I sat on the sidelines during gym class, watching as kids walked past me. Brown bangs falling in my eyes, my maroon pigment watching as everyone walks around the gym court, eyes glistening in fun, voices loud with laughter.

So maybe I had fibbed a bit, but it wasn't entirely a lie. My stomach seriously did hurt. But it didn't really matter. Besides the questioning looks my twin brother was giving me, no one said anything about me sitting out.

I didn't expect them to anyways. P.E. wasn't exactly my strong suit. I'd much rather be in a science lab looking through microscopes or mixing chemicals. And Raph knew that. But it wasn't too often that I just blew gym off. And, with my terrible immune system, I was sure that next period would be a never ending question fest.

I can see Raph talking to that kid, Casey Jones. I knew enough about him to understand that him and Raph were like two peas in a pod. Sure, sometimes I was jealous of Raph and Casey, but I didn't let it get to me too much. We still did plenty of things together. Plus, we kind of had to. I mean, we do share a room.

I pushed up my black, rectangular, glasses. Each time Raph passed me, he threw concerned glances towards my way. I rolled my eyes in turn. It was just like Big-Brother-Raphie to be so worried at a no big deal type thing.

Ok, I'll admit, maybe I've given my brothers a few scares in the past with my health, but a vigil eye wasn't exactly needed over me. I listened as the echoing voice of the gym teacher yelled at the students to get dressed. Immediately, Raphael ran to the locker rooms, wanting to get out as soon as possible so he could drill me with questions.

I stood up and slung my backpack over my shoulder. This oughta be good. I walked into the hall separating the gym from the locker rooms. Sure enough, Raph was already out.

And, though we are twins, we look nothing alike. For instance, I have brown hair and maroon eyes. Raph has black hair and emerald green eyes. His build is much bulkier with muscle than mine. I'm much skinner than he is. And we were bipolar opposites.

Where he succeeded in athletics, I succeeded in more academic approaches. Such as being in Lego Robotics, the Debate Team, science and math competitions, and plenty of science fairs. He went to plenty of wrestling and basketball games and competitions, which practically made him friends with everyone. For the nerd twin…not so much.

"Why didn't you play in gym?" Raph inquired as we walked out to our lockers, which, surprise, were right next to each other.

"My stomach's kind of upset, nothing big." I told him, putting the combination into my lock. I turned the black nozzle over to the right three times, then to the left twice, then right once, and the lock came undone.

"The last time you had a stomach ache," Raph deadpanned, "it turned into something so big we had to take you to the hospital."

"Ok," I muttered, "I get it. I'm weak. You don't have to rub it in." I reach for my social studies books and grab Raph's while I'm at it considering he's shorter than me.

He takes the books in his arms, and throws an apologetic set of eyes my way. "That's not what I meant," He said as we both began our way up the stairs to our social studies class. "I just hate seeing you like that. I don't like it when you're sick."

I rolled my eyes. "Makes two of us."

"I'm serious," Raph said, something dangerous hovering in his tone. "You've been to the hospital three times in the past four months. There's gotta be something that those doctors are missing."

"Well, we all know I have a sucky immune system," I stated, "and that's all that it is."

"I refuse to believe it."

"Well, there's nothing else to go off of, so you're just going to have to accept it." I said stubbornly. As we entered the classroom a combination of yelling, talking, laughing, and kids reading books could be seen and heard. I immediately took notice of Cody Jones.

He was a nice boy and a good friend of mine. And since we were in middle school now, cliques were everything. Raph was with the jocks, and I was with the nerds.

Shocker.

Cody looked up from his book and smiled as he waved me over. I smiled back as I walked towards him, sitting in my usual desk next to him.

"Did you hear that we're supposed to get a new girl at this school?" He asked me.

"Really?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah," He said, placing a hand on the back of his neck, "hopefully she's like us."

"Fat chance," I scoffed. "There hasn't been one girl yet to join the Lego Robotics Team. Most girls prefer jocks anyways. Why would she be in our teams when she could be a cheerleader?"

"Hey," Cody reprimanded, "it's possible. Not all girls are like that."

"A good majority, however." I scoffed.

Class went on for far too long. And that's weird coming from me. I love my classes. All of them. Well, except for P.E. Finally, I felt, the bell rang, signaling that we were all free to leave for home. This was a new feeling of ecstasy for me. I never felt joy from leaving school before.

Why now?

I once again slung the backpack over my shoulder, and walked down stairs towards my locker. I could hear the laughter of Raph and his friends not too far behind me. They always made fun of what little friends I had. Save for Raph. He hated it when his friends did that.

And so did I. He always yelled at them for it later, once the damage had already been done, I'm afraid. I undid my combination once more and placed my textbooks in my locker before shutting and locking my locker once more. I stood there, now, a foot pressed up against a locker, and my arms crossed around my middle as Raph rolled around the corner.

"Hey, Don."

"Hey, Raph."

"Hear about the new girl?"

"Sure did. Cody just told me about it."

"Yeah, Case just told me," Raph said as he stood on his tiptoes to reach the top of his locker. Once he was able to reach he dumped his books on the top shelf and shut the door. "I hope she's feisty. Maybe she'd join the jocks."

"We could sure use another person on the Robotics Team. It would be nice if we had a girl for a change." I sighed wishfully.

Raph chuckled as we began to walk towards the elementary school. He clapped a hand against my back. "Keep dreamin', brotha'."

I rolled my eyes as we entered the elementary school to pick up our younger brother. We both knew that Leo always left school as soon as it was over so he could go to work. It had been like that ever since Mom and Dad had died a good two years back.

I sighed. It was tough, but we got over it. We had a good amount of money left in the bank, and everything is fine. During the summer, Raph and I get jobs to help out. Raph and I didn't mind, though.

"Donnie! Raphie!" Mikey called, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked at my eight-year-old brother and smiled.

"Hey, Mike. How was school?" I asked.

"School was awesome!" Mikey laughed. "We're learning how to subtract and add numbers. It's so easy."

I watched as Raph rubbed his knuckle against Mikey's cheek. "That's awesome, bro. I bet all of the kids love you."

Mikey took a short step back when Raph said that, and, quite frankly, I was a bit alarmed by this. "Well, no. Not everyone. Some kids say mean things to me cause I'm in special classes." He says.

I could feel my heart ache a bit. "Aw, bud, what do they say?"

Mikey scuffed his sneaker against the floor. "They call me stupid, and an idiot. They call me a reject. Freak." Mikey recited, his face looking at the white-tiled, school floor.

I could see the fire blazing in Raph's eyes. He was ticked. And so was I. But we'd deal with the kids later. I wrapped an arm around Mikey's shoulders before Raph could say anything. "Don't listen to them, Mikey," I told him as we neared the school exit. "They're just jealous of how awesome you are."

Mikey's face brightened at that remark. "Yeah," He said, "they're just jealous."

OoOoOoO

"That's still not the right thing to do," I said wearily. We had been doing this for an hour! "We can't just go and bash those kids' heads in. They're only in second grade."

"But they called our brother such horrid names!" Raph roared in anger, standing up from the wooden kitchen table that sat in the dining room. "How can you just let them go?!"

"I'm not," I said, standing up from my chair as well, but much calmer than Raph had, "implying that we just 'let them go'. I'm saying there's much less violent ways to deal with this type of problem."

Raph crossed his arms and turned his back towards me. "I don't understand how you can be so chill about this!" He said, whirling around to meet me face to face. "Those punks are hurting our little brother!"

My face now wore a frown. "I don't understand how you can be so hot headed towards those kids to actually say you want to hurt them!" I yell. "I don't agree with the way they're treating our brother any more than you do, but I don't agree with getting violent towards little kids!"

"I don't get why we're so different! You're supposed to be my twin brother, so why are you against what I'm saying?!" Raph yelled at me.

I growled. "One, I am your twin brother, two, scientists have proved that most twins are bipolar opposites! Which makes sense since I'm much more levelheaded than you are, my hotheaded twin!" I yelled.

He slammed his left hand down onto the wooden dining table. "Yeah, it also makes sense as to why I have a nerd for a brother!" He yelled. That left me in silence, though anger smoldered dangerously in the pit of my stomach.

How dare he! No, how could he?! I could feel a scowl grow on my face. This whole clique thing was a major joke! It just made everyone much more susceptible to bullying. And I most certainly was not going to be bullied by my own twin brother.

"You think I like having a jock as my twin?! It embarrasses me that I have such a slacker as a brother! You believe that sports and competitions are more important than your education! How do you think Mikey would feel about having a slacker as an older brother?! I don't understand what you're proud of! What is so great about beating someone up?!" I yelled. That's when I realized how hard I was gripping the side of the dining table.

I was pissed.

No.

That was an understatement.

I was seething.

Raph's eyes looked so angry. He looked as if he was seething as well, but he looked as if he was trying to keep it all in. Either that or find a great comeback.

"The hell with it." He said as he charged out of the front door. Once he did, I was hit with immense guilt and I fell into the pulled out kitchen chair, cradling my head in my right hand.

"Why did I say such things?" I asked myself.

"Donnie?" I heard my baby brother ask as he peeked his head out from behind the hallway corner.

I looked up and smiled sadly at him, my gap tooth showing off a bit. "Hey, Mike. What do you need?"

Mikey came over to me, his blonde curls falling a bit in his face. He placed a hand against my own. "Did you and Raphie have another fight?" He asked innocently.

I nodded sadly before going back to cradling my head in my right hand. "Yeah, Mike, we did. It got pretty nasty this time, too."

"Was it because of me?"

My head snapped up. I looked at him and shook my head quickly. "No, Mikey, it's never because of you! It's just that," I sighed gently, "well, Raph and I can never seem to meet eye to eye."

Mikey's head nodded sadly. Then he looked to the digital clock that sat on the counter top that separated the kitchen from the dining room. "When does Leo get back from work?"

I directed my eyes towards the digital clock as well.

5:23pm.

I looked back towards Mikey's ice cold, baby blue, eyes. "He'll be back in about another three hours, bud."

He nodded gently before looking back to the front door. "Will Raph come back?"

I sighed before placing my head back into my hand. "He will, Mike," I said. I felt a small smile creep onto my face when I heard the satisfied sound of the pitter patter of bare feet against the wooden floor. That smile was then replaced with a frown as I glanced back towards the front door.

"He always comes back."

OoOoOoO

I peeked around the wall that towered over the stairs as I listened to the booming voice of Leo lecturing Raph about how late he had stayed out. I looked to the digital clock on the counter that was easily seen from the stairs.

12:04am.

I sighed.

This is all my fault.

"How could you be so irresponsible as to leave this house for seven hours?!" Leo yelled, fire ablaze in his eyes, but I could make something else out as well.

Fear.

"You know how bad New York is at night! You could have been hurt or worse and it would have been too late by the time we got to you!"

"You aren't my boss!" Raph retaliated. "I can go out for as long as I want! I'm fourteen years old not four!"

"If you were more responsible," Leo yelled back, "I'd let you out later than just nine! But you haven't shown me that you are!"

"You aren't my father, Leo!" Raph yelled, anger so fierce in his voice, I was surprised that he didn't breathe fire while at he was at it. "And you never will be! You can't tell me what to do! You aren't my father, and I'm not going to treat you like you are!"

I gasped as I watched the sliver of hurt that entered Leo's dark blue eyes. I immediately moved around the corner of the walls that hid me away from view as I heard Raph begin to stomp up the stairs.

"Raph, come back here!" Leo yelled, but anger was no longer in it. No, now it was grievous and sympathetic. I watched as Raph turned his head back towards Leo, stopping for a moment.

But as I said it was only for a moment before he started walking right back up the stairs. I immediately ran to our room, jumping into my bed and taking off my glasses before falling limp under the covers to make it believable that I had been sleeping instead of listening in on them.

I held my breath slightly as Raph came into our room and shut the door. For the longest time I thought he had gone to bed, and I let out a sigh of relief.

And that's when the lights turned on.

"I know you were listening in." He said.

I didn't even bother to play stupid as I sat up in bed, not even bothering to put on my glasses. "I'm so sorry that I made you storm out like that, Raphael. I didn't mean to say such atrocious words to you. It's all my fault that Leo yelled at you like that."

"And I didn't even tell him what happened out there." Raph told me as he sat on his bed.

I looked at him with confused, fuzzy, eyes. "What happened?"

Raph sighed as he looked to the clock on his nightstand. "Not the time nor place, bro." He said as he turned out the light and lied down on his bed.

I cocked an eyebrow before walking to my twin's bedside, looking at him through bleary eyes. "Raph, what happened? I want to know. I won't tell Leo if you don't want me to, but can you at least tell your own twin?"

He didn't even open his eyes as his cheek continued to be pressed against his pillow. "Not now, bro. Go to sleep. I'll tell you later."

I sighed in impatience, but I complied to my older twin as I walked back to my bed, failing to make out the backpack that lied on the floor. I hit the ground with a hard oof.

As I lied against the floor I could hear Raph say, "My backpack's on the floor."

I groaned lightly. "That would have been useful information about a minute ago."

I could hear as Raph shifted under his comforter. "Dork."

I rolled my eyes as I pushed myself off of the floor and onto my hands. I brought myself up onto my feet. I walked over to my bed and slipped underneath the covers.

I lied awake for a bit, finding sleep to be hard to find. But Raph must have thought I was asleep. I heard a bit of shuffling as I guessed he sat up in bed. It sounded like he was ruffling his own hair and rubbed his hands against his face.

"I can't tell you what actually happened. You'd never see me as the same again."

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