Alex was crazy. Like really crazy. The dangerous kind of crazy. I always knew he was. Just, the things he would talk about, the way he would do things…It made sense afterwards. How obsessive he was. How unhinged he got. How lost he was inside his own head and he didn't know the way out because the way out accepting a reality he didn't want to deal with. The only reality that mattered was me. I was his reality. I kept him grounded, in control, kept him on this level of existence. He needed me.

But he was so smart. Fucking brilliant really. If he wasn't so focused on me, if he wasn't so insane, he could have really done some incredible things. Alex was a scientist at heart. An inventor. An innovator. There was nothing he just didn't understand right away. He was taking Trigonometry as a sophomore in high school, calculus as a junior. Physics, chemistry, anatomy, all AP classes. He was the best student ever in that regard. If he wasn't such a little shithead with as many detentions and suspensions as he did straight As, schools would have been throwing scholarships at him left and right next year when we were gonna be seniors.

And trust me, Alex got in trouble a lot.

Trouble was practically his middle name (which, it wasn't, it was Joseph). And by extension, I guess it was mine too. Alex was a little too smart for his own good. Like a true scientist, he always had a hypothesis, an experiment to play out, some sort of conclusion to reach. His experiments were usually sick pranks on other people, like my classmates and my own father. And I never hesitated to help him, or to follow along with it, because what else could I do?

I was too ensnared in that trap, so unable to tell him no, there was nothing I couldn't deny him. I was wrapped around his finger and I wasn't smart enough to see it until it was too late.

It was one of those pranks that inevitably caught up with us, and essentially set our downfall into motion. It wasn't the actual prank itself, but just a culmination of all the pranks we had pulled, all the trouble we constantly put ourselves in.

To give some background, it was Yearbook Club who was kinda at fault with us. Er, we were at fault with. You know how there's always those sections of the Yearbook for just whatever, the Best of something. Best dressed, best smile, best personality, etc. So we submitted ourselves for Best…everything essentially. And they denied us. Even for "Best Friends" they weren't gonna give us. Which, understandably, pissed us off. Like, I was legitimately mad. It didn't help our case as it is that no one in the fucking school liked us (okay not everyone, but Yearbook were not fans of ours), but that didn't mean they could just exclude us like that.

So we retaliated. I just wanted to complain to a teacher, but Alex pointed out that it wouldn't be as satisfactory if we didn't handle it ourselves. And even today, I still agree with him on that part. So what we did was took pictures of ourselves making goofy faces. Then we made couple hundred copies of those pictures. Then we cut out our faces and pasted them on top of everything in the Yearbook room. There wasn't a spot in that room where we weren't.

And it was glorious. So glorious, some of the Yearbook guys hunted us down at lunch and we ended up in a fist fight with them. Alright now that I'm thinking about it, it might have been the fight that really got us into trouble and not plastering our faces all over the Yearbook room. Or maybe it just helped escalate. Regardless of what it was, the school's administration had had enough of our shit (even though we felt strongly in the right), and weren't gonna put up with it anymore. So they called our parents, and that little meeting kinda went something like this;

x-X-X-x

William and Hannah Miles sat in the principal's office for the umpteenth time that year alone. Sitting next to them, with her young daughter on her knee, sat Alicia Mercer, also there for the umpteenth time herself. The three of them were not new to this situation in the slightest, it seemed like they were always in an office, a classroom, a somewhere that held someone from the school giving them troubled looks and ready to explain just what mayhem their sons had caused this time.

"Enough is enough" the school principal, Dr. Warren Vidic had declared. "In the whole time I have been the head administrator at this school, never had I ever had the displeasure of having the same pair of boys in my office at least twice a week as I have with your sons

"I have had them in here for vandalism, for violence against teachers and students, disregard for authority, the list could go on. They have been barred from sports, clubs, dances, sports games, any sort of extracurricular activity we can think of. Ms. Mercer, if your son wasn't such an important asset to our school's testing scores, I would have had been expelled within the first semester of his school career here"

Which is all nothing new to the three parents. They all knew just how problematic their sons were. They had learned long ago that promising better behavior out of them was not going to fix anything. That no matter how many detentions they had to serve, how many suspensions plaque their records, they just never shaped up, never tried to walk the straight line. The three parents just nodded their heads like they always did.

This time, there was a second man standing next to Dr. Vidic. A man that introduced himself as Robert Cross, the school's psychologist.

"Mr. and Mrs. Miles, Ms. Mercer" he had said to them. "Your sons are genuinely good students, and individually nice boys. But when they're together, all of that quickly seems to go south as you're all very well aware of"

And oh, what weren't they aware of?"

"Ms. Mercer" Cross continues. "Your son Alex, he hasn't been tested for anything has he? I ask because while he's a brilliant student, his behavior is extremely worrisome and has proven to be quite a danger to his peers…"

Alicia Mercer shakes her head. "Never been able to afford to" she answers. "Not that he'd ever agree to any sort of testing to begin with. He's smart enough to realize when he's being found out"

(Alicia Mercer, I've known my entire life, and I've never met a more tired woman. She had every right to be of course, learning right from the start that no matter what she did, she couldn't control her wild, dangerous son from becoming more frightening and sociopathic than he was at any given moment. She never really punished him, never tried to keep him in line, because every time she did, it really didn't end well. Even when we were small and little, Alex was a master of mind games that dealt more damage than a fist could.)

"Mr. and Mrs. Miles" Cross says. "Your son, Desmond. Desmond is an honestly wonderful young man. Very friendly, very talkative, very bright. He has a bright future ahead of him, I do think he'll do well after high school"

At this, the Miles parents beam, because it's not often they get such praise about their son. Anything about him, it's usually lumped together with Alex, and it's easy for them to forget they did raise a rather nice son and not the delinquent he so often is associated as.

"I want to help them" Cross tells the three parents. "And I think the only way possible to really turn them around is to separate them"

The room goes quiet after that, save for small gurgles and giggles heard from the young Mercer sibling sitting in Alicia's lap. What Cross suggests is unfathomable, insane, completely unheard of. Never before had they attempted to separate the two boys, twins in every way imaginable save for blood. Wherever Alex goes, Desmond will follow. Wherever Desmond goes, Alex will obsessively trail behind. They share almost everything, a birthday, a home, a mind.

It's not like the thought had never occurred to them, oh how they wish those two could be separated without incident. But they know, that mostly on the Mercer boy's part, that he can't last a day without his twin by his side. Yet, here is their golden opportunity, and so they listen to what is suggested.

"There's a fantastic boarding school only a few hours away we'd like to send young Mr. Miles to" Dr. Vidic says, pulling out a pamphlet for the school and placing it down on his desk in front of the Miles parents. "He should be able to concentrate on his grades, extra activities to keep him focused, more stable young people to associate with. Colleges should be more likely to look at his applications this way"

And that is fine for William and Hannah. Cross pulls out a pamphlet of his own and hands it to Alicia Mercer.

"This is a school up north" Cross explains. "It specializes in troubled youth who need a more specific environment to learn and grow in. We think Alex will do well there"

And Alicia laughs as she reads the pamphlet over, her daughter prying it from her hand to shove into her mouth.

"You want to institutionalize him" Alicia laughs. "Have him locked up where he can't hurt anyone"

"Alicia!" Hannah Miles cries in shock.

"Oh come on, it's what everyone has been wanting for years" Alicia chuckles. "I mean, if the school is so willing" and she looks Cross in the eye. "And if they feel so daring, they're more than welcome to him"

And so a decision, is reached.

x-X-X-x

I wouldn't know about this for weeks to come. What was I to think about some parent teacher conference? They happened all the time. I just knew that night after dinner, my dad was gonna sit me down and chew me out for being such a shithead. You know, goddammit Desmond why can't you just behave for once? Why do you keep getting into these fights? Why can't you do anything by yourself? Swear to god Desmond, if you don't shape up soon, so help me…

Same old same old. Literally nothing new. Because then after dinner, Alex and I would just do what we do best, live up to our names.

And our names are Trouble.

Thanks for reading, I super appreciate it!