I Believe You Exist
Story on how Terry and Terri got identical sounding names.
Having identical sounding names was more troublesome than sharing a body. Terry and Terri never knew which one was being referring to. Those they interacted with on a regular basis had gotten accustomed to adding "with a 'y'" or "with an 'i'", depending on whom they were referring to. In the past, the identical names had led to insults. Without the ending phrase to specify, a monster might ask, "Which one? Beaver or ballerina?" to reference, of course, Terry's large buck teeth and Terri's passion for dance. These petty names only slightly annoyed the twins. What really got under their shared skin was the not-as-uncommon-as-it-should-be cephalist who considered Terri to be his older brother and believed Terry controlled both heads. Or worse, if a monster should disregard Terri altogether, brushing him off entirely as an extra head, the way one might brush off a piece of clothing that has an extra sleeve; that its existence is a mistake and should be ignored or fixed. "Fixed" in this case meaning removing the extra heads, but that had been deemed illegal in the last decade.
What no one bothered to ask the twins was why their names were so similar.
The answer lies in their early childhood. As everyone - well, everyone who recognized them as separate monsters - knew, Terry was the older brother. No one, not even the twins, really know for sure how Terry was deemed the first to be born, even if by several seconds. Unfortunately, their parents were cephalist. Instead of naming their sons individually, Mr. and Mrs. Perry had only named the taller head, "Terry". At the time, polycephalous monsters were seldom recognized as individual monsters, allowing the parents to name one of the two heads.
Terry and, indirectly, his unnamed brother had been loved and cared for like any other child. It wasn't until the twins were four years old that they began to notice that their parents called the shorter head "Terry", as well. He didn't have his own name.
One day, the little monsters went up to their parents. The unnamed head had asked, "What's my name?"
Both parents had hesitated for a moment, confused, but their father had responded first, "Your name's 'Terry', son."
"That's my name. What's his name?" the taller twin had said.
Mr. and Mrs. Perry had looked at the shorter head. Before their father could speak again, their mother had thought fast and patronized, "'Terri' with an 'i'! Your father meant to say 'Terri with an i', sweetie."
This had satisfied both brothers. Terri had exclaimed excitedly, "I have a name!" The young monsters then left their parents and went off to play.
Their mother thought it was cute, to see Terry talking to his second head. She thought it was cute to say "Terry and Terri" when she referred to her son. Her husband disagreed, and believed it would later lead to problems.
The situation was very similar to how some parents tell their child that Santa Claws is real, and much like that situation, Mr. and Mrs. Perry believed that eventually Terry would realize that his second head was just that; a second head and nothing more. But he didn't, and he seemed to becoming very attached to it.
When the twins were 11, their parents decided to sit them down and explain that they had one son, and that "Terri with an 'i'" didn't exist. As one might expect, neither brother took the news very well. Neither believed it.
"But I'm not him!" Terri had said. "I have my own mind and arms and everything!"
"Do you see why you shouldn't have told him that?" his father had said angrily to their mother.
"I didn't think he would take it this far…"
An hour of argument passed until the parents sent them to their room for the rest of the night.
"I believe you exist," Terry had whispered in the dark.
After that night, "Terri" was never acknowledged again by anyone but Terry. In private, the twins would talk to eachother. Sometimes, it was happy, and the twins would hug and talk and play. Other times, it was sad. Throughout the day, Terri rarely got a chance to be himself; literally. It was depressing to not exist to anyone but one monster. But Terry was there for him, Terry believed in him.
Terri couldn't ask for anything for himself, so Terry would ask instead. One night Terri had told his brother how much he liked dancing, but had only done it once when it was an activity in gym class. So Terry had asked their parents for dance lessons. He strongly preferred reading to dancing, but he saw how happy Terri was.
So he was happy, too.