Matthew's POV
I wake up struggling to breathe. My lungs feel like they've been compressed, and there's not enough air all of a sudden. I feel like I'm choking. I try to calm my breaths, keeping it quiet it so I won't wake up my companion.
But I can tell she's not here anymore.
The sky is dark and still starry, yet my balcony doors are open, bringing the sweet scent of the gardens to me. Tess is sitting on the balcony, her head against the railing.
Maybe the fresh air will do my breathing some good.
I walk out to Tess, and she doesn't look at me even when I sit down in front of her. She's been wearing that long-sleeved shirt I gave her every night. When it's being washed, she just borrows another one of my clothes. I'm not complaining. They look better on her anyway.
"Sorry if I woke you," she mumbles.
"Nah, I wanted some fresh air anyway," I say, joking and nonchalant. But Tess doesn't so much as crack a smile. "Are you okay?"
"Your mom got mad at me a while ago for being so mean to Francesca."
I don't understand why this is such a big deal. I mean, it's part of the job requirement of being a parent to scold your kids. Besides, Francesca is a fake. Her crying is as fake as the plants in my father's office.
I've never seen Tess like that. I've never seen her so genuinely irritated and frustrated that another person was trying to steal her identity. It makes sense, though. I guess it would be annoying if someone was trying to copy your every move, your every attribute.
"I just want to be myself," Tess says, still not meeting my eyes. "When I was younger, I was that girl who would follow every popular thing. I begged my parents for a laptop because all the cool kids had one. I wanted to be a cheerleader, I wanted to wear cute skirts and ruffly tops, I wanted a boyfriend and a million friends. Then something hit me when I was about thirteen. I didn't want to be a carbon copy. I didn't want to be like everyone else. I wanted to revolutionary, you know? I wanted to be unheard of.
"I finally achieved that. I was writing for the high school newspaper, I was in the orchestra, my schedule was comprised of honors or AP classes. I was my own person." She takes a breath. "That's why when this girl pretends to be me, I feel as if my originality is wiped away. I didn't feel special anymore."
I ponder on that for a bit. It's an interesting personal revelation. That's how we want as a person, yeah? We try to be "revolutionary" and unique. We have to try and be the best version of ourselves.
I don't reveal any of these thoughts to Tess. It suddenly strikes me how much I don't know about her childhood. I've never even heard of this story. All at once, it feels like I don't know her at all.
"I'm assuming your memory's getting better," I say.
I see a corner of her lips slightly jerk up. "Yeah, pictures help a lot. Isabelle and Olivia gave me a lot when they were here for my birthday. I even wrote a diary, but not because I thought it was cool. I've been reading a lot, and the memories are gradually coming back."
"That's great," I say encouragingly. "I'm glad you're healing."
Tess looks at me now, her dark eyes reflecting the moonlight overhead.
"Tell me the real reason you woke up," she says, her voice cold and unfeeling.
"I couldn't breathe."
Her eyes focus on the gardens again, as if she can't bear to look at me. She hugs her knees to her chest and sighs. "Well, that makes two of us."
Before I ask, she says, "Anxiety attacks."
I nod and lean my head against the railing. "When I was younger," I start, "I was really obsessed with fire for some reason. It just looked so bright, and it was fascinating to me. How could a flame be produced? So I read about how a fire was made, and that oxygen and friction and heat was involved, and as an eight-year-old, it just became complicated and boring. Science was never my strong suit."
Tess smiles, but again, it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "What was your childhood like?" she asks.
"My earliest memory I can think of was sitting in a classroom with Michael next to me," I say, a picture of everything so big around me flashing in my mind. My memories aren't vivid. They come like pictures, images, flashes of color, a scent of cologne, a voice but not the words. "I just remember holding a pencil and having to kneel on my seat so I could actually write on the desk. It would reach my nose if I sat normally. Michael was always studious, and at times I didn't understand why. I asked him once, probably when I was six, why he wanted to try so hard. 'Do you do it to impress Mom and Dad and Silvia?' I asked. 'No,' he said. 'I do it for me, because I believe that I deserve the best, as does everyone.' So I worked hard in academics and foreign languages, because I wanted to be smart and all that crap. I wanted to exceed my own expectations."
"I was like that in school too," she says. "My friends would tease me and call me obsessive-compulsive, but I called it perfectionism."
I smirk. "Aren't they the same thing?"
"Obsessive-compulsiveness is classified as a disorder," she answers as if it's the obvious. "I didn't want to have a disorder. Disorders are usually mind-involved. I always took pride in my intelligence, and if something was wrong with the way I thought, then that would mean I wasn't...I don't know. Smart, I guess. To me, it meant I didn't have enough mind-control."
"You're very opinionated," I say.
She smiles that half-smile again. "Yeah, I've been told."
"Your morals and your outlooks are interesting."
"What about you?" she says. "Don't you have opinions?"
"It's hard to have your own opinions when people feed them to you. This is right, or this is wrong. My entire Life was basically black and white. Don't do this or the country will hate you."
Tess breathes a slight laugh.
"When I was a kid," I continue, "I thought sports were the coolest thing. So I asked for that climbing wall in the gym. I'd use it now, but I can't work out as often anymore."
"How do you deal with it?" she asks. "You just brush it off like it's a joke."
"No one likes being pitied, Tess."
"It's not that," she says. "It's like...I don't know. You're just ignoring it like there isn't anything else you or we could do."
"That's because there isn't," I say, grasping the railing. "We're all going to die anyway. I don't see the need to fear or wonder if I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning. I'd rather live Life as a joke than live it like I'm a jukebox that will run out of songs to play. My heart is literally deteriorating. I am falling apart, and my heart refuses to regenerate itself. I'm breaking from the inside."
Tess won't look at me again. "What do your siblings think?"
I stay quiet.
This time she looks at me, her eyes simmering with outrage. "You mean you haven't told them?" she cries. "What are they going to do when you just randomly pass out and they'll never know why?"
"It's funny," I say. "Aunt Marlee said the same thing about you."
"You have to tell them. Not knowing something is the most horrible thing."
"Because you're a miss know-it-all," I say teasingly.
"I'm serious, Matthew," she sighs.
"You're always so serious lately."
"I have my reasons," she replies, sighing again. "Please tell them."
"After the wedding," I promise.
"Fine," she grumbles. She takes a deep breath, sounding like a heavy sigh.
"Why do you keep sighing?" I ask.
"I'm not," she says, yawning this time. "I just can't breathe. A single breath is too small. I can't get enough air. You're doing it too."
"Oh."
We're quiet for a long time, long enough that the guard we've been staring at is replaced by another.
"I used to think," I say, "that I would die during a rebel attack. I got so paranoid that a rebel would come through the doors and shoot me dead."
"Were there a lot of rebel attacks when you were a kid?"
"So often it was almost routine. But since your friend Luke was the leader, we're not having any problems anymore."
"He's not my friend," she mutters. "Not anymore."
"How did you meet the guy anyway?"
"At school. I was in fourth grade, and there was a math test that only he and I aced. I pegged him as smart."
"Something else happened," I say. "Something you're not telling me."
"When we were in seventh grade, word got around that he liked me, you know, that way." She shakes her head. "Ugh, middle school. So I was just joking about it and stuff because this was the first time a boy liked me. I didn't like him back at all, so it was sort of funny. We went to different high schools, then we went to the same college. Then that was the year when he said he really liked me, and I just...I don't know. I pushed him away because I didn't feel that way toward him."
"Why?" I ask.
"Just because," she says simply, using that matter-of-fact voice again. "I don't know. He was smart, athletic, but...he might have been the only person I knew more opinionated than me. We were so alike in so many ways, and the same issue of being original came up."
"You and I are alike," I say.
"Yeah, but you're...I don't know." She grins at me, and I'm glad to see an actual smile. "I like you," she says, tucking her hair to reveal her slightly red ears.
"You like me?" I ask, acting shocked. "But why?"
She laughs, making the guard by a lamppost look at us. Ironically, it's Luke. He looks away quickly and observes the forest. Thankfully, Tess doesn't notice him.
"You really want me to tell you the reasons I like you?"
"Yeah," I say. "Pretend we're both in high school, and you know, we're just hanging out at my place after dinner with my parents after they just showed you all of my embarrassing baby pictures."
Tess laughs again. "Okay, I have to look for those now." She looks at me, her eyes smiling.
"So, Tess," I say, slightly leaning forward. "Why do you like me?"
"You're funny," she starts. "You're musically gifted, and I find that incredibly attractive. Your singing makes me swoon."
I laugh at that.
"I'm not kidding!" she says in defense, though there's really no reason to defend herself. "Okay, um, you're a literary genius. I've never met a guy so interested in pre-Illéa literature. I find that attractive too. Oh, you also speak more than two languages, and I think that's really cool."
It's funny and endearing how she thinks it's cool when she's fluent in more than one language as well.
She smirks. "Okay, this is going to sound really shallow, and I have to admit I've never been so open about my emotions before, but your eyes. I love your blue eyes. And another shallow preference, your shiny light brown hair."
I can't contain my grins. "Light brown?" I repeat. "It just seemed brown to me."
"No, no, there's a difference."
"Okay," I say, laughing. "You're really funny, love."
"You give me nicknames I adore." She taps her chin. "Except woman. I quite despise it when you call me woman. I don't need a person to tell me my gender."
I laugh. "You really don't like being told what to do."
"No, no, I don't."
"Okay, my turn," I say. "Do you want me to start with personality or appearance first?"
She laughs. "You don't even have to do this at all."
"Appearances it is," I say. I clear my throat for dramatic effect. "I really love your black hair. I like how it's long and wavy. Your really dark eyes are intriguing and mysterious, but you're really not considering how talkative you are."
She laughs more, pushing my knee.
"And I love that. You're open with me, and you don't restrain yourself with what you think. The opinions thing...whew, now that is a turn on."
"Shut up," she says, smirking.
"You reject a lot of compliments, and I actually think that's humbling. Oh, wait, I forgot to mention how generally attractive I find you. Like, I've never been more attracted to a person. You're like a fricking magnet. Everyone's just drawn to you."
She swats me with a sheepish grin. "Have I ever told you how much I like you?" she says, her hand resting on my leg.
"We have to do some wedding stuff tomorrow," I say, not answering her question. "Well, technically later."
"What color do you want it to be?" she asks. "We need a color theme."
"What color do you want?" I ask.
"Blue," she says.
"Really?" I ask. "I thought your favorite color was red."
"Red's too bright for a wedding. Besides, your favorite color is blue."
"Yeah, it is."
"Yeah."
Before we realize it, the sun starts to rise.
"Matthew," she whines, and I pull her onto my lap. "We literally get six hours of sleep a night. It's not enough."
"At least we'll have eighteen hours to be awake and alive."
Was that too fluffy? Or not fluffy enough? Or too rambly? Idk this was sort of a filler. I lied, it's the next chapter where they find out Francesca's new mom.
Question of the Day (stolen yet again from KhrystineR; sorry!): Who would play you if your Life was a movie?
Answer to previous QOTD: I think I look somewhat like Shay Mitchell complexion-wise and hair and stuff. Except she's much taller and much prettier. Maybe Janel Parrish except less vindictive-looking and with darker hair...? But you guys sort of know what I look like, what with my profile picture and all.
Thanks for the reviews!
selectionprincess59- Mm close guess. Guess again. Thanks for reviewing!
theoneforever- Hahaha funny. I hope this was enough Mess? Yeah, Francesca sure can be irritating :P Thank you!
ReadLikeYouMeanIt- Stealing isn't good :) Haha like Pinnochio's nose. That's funny. I quite like long reviews :) The more the merrier? Idk. Thank you so much!
KhrystineR- You have the greatest ideas for QOTD's :P I love JLaw. And was that enough of Matt's POV on the whole situation? If you'd like, I could PM you a special edition of that chapter :P Thank you so much!
Kiren- *high five* Oh, I'm the author and I totally laughed when Francesca got busted :P Idk maybe that's just me :) Thanks so much!
Athenachild101- Ooh Katy Perry. That's cool. I don't look like anyone really, but that statistic I said in my story is true. There really are six other people in the world that look like you. Kriss or Marlee...Good guess :) Thanks so much!
dakotamo- WHOA that's intense. That would...probably happen in the near future. Thanks!
LovableL101- Ooh Selena Gomez. I love Monte Carlo. Thank you so much!
PokemonLuver151- Ah, anime :P The closest thing I've watched to anime is Avatar: The Last Airbender. I loooove that sooo much. Favorite show ever, literally. I've watched every episode. Sorry, I'm totally fangirling right now :P Thanks so much!
SJWrites2014- Hahaha I love "The Art of Being Right." Just the fact that there is an art makes me laugh :P Stephen Amell looks perf for adult Maxon, and I was gonna say Isla Fisher also for America but I felt like it would be too many. I didn't know that many redheaded actresses :P Oh, well. Thanks so much!
WinteryRose- You sound unique :) I like unique people. Not Kriss or Amberly. Keep guessing, though! Thank you!
Please-and-Thankyou's- I'm so glad you like Tess :) That genuinely makes me happy. Thank you so much!
agb1700- I promise to read it when I have the time :) I'm sorry. I have to read a summer book for school *slams face with book* But sure! I'll definitely give it a read :D Fuzzy. I love the word pickle. Just the word makes me want one. Lurve ya! Thanks so much!
LittleMissTori- Haha JLaw is the best. Mm not Marlee, but close. Sort of. ANSEL ELGORT. Ahhhh I fangirl about him every single day and I check for a new tweet, a new vine, a new pic on Instagram, ANYTHING. It's almost embarrassing but I love him so much. (The way I love MY Michael :P ) Thanks so much!
winterprincess- Oh, Francesca. Yeah, it's okay. Tess regrets saying it too. Sort of. Only because America got mad at her :P Thank you so much! P.S. Hypocrites these days. :P
Love ya!- AcademicGirl