Nevertheless, it all started in Ms. Gold's biology lab.
"From the color of our eyes to the color of our hair, how our pinky bends, or whether we can roll our tongue…" Bronwyn pressed her lower back into the table, ignoring her partner for the day in favor of widening her eyes, flexing her pinky, and rolling her tongue at her sister, Bay, across the aisle. "... who we are is determined by the genes passed down to us by our mothers and fathers."
Liam Lupo, Bay's boyfriend, flicked his gaze from Bay to Bronwyn, lips curling into an amused grin at the sight of his girlfriend's sister flaunting her tongue-twisting skills at her less-abled twin. As soon as Bronwyn's eyes met his, he opened his mouth wide and stuck his own tongue out, rolling it proudly. Although Bronwyn laughed raucously, Bay only rolled her eyes at her sister before tilting her head at her boyfriend coyly.
"Excellent tongue control, Liam. Good to know for our future," she practically purred.
"Watch it, Bay," Ms. Gold scolded half-heartedly over the dark haired girl's shoulder.
Liam wiggled his eyebrows. "Yeah, Bay, watch it," he told her, smirking into the kiss she swiftly pressed to his lips. Bronwyn mock-gagged as she spun around on her stool to face her reticent lab partner - she thought his name was Chad Young, but to be honest, it could also be anything other than Chad Young. She never actually bothered to make conversation with him, so, whatever.
"Let's begin our blood type tests," Ms. Gold called out loudly as the class got progressively wilder. "Use the needle to prick a drop of blood onto each of the four fields on your test card." Bronwyn quickly tuned the older woman's voice out as she pricked her finger and did the lab without a second thought, focus switching from the class she was stuck in to what she would get to eat for lunch later in the day.
Much as it had the year before, the blood she dropped in the Anti-D field began to react, speckling and clumping together as it dried. Idly, she wondered whether Bay's blood type would match her O-positive - then, she started mentally debating the pros and cons of getting an Italian sub over a Caesar salad.
::
"Apparently, it's extremely rare," Bay was telling their parents as she plopped down in her preferred seat at the dining table. "Only one percent of the population is AB." Bronwyn's eyebrows furrowed, and she sidled around the kitchen island with a mug of lemonade cupped in her hands.
"I have lacrosse practice tomorrow," Toby interjected, "So I can't drive the twins."
Bronwyn rose an eyebrow at her brother, briefly distracted from the questions she'd wanted to ask Bay as she exasperatedly reminded him: "Uh, I have cheer practice at the same time, so you can drive me." Toby scoffed before shrugging in reluctant acquiescence.
"You can't be AB," their dad grumbled good-naturedly as he moved to take his own seat at the table. Immediately, Bronwyn's attention was brought back to her sister. Throwing herself into the seat next to her darker-haired twin, she snatched a plate from Toby's hands and began serving herself some chicken before the entire table was set. "Mom and I are both type A. That means you have to either be A or O. Winnie, you're O, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Bronwyn agreed, dodging her mother's reprimanding cuff to the ear as she realized Bronwyn had already started picking at her food. "O-positive. Where's your card, Bay?" she asked her sister, peering at her curiously.
"Right here." Bay whipped out her testing card, staring at it for a moment before handing it over to Bronwyn. "It says AB. See? Blood don't lie, Dad."
"I'm taking the Mercedes tomorrow," their mom muttered distractedly, placing another dish on the table for Bronwyn to pick at while she walked back into the kitchen.
"It does actually say AB," Bronwyn murmured in confusion. "I thought maybe you'd just read it wrong…" Without warning, the card was taken from her hands by her father's big, meaty claws.
"I may not like reading, but I can still use my eyes, Win."
"Sometimes I doubt that."
"I'm telling you, it's genetically impossible," John said, sitting down in his seat. Their mom managed to squeeze in the last of the dishes even with the limited amount of room left on the table and flicked Bronwyn's ear as soon as she saw her hands reaching out for some more food.
"Maybe I'm some kind of superhuman mutant freak from another planet," Bay cooed excitedly, squinting at Bronwyn curiously. "Does that make Winnie one, too? Or is she just my fake human sibling, part of my fake human family, meant to disguise me from the government and all of my alien enemies in space?"
"I'm thinking you're both vampires," Toby suggested cheekily.
"Oh!" Bay gasped. "How awesome would that be?" she asked Bronwyn.
"Toby, you may have a point there," their dad agreed, eyes flicking up from his perusal of Bay's blood type card to glance over at their mother. "Your mother once had a deep fascination with a mail carrier with snaggly teeth."
"I do not have snaggly teeth!" she and Bay snapped in unison.
Toby hummed, pretending to peer into both of their mouths before taking a finger on each hand and pointing at their teeth. "You both have one riiight there," he taunted. Bronwyn snapped at his fingertip playfully and then stuck her tongue out at him.
"Toby was barely two when I got pregnant with the girls," Kathryn interrupted, smiling sardonically as she finally took her own seat at the table. "I was far too exhausted to have an affair. And besides, my grandmother was Italian - that's where Bay gets her beautiful coloring from!"
Bay looked immensely pleased at the familiar reminder, parroting the word beautiful and staring Toby directly in the eye.
"I, on the other hand, get my coloring from Dad," Bronwyn groaned.
"What's wrong with looking like me?" her dad asked, frowning. With one last peek at Bay's card, he handed it back to her sister with a dismissive, "It has to be a mistake, sweetie."
Bronwyn tilted her head, looking at the card once more. There was no mistaking the obvious clumping on Bay's test - it very clearly said she was AB-negative.
An odd weight settled heavily in Bronwyn's gut.
::
"Hey Toby," she yawned as she rested her head against the window in her brother's car. "What's your blood type?"
He was silent for a moment, unable to move his mouth when he was just as tired as she was at six-thirty in the morning. The things the two of them did for their beloved sports. "A-neg," he rasped, coughing a few times to get rid of the phlegm in his throat. Bronwyn wrinkled her nose, shooting him a disgusted glare. "Shut up," he demanded, not even looking over at her.
"You shut up," she shot back immediately.
"No, you."
"You!"
::
A week or two later, Bronwyn was stretching her legs out on the floor of Bay's garage as her twin lazily painted a picture of a bird - or maybe it was a flame. Actually, it could've probably been a giant tree in the middle of autumn, now that she was thinking about it….
"What would you do if I told you I got Mom and Dad to do something crazy?" Bay suddenly asked, hand frozen in the air as she stopped painting for a moment. Bronwyn dazedly watched the red paint coating the brush drip slowly to splash onto the concrete floor. It looked a lot like blood from where she was sitting.
"Depends on what you mean by crazy," she responded at last, shaking herself from her thoughts. "What'd you do?"
Bay twisted around on her stool, blinking down at Bronwyn as she opened and closed her mouth a few times. "I…" Her sister was clearly struggling for words to explain what, exactly, she'd done, and Bronwyn's eyebrows furrowed in uncertainty and a little bit of worry.
Before she could prompt her sister to say whatever it was she couldn't quite get out of her mouth, Bay burst like a dam.
"I got them to take me to the KC Genetic Testing Center because I'm starting to wonder if I'm even their daughter!"
Bronwyn blinked once, twice, three times. "What?"
Bay smiled sheepishly. "It can't have been a mistake, right? Me being type AB?"
Bronwyn swallowed tightly, looking away from her sister's deep, dark eyes and gazing blankly at the red spot on the floor yet again. "It could be," she whispered weakly.
Bay huffed out a peculiarly sad laugh, dropping her chin down to her chest tiredly. "I don't think it is."
And for once, Bay was right.
::
"Please come with me," Bay whispered as she slipped into Bronwyn's bed the night before she was supposed to meet her biological mom and the… the Other Girl. "I can't do this alone. Not again," she begged.
"Bay…" Bronwyn whimpered, curling as close to her sister as she possibly could. It reminded her of when they were younger, and they would have sleepovers all by themselves. Mom would read them funny stories with equally funny voices for each character, and Dad would come busting in with Toby, a bowl of popcorn, and a bunch of movies to watch even as they squealed at them to get out, it's Girls Only!
Bronwyn wished she couldn't feel Bay shaking in her arms or the splash of cold tears against her hot skin.
"Bay, I wouldn't have let you go alone again, even if you wanted to," she breathed into her sister's ear. "We're always in this together. Forever."
"Together," Bay repeated. "Forever."
::
Bronwyn had had no idea what to wear - what do you wear when you're meeting your twin's biological mom and your own biological sister? Do you dress casually? Professionally? Business-casual, party-wear, athletic-wear, nude? What would make the best impression?
By the time the door opened with a slow creak behind the seats Bronwyn, her sister, and their parents were all seated in, she was pretty sure that whatever the hell she'd put on that morning - it was warm and soft, and really, that's all she could bring herself to care about outside of how Bay was feeling, what Bay was thinking, or what Bay was doing - had at least a thousand holes in it just from her picking at it nervously.
She was the last to rise from her chair and turn around to face their two guests.
"John and Kathryn Kennish," Margaret, the Genetic Tester from Hell spoke up skittishly, clasping her hands together tightly as she moved to stand next to Bronwyn. "Regina Vasquez," she introduced the olive-skinned older woman.
Her hair was darker at the tips than they were at the roots - she'd had highlights done or something, because her hair looked gorgeous, almost like caramel melting into dark chocolate. Her eyes were a matching, chocolatey hue, and Bronwyn briefly wondered if maybe she shouldn't have skipped breakfast this morning. All of those comparisons to chocolate were getting real old, real quick.
Then she realized that if she wasn't comparing Regina Vasquez to chocolate, she was going to be stuck comparing her to Bay.
"Hello," the woman greeted hesitantly, reaching out a hand to shake first Bronwyn's mom's - Hi… - and then her dad's - John Kennish, nice to meet you. "Nice to meet you," she returned politely. Her eyes then flickered away from her dad's, and fell first on Bay, then on Bronwyn. Bronwyn looked away as soon as she realized the woman was returning her inquisitive stare, but that left her with only one other person to look at.
Ginger hair, like her mom; straight nose, like her dad; green eyes, thin lips, like her mom, like her dad, like…
Like her.
"Daphne, this is Bay and Bronwyn," Margaret spoke slowly, gesturing to both of the twins one after the other. "Bay, Bronwyn," she spoke faster this time, turning to look at the girls and then gesturing to the redhead whose face was far too similar to Bronwyn's for the other girl to be comfortable with, "Daphne."
Her throat was dry and she was practically shaking, but Bronwyn still managed to summon up a weak smile for her… twin. Her Other Twin. Her biological twin.
Daphne smiled gently in response. Something about the way she tilted her head made the light glint off of her ear oddly, and as Bronwyn tilted her own head to the side to try and see what it was, the ginger girl began to speak and move her hands at the same time.
"It's nice to meet you."
There was a hearing aid in Daphne's ear. The realization that this girl - her other sister - was deaf, or at least hard of hearing, hit her like a freight train. She had no idea what to do, what to say, and so she scrambled backwards, trying to remember what Daphne had done with her hands as she'd spoken.
"I, uh-" Bronwyn stuttered, clenching her fists tightly as she lifted them up in a half-shrug. "Can you do that again? The- your hands…" Daphne stared at her, wide-eyed, and then glanced at her mother, who signed something quickly to her.
Daphne turned back to Bronwyn and grinned. "It's nice to meet you," she reiterated. This time, her hands moved slower, and Bronwyn timidly, if not clumsily, copied each sign.
"Nice to meet you, too," she murmured, swallowing heavily.
::
"I'm so glad you found it!" Bronwyn heard her mother exclaim as she, Toby, and Bay walked outside to greet their guests.
"No, Jasmine," Bronwyn hissed, annoyed beyond belief at the total incompetence of these new freshmen girls on the squad. She ran a hand through her hair, sighed deeply through her nose, and gritted out between her teeth, "If you can't learn the damn routine, you can either stay in the back like a good little puppy, or you can quit the team, like Sue told you. Your choice."
Her father came rushing out of his study, speaking hurriedly into his own cellphone as he peeked around the corner and out the door to see how their guests were faring. When he spotted Bronwyn in the hallway, he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side as though to ask: What are you still doing in here?
She mouthed a silent Don't judge! at her dad and then backed away from his rapidly approaching figure, holding her phone tight to ear and talking low enough so he wouldn't hear her:
"Complain to me one more time about your own stupidity, Jasmine McCarthy, and you will find yourself with absolutely no friends, a shit reputation, and an astounding lack of opportunities throughout the rest of your high school career. Capiche?"
The younger girl hardly had any time to stutter out a responding Capiche before John reached her, snapping his and her phone shut, shoving them both into his pocket, and ushering her out the door with him.
"Hey! Sorry! Hi! We're opening up two more car washes and things are getting crazy-" her dad rambled, keeping one hand on her back to make sure she wasn't going anywhere. Bronwyn rolled her eyes, stepping forward and away from him in order to greet Daphne with a moderately awkward hug.
As soon as she stepped away and slid into place next to Bay, Daphne smiled happily and told her father, "I can't believe you own Kennish Car Wash. We used to go there!"
Bay turned to Toby and muttered, "I can't understand her." Bronwyn's jaw twitched, and she turned her head just enough to glare at her sister in silent reprimand. Bay didn't even look remotely sorry.
If Bronwyn had been facing such obvious disrespect from a dumb freshman cheerleader, she would have most certainly been incensed at this point. But because it was Bay, all it did was leave her feeling confused and anxious. Bay had been very antsy, touchy - easy to offend, quick to snap - for over a week, now, and Bronwyn didn't quite know why.
It's not like Daphne had done anything to her. Yet.
"My friend Emmett is dying to meet you. He's a huge Royals fan," Daphne divulged cheerfully.
Their dad grinned, really quite happy to have his ego stroked, and decided, "Well, let's all go to a game!"
It was silent for perhaps a beat too long, and Bronwyn stared at her mom until she got the hint and exclaimed, "So, shall we go have lunch?" Her dad was quick to agree, and all of her family shuffled inside quickly.
Bronwyn waited a moment before allowing her blank mask to fall and cringing. Making eye contact with Regina and then Daphne, she clenched her right hand into a fist and circled it on top of her chest with a muttered, "Sorry about that. Come on in, please."
Regina and Daphne were quick to sidle up next to her. "You've been learning how to sign," Regina observed. She seemed to be stuck between disbelief and pure joy, and Bronwyn shrugged awkwardly.
"Not a lot," she said, turning so that Daphne could read her lips if she wanted to. "I've got a lot of stuff to do, with school and all, so I could really only learn a few. The Most Important Ones, if you get what I'm saying," she babbled. "I figured I'd need to know how to apologize if you guys were gonna be visiting a lot."
Daphne laughed loudly, but before she could say anything, Bronwyn lead them into the living room and gestured at a couch before moving over to stand next to Bay. She shot one last smile at the Vasquez women and then glanced at her sister, who stood with her arms crossed and a scowl fixed permanently onto her face. "What's wrong?" she murmured through the corner of her mouth.
Bay shook her head, huffing, and said nothing. "Bay, come on-" she pleaded, louder than before, but then her mom began to speak in nervous excitement as soon as she saw Daphne had settled on the couch.
"I made chicken enchiladas," Kathryn told them, picking up a cracker and dipping it into her favored Kalamata olive tapenade, "So save room!" She giggled, biting into her snack and betraying just how tense she was.
"I'm actually vegetarian," Daphne told her apologetically. As soon as she recognized the panicked look on Kathryn's face, she added on, "But it's okay! I always find something."
"Oh, I'm sorry," her mom said, thoroughly chagrined, "I didn't know…"
"Well, we've got crackers, bread, and olives ripe for the picking," Bronwyn offered cavalierly, a wry, crooked smirk curling her lips up. "More chicken for me since you're so picky," she teased, wiggling her eyebrows at Daphne.
Regina leaned forward, amused. "When Daphne was eleven, I dated this guy who managed a chicken plant. The stories we heard…"
"Forget the stories!" Bronwyn interrupted her, waving her hands in the air negligently. "Chicken is too delicious for me to care."
Daphne scoffed and began signing something that made Bronwyn think of some kind of silent murder mystery movie. She had to admit, it looked pretty intense.
"I got the chicken part of all of that," Bronwyn told her, repeating the sign for chicken. "Everything else screamed murder."
Daphne grinned, laughing with their parents. "That's the point."
"I didn't know you were learning to sign," Bay grumbled into her ear.
Their dad was telling Daphne how he thought being vegetarian was great, even if Bronwyn mocked her for it, while Bronwyn turned to Bay and furrowed her brows. "It's a good idea to know how to talk to your mom's kid, don't you think?" she hissed lowly, peering at their guests from the corner of her eye.
Bay watched her for a moment in that way that let Bronwyn know she was becoming a Major Disappointment, but before she could try and ease the sting of her words her sister sneered at her and chuckled bitterly. "Don't try to lecture me, Win."
"I'm not lecturing you, Bay, I'm just-" A hand on her shoulder stopped her mid-rant, and Bronwyn turned to see her mom giving her the Stink Eye. Bronwyn sighed deeply and bit her cheek, deciding to just leave Bay be for now and try to talk to her later.
"So Daphne, are you allergic to anything?" Kathryn changed the subject with a jittery gesture to their table of appetizers, unsure how to proceed with the conversation. "Toby and I both break out into hives when we eat-"
"Kiwi," Daphne finished for Kathryn, and Bronwyn blinked, surprised.
"Yes!" her mother gasped, delighted at the news. "Isn't that amazing?" she asked no one in particular, though she turned and grasped Bronwyn's arm tightly. "The girls aren't allergic to anything, but Bay's always been picky - even as a baby. She went a whole week eating nothing but carrots, and Winnie always followed her sister around back then, so the both of them had orange poo for days!"
"Thanks, Mom," Bay gritted out, shaking her head in exasperation. "That's classy." Bronwyn rolled her eyes at her sister's swift retreat to an armchair in the corner of the room, and plopped down on the ground in front of the table. She stretched out a hand and snatched a few olives to pop into her mouth, shaking one at Daphne when she caught the redheaded girl watching her.
The other girl shook her head minutely, smiling softly, while Kathryn reminisced about how cute the twins were as babies. "I bet you were a cute baby too," she said to Daphne, a mirrored little smile on her lips as Daphne gazed up at her.
After a second, her mom's lips tightened in that familiar way they always did before she'd start crying, and Bronwyn tried to think of something to say so that Kathryn didn't have an admittedly overdue emotional breakdown. Luckily, she didn't need to, because her dad was quick to come up with something new to talk about.
"So, um, you all live in East Riverside?"
Maybe not-so-luckily. Bronwyn allowed her eyes to fall shut in nothing but pure disbelief at her father's social ineptitude. She really did not want to see the look on Regina's face as she recognized John's pitiful interrogation tactics.
"Yes," she heard the dark-haired woman answer carefully. "It's near a lake, and a park, and it's very diverse - which… I think is important," she continued. When Bronwyn finally opened her eyes and looked at Regina, she could easily spot the challenge hidden in her raised brows and wide eyes.
"Definitely, yeah, definitely," her father hastily placated.
"Yes, of course," Kathryn conceded around a mouthful of cracker. So much for maintaining proper etiquette. She waited a beat and swallowed her food before asking Regina, "Are you Mexican?"
Why were her parents so bad at communicating effectively with people? At that point, Bronwyn just wanted to slam her head into the bowl of tapenade in front of her. She watched Toby smother a perfectly masculine giggle into his fist and wished he would just break and laugh directly in their mother's face - that way she could actually slam her head into the shitty bowl of tapenade without the risk of getting yelled at.
"Puerto Rican," Regina corrected, forcing a tight smile, "On my mother's side. She named her actually." Almost immediately, her sour smile relaxed into something softer, happier, prouder. "Daphne Paloma. After my father, Daniel."
"Daphne Paloma Vasquez," Bay repeated. Bronwyn turned her head to look at her sister over her shoulder, barely able to take in the dreamy expression on her face before it warped into something sullen and agonizing, disguised by an all-too-familiar smirk. "Yep, that definitely fits better than Bay Madeline Kennish."
Bronwyn snorted, tilting her head back languorously and eyeing her twin with nothing short of contempt. "Not when you're that pale," she taunted. "Even Daphne Blake wasn't as white as you are."
"You're one to talk!" Bay snapped, sticking her tongue out petulantly.
"I can tan," she rebutted.
"Besides, what's being pale have to do with anything? I could totally pull off the name Daphne Paloma!"
"Your face just isn't right for it - it's all about the aesthetics, you know," she told her sister.
Toby jumped in, nodding his head emphatically, "She's right, your face really isn't right for it. Your face isn't right for a lot of things, actually-"
"I think Bay is a beautiful name," Daphne cut in, freezing the conversation in its tracks. Conveniently for Toby, it also freezed Kathryn's hand on its journey to cuff him upside the head.
Bay blinked, nodded politely, then glared so hard at the ground Bronwyn was surprised there weren't holes burned into the carpet. "Of course you do."
"We thought so too," Kathryn murmured, hands dropping into her lap to fiddle with her plate and green eyes flickering up to catch identical ones in their stare. Another awkward silence befell their not-so-small group, and Bronwyn's legs itched to get up and run away as far as possible.
"Can I use the restroom?" Daphne suddenly asked.
It was clear as day that she really didn't need to go to the bathroom, but her mother still agreed instantly. "Of course- of course, make yourself at home," she told her, gesturing behind Toby in the general direction of the bathroom. Bronwyn saw her opportunity to leave and was eager to take it as soon as she could. "If you need anything, pretend it's your house."
Daphne giggled, standing up from the couch, but paused when Toby added, "'Cause technically, it is."
Bronwyn stood up too, raising her eyebrows at her brother, and then walked around the table to grab Daphne's arm and tug her out of the room. "I'll show you the bathroom." She signed bathroom simply for the extra practice. It was an easy sign to learn, considering it was just the same as the one for the letter T, except with some additional movement - every kid at Buckner learned the alphabet in the first grade.
"Oh," Daphne said, glancing at the hand on her arm but saying nothing about it. "Thanks, that's nice of you."
"Don't get used to it," Bay mocked as they walked out of the room, disregarding the fact Daphne couldn't even hear her say it.
That's probably why she said it, actually. Bronwyn's jaw twitched at the thought.
::
"You used the cinnamon soap."
Daphne blinked at her, opening and closing her mouth in befuddlement. Then, "What?"
Bronwyn laughed, shaking her head and pushing some errant brown strands of hair out of her face. "I said: you used the cinnamon soap. Sorry," she circled her closed fist over her chest and wiggled her brows smugly, "I don't know the sign for 'cinnamon' or 'soap'."
Daphne grinned. "This is 'cinnamon'," she began, slowly spelling out the word. "There isn't really a sign for it. 'Soap', though…" She rubbed one palm against the other in a way that reminded Bronwyn of when Mr. Waffles would paw at people to pet him when he was feeling especially needy for attention.
She missed Mr. Waffles. Maybe they could get another dog soon…
"And I like the smell of cinnamon," Daphne continued, pulling Bronwyn out of her thoughts. "Do you?"
"I'm the only one who does," she told the redhead. "Everyone else prefers to use the lavender soap." Bronwyn pawed at her hand the way Daphne showed her, giggling with the other girl as she did. "I can't stand the smell of it, though."
"I don't mind it, I just like cinnamon better," Daphne said, walking past Bronwyn and padding into the dining room they used when Very Important People came over to chat with their parents. "Wow," she muttered, turning her head left and right as she took in the spacious room and extravagant decor. She walked straight to the large window on the far wall, looking out at the pool that only Toby and their mom really enjoyed using.
Bronwyn meandered over to her side, taking barely a peek at the pool before turning to look at the ginger girl. "It's a bit much, I guess," she agreed with the unspoken words gathered in the girl's green eyes once she'd looked back at her. "Do you like to swim?"
"Not really," Daphne disagreed dazedly. "I like to play basketball."
"Yeah?" Bronwyn said, raising her brows. "Toby and Dad love basketball."
"Not baseball?" Daphne asked her, a funny little twist to her lips.
"There's a difference between loving something and being obsessed with it," the brown-haired girl quipped, rolling her eyes. The other girl laughed loudly at that, and as Bronwyn looked back at her, she spotted her mother in the doorway to the kitchen, watching them both with a soft smile on her face. "Hey Mom," she called out quizzically, brows furrowed. "What's up?"
Daphne turned around, offering up her own smile as soon as she saw Kathryn.
"Hi, you two," her mom choked out, holding out a hand to them both in silent wonder. "I- I just- you're both so-"
"Mom, I'm outta here." Toby appeared so suddenly Bronwyn nearly shit her pants at the sight of him.
As it was, her pants remained completely unsoiled; her face, on the other hand, soured at her brother's expectant face as he waited for their mom to say he could leave.
"Um, what? No," she said loudly. "If I couldn't go to practice today, you can't leave to hang out with your dumb jock buddies!"
"My dumb jock buddies?" Toby sputtered, offended. "Like your stupid little Barbie squad is any better-"
"Why don't you two show Daphne around?" Kathryn interjected, an explicit warning in her eyes. "Give her a tour?"
"I don't need a tour," Daphne told them, wide-eyed. "You don't need to give me a tour."
Her brother nodded slowly, waving his hand at Daphne as he turned back to their mom. "She doesn't need a tour. Or two tour guides."
Kathryn smiled in reluctant amusement, nearly rolling her eyes. "I think it would be nice." She gave him that look that said he had no choice, and Toby closed his eyes for a second in, perhaps, prayer.
"Alright then." Bronwyn stepped closer to Daphne, tilting her head towards the hall, where the front door awaited them. "Time to be the best tour guides Daphne's ever met," she said loudly over her shoulder, already escorting the redhead out of the house.
Eventually, the sound of her brother's unnecessarily heavy footsteps reached her ears. Bronwyn smirked. "Thanks for joining us, Big Foot."
"Shut up, Winnie the Pooh. Just guide."
::
"Boo, you suck!" Bronwyn shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth so her brother could hear every insult she spewed as clearly as he possibly could. "You can't even score a single point!"
Toby didn't dare to take his eyes off of Daphne's body for even a split second, but he did spare a moment to blindly wave his middle finger behind his back for his sister to see. The brunette laughed raucously in return, booing him some more, when the sound of heels on concrete met her ears.
She turned around and met the dark, familiar eyes of Regina Vasquez, and blinked in surprise. "You're leaving so soon? We didn't even have lunch yet."
"Ah, yeah," the older woman cringed, rubbing a hand against her arm uncomfortably. "I have some appointments at the salon I need to take care of soon, so…" It was a barefaced lie, but before Bronwyn could even think to call her out on it, Regina glanced over the younger girl's shoulder and began to sign as she talked. "I'm going," she told her daughter. "They'll drive you, okay?"
Daphne signed her assent carelessly in response, eager to get back to her game with Toby.
"Uh," Bronwyn coughed, bringing Regina's attention back to her. "Does Bay know you're going?"
"She was holed up in her room, listening to some… very loud music," Regina said hesitantly, biting her lip. "I didn't want to bother her, so I- could you tell her goodbye? For me?"
Bronwyn shoved her hands into her back pockets, nodding. "Yeah, of course. See you soon?"
Regina smiled. "See you soon." Then she was leaving, and Bronwyn could only stare at the spot she had been standing in a second before, trying to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do now.
What are you supposed to do in a situation like this? Was there a guidebook for these kinds of things? How to Deal With The Fact Your Twin Was Switched at Birth: For Dummies.
Yeah. That definitely had a ring to it.
::
"She forgot her sweater?" Bronwyn repeated, holding the purple jacket in her hands as she glanced up at her dad, brows crinkled on her forehead. "Why didn't you just drop it back off at her house?"
Her dad looked baffled for a moment, as though he hadn't quite thought that she would ask him that - or that he hadn't actually asked that himself. He shook his head, dragging a hand down his face, and groaned lowly. "I was tired," he excused half-heartedly. "I wasn't thinking."
"Yeah, I figured," she scoffed, then held the jacket back out to him. When he simply looked at it, then looked at her, she held her hands out to her sides in annoyance. "What? You'll probably see her sooner than I will! Just drop it off tomorrow morning or something. Unlike you, I actually have to go to school during the week. I don't have the time to give this back to her!"
John sighed deeply, nodding at her words, but still didn't take the jacket from her. "I want you to give it to her."
"Dad!" she shouted at his back as he walked out of her room languidly. He didn't bother to even look at her, and she slouched forward on her bed in defeat. "What the hell…" she groused under her breath.
Guess she should forget about going to Subway for lunch tomorrow.
A/N: End of Act One. Curtain call!
This is my Lazy Girl's Story. I just really miss SAB, and I wanted to write something for it - something easy, stress-relieving, the whole shebang. I tried my best to make some original scenes with Winnie this chapter, but I think I'll succeed at that better next chapter.
Ah, well.
(Does anyone even read SAB fics?)