14 Minutes
Evan and Ethan Brightman
Evan knows something is wrong. And it's not the fact that everyone in Windsor House is here, at the midnight premiere of Alice in Wonderland. It's not the fact that he and Ethan forced everyone to dress up according to their Warblerland names. It's not the fact that they've been standing there since 2:00 in the afternoon just to get good seats. Evan can't place his finger on it, but he knows something isn't right. And because Evan knows, Ethan does too.
Evan's heart has been pounding rapidly, uncontrollably so. Something will happen tonight... but what? Both of them can sense it, a feeling of... dread? Evan glances nervously at his twin, their ice blue eyes locking together for a long minute, and in that minute, an unuttered conversation passes between them. Ethan's eyes are almost pleading, asking Evan for reassurance that this was the right thing to do. And Evan inclines his head by a fraction of an inch, unnoticeable to all but the most careful spectator. Ethan wants to relax, but he knows something is still wrong. Evan is tense, waiting for something.
Finally, after what seems an eternity, the theater doors open, and a cheer arises from the mob of people waiting outside. The blonde twins reach out no more than three inches to seek each others' fingertips. And once their hands are together, impossibly long fingers intertwined, both exhale deeply, letting go of a breath neither knew they held. At that moment, neither thought that anything could ever possibly be wrong, because here they were, about to enter the theater with the rest of Windsor House, and that feeling of premonition that chilled both of their spines before had been mere paranoia, and nothing more. But how wrong they were, for shortly after, a horde of people start to become impatient, edging into the small bubble that Windsor House has created. All of a sudden, there's too much noise, too much confusion. There are too many limbs and the tangle of sweaty bodies only adds to the disorder. But the only thing Evan notices is that he can no longer feel the warmth of Ethan's palm against his.
His lips curve downward into a slight frown as his head turns to the general direction of where Ethan was previously standing. Puzzled, Evan wonders why his twin would let go of his hand. And puzzled he remains, until his head has spun a quarter of a turn, and his mind shuts down. Somewhere deep inside, he knows that Ethan is not there, but his mind won't accept the fact. Ethan has to be there somewhere. He cannot be gone, lost. Any minute now, he will pop out of nowhere, with a mischievous Cheshire grin on his face, his blue eyes lighting up with delight at having fooled his brother. A minute passes, then two. And Evan is still standing there, both his mind and limbs in lockdown from just the thought of Ethan not being by his side.
Panic starting to bubble up within him, Evan whips around wildly to search for his twin, his soul mate, his younger brother who he cannot allow anything to happen to. But when he cannot find his twin amidst the crowd of people, the panic reaches its peak. Wes turns around, his lips starting to say something, but he stops in mid-sentence. At first, he looks at Evan, puzzled. But then he notices the panicked look in Evan's piercingly blue eyes, the slight shaking of his usually so steady hands, and Wes can't understand. Until he realizes what's missing from this picture. Ethan.
By now, five minutes have already ticked by, five minutes of slow torture in which Evan has tried to remain calm, to refrain from shouting the name of his other after that burst of panic. And he stands there, willing himself to be composed, but his lips are trembling, his mind concocting the worst that could have happened in the time that has already elapsed. Evan is paralyzed with sheer terror in what might have happened to his twin. Wes's lips are moving, forming words that Evan cannot possibly fathom, because all his mind can think about is how it's already been seven minutes. He's already been away from his twin for seven minutes, and he will not go into that theater with Wes and the others until he finds his twin.
Wes pulls more urgently on Evan's sleeve, struggling to explain to a non-responding blonde boy that they will be able to meet up with Ethan in the theater, because no matter how long Evan looks for his identical twin, it will take forever to find him in this enormous crowd. And just when Wes begins to lose his patience with Evan, he spies the boy frantically checking his watch to see that eleven minutes have already gone by. He screams for his brother Ethan, who has never left his side for this long before. But even as his screams elevate to a volume that he never knew he could produce before, he knows deep inside that Ethan cannot hear him above the excited hums of the people separating them.
And when it clicks in his mind that it's futile, Evan starts to calm down just enough to take control of his mind again. That's when he glances down at his watch and realizes that it's been thirteen minutes. His brain freezes up again, refusing to believe that he has been away from Ethan for thirteen minutes. His calm composure – what little control he had managed to get back – shatters.
A wild, almost feral sound rips from Evan's throat, and it now takes all of Windsor House to hold Evan back, because Evan is starting to go ballistic, his body needing the company of his brother's, almost like a drug. And when Evan senses Wes's tight grip on his shoulder loosening, he takes advantage of it, elbowing the shorter boy in the stomach and making his escape. He makes his way to the center of the crowd, sprinting past thousands of bodies, not caring about the immense heat and the sweat pouring down his face, his usually unruffled blonde hair matting together with perspiration and sticking in clumps to his forehead. He needs his twin.
After bulldozing a dozen people, Evan catches sight of Ethan, who is calmly standing in the middle of the crowd, allowing people to walk past him, waiting for Evan to come get him. And as he dashes over to be reunited with his twin, their identical eyes meet again, exchanging a look of unfathomable relief. And in that moment, Evan knows that never again will he be separated from his brother. Never again will they leave each others' sides, because they are identical in almost every way, and they are the flip sides of the same coin, never meant to be apart. Because their separation, although only a mere fourteen minutes to others, was the longest fourteen minutes that either of them have ever experienced.