Chapter 2:

Kyson always hated the first day of school. Whether the first day of school was at the beginning of the year or the middle of the school year on a couple occasions, it sucked. The fact that she didn't know anyone never bothered Kyson, learning her way around a new school was the part that annoyed her the most. Her hatred for having to learn the layout of a new school each year was why Kyson kept trying to convince her parents to enroll her in an online high school. They always refused.

"You know, if you got me my own car, you or dad wouldn't have to drive me to and from school every day," Kyson spoke on the ride to her new school, Seabrook High. "You paid to have me go through driver's training."

"We paid for you go through driver's training so you have your license, and in case you ever need it," Lori replied. "We never said we were going to get you a car. If you keep saving up to buy your own car, you'll appreciate it more."

Sighing, Kyson turned to look out the window and neglected offering any other sort of reply. She knew her parents wanted her to buy her own car in part because they had each worked for and bought their own first cars when they were teenagers. They also had a tendency to read stories about irresponsible teens who wrecked new cars right after their parents bought the car, and it was something Lori and Bryan hoped to avoid happening with her. They should have known she'd be responsible and wouldn't text and drive. It was something Kyson had never done while learning to drive, and something she wasn't going to do. Her last school had a company or something show a presentation about the dangers of texting and driving, driving drunk, or not wearing a seatbelt. Kyson remembered feeling somewhat sick after seeing some of those images, so she was determined to be a responsible driver.

Maybe it was time Kyson actually started looking for a car for herself.

~o~

When she first got to Seabrook High, there were a lot of things Kyson noticed even before getting out of her mom's car. The first being that a lot of people wore bright pastel colors. With a lot of people were unusually bright colors, there were also others who wore darker colors—something Kyson appreciated. There were also students who had green hair—a lot of students actually—and a handful with white streaks in their hair. Although the hair colors were unusual, Kyson hoped it would mean that her unusual but naturally white hair wouldn't seem as weird.

"See you later," Kyson spoke, stepping out of the car. She closed the door without waiting for a reply and headed towards the school. Since she'd received an email with a map of the school, her class schedule, locker number and combination, Kyson neglected going to the office and instead headed in the direction of her locker.

On the way to her locker, Kyson got a handful of weird looks and stares. It was nothing she wasn't already used to. Her shoulder length white hair normally stuck out, and even though colored hair seemed more common at Seabrook High than other high schools, there was no denying that it was odd for a 16 year old to have white hair. At times in life, it could be quite annoying.

From what she'd been told, even as a baby when Bryan and Lori first adopted her, Kyson's hair was white. Over the years, Kyson had tried dying her hair to a darker color, and one that would look more like her parents' dark hair, but the color always washed out immediately and refused to stick. Not being able to dye her hair was disappointing, but it was something Kyson learned to live with.

"Bad hair day, Snowball?" Kyson heard a voice call. Looking around the hall, Kyson found a pair of somewhat snooty looking girls staring in her direction.

"Wow. Good one," Kyson replied sarcastically. "Like I've never heard that one before," she rolled her eyes. "You really just want to start off the school year being complete asses?"

"Uh, language," the blond of the pair, who hadn't spoken before, said.

"Why do you give a fuck about my language?" Kyson replied; however, she didn't wait for an answer as she turned to continue towards her locker.

On the walk to her first class, Kyson continued to get strange looks from people and some of them seemed to do a double take when they saw her. Her hair usually made her draw more attention than the average new kid and got comments like the two bullies she'd already run into that morning, but never like this. As always, she simply ignored it all and took a seat towards the back of the classroom when she found her first class.

Since she'd taken a seat at the back of the classroom, no one really paid attention to Kyson. They were all caught up talking to their friends and sharing about the things they'd done that summer. No one seemed to notice the new girl hiding in the back of the classroom.

"All right, class," the teacher, Miss Sullivan said, moving to the front of the classroom after the bell rang. "Let's get started with attendance," she continued, scanning the students in front of her. When she saw Kyson, she did a momentary and hardly visible double take before continuing. "Kyson Marlow?" Miss Sullivan questioned, looking up as she got to the names in the middle of the alphabet.

"Here," Kyson spoke, raising her hand slightly to make sure her teacher knew where and who she was.

"Kyson?" Miss Sullivan questioned.

"Yes?"

"You just look a lot like another student here," she explained.

"Right," Kyson scoffed. "I totally believe that," she said.

"You're sure your name is Kyson?" the boy beside her asked as Miss Sullivan continued with attendance.

"Has been my whole life as far as I know," Kyson replied.

The boy nodded and left Kyson alone for the remainder of the class period.

~o~

Although Kyson hadn't initially believed Miss Sullivan when she said there was another student at the school Kyson looked like, as the day went on, she began to believe that there was another student at the school she resembled. Several people in her other classes mentioned it as well, and eventually the name Addison came up. A few also made comments about tryouts after school.

While most people who made comments about this Addison person Kyson looked like were well intentioned, or at the very least had no ill intention behind their words, if anyone decided to call her something like Snowball or Jack Frost, like the girls that morning, she'd be less than forgiving.

At her free period before lunch, in hopes of avoiding more comments about her hair or Addison, Kyson sought out a back corner of the school where she was less likely to be seen. When lunch arrived, she again hoped to forgo any of those comments, so she lingered longer than she needed to in the halls. She planned to find somewhere besides the cafeteria to eat since most people would be there and she would prefer to not be there.

Since she'd delayed herself in going to her locker to retrieve her lunch, by the time she got to her locker, the halls were mostly empty. There were a few people left lingering as well, so Kyson pretended to organize her locker while she waited for them to leave. Once it seemed most everyone had gone to the cafeteria, Kyson started in the opposite direction. Unless there was some rule that students had to eat in the cafeteria, there was nothing for Kyson to worry about.

While walking through the halls trying to find somewhere quiet to eat her lunch, Kyson heard the quick footfalls of someone running through the halls. The echo on the concrete walls made it hard to pinpoint where the noise was coming from, so she paid no attention to it. That was until the owner of the footfalls ran into her, giving them both a shock similar to the shock of static-electricity, but different in some way. However, Kyson wasn't going to dwell on that.

"I'm soo sorry," the person quickly exclaimed as the two landed pretty much completely sprawled out on the floor, and before Kyson could make a comment about being more careful. "I'm supposed to meet someone for lunch and I was late—" the girl cut herself off as she and Kyson looked up to see each other for the first time.

"Holy hell," Kyson breathed. It was like she was looking in a mirror. Well, sort of like she was looking in a mirror. She and the girl in front of her shared their facial features. Their eyes were the same color blue, and she had the same dimple in the middle of her chin that Kyson had. They both had white hair that was a color probably no one would really want to dye their hair, and dark eyebrows. Their differences came from the style and length of their hair and the colors and amount of makeup they wore. Where as Kyson's hair was shoulder length, the girl in front of her had long hair that cascaded past her shoulders. The other girl's makeup was natural or lighter colors, whereas Kyson's was dark. "Addison?" she questioned.

"Yeah," Addison replied cautiously as she reached for a couple notebooks she'd dropped. "How'd you know?"

"I haven't heard a lot about you, but I was told I look like you. Makes total sense now. It's like this is The Parent Trap level shit or something. Only we're not meeting each other at summer camp and stealing each other's clothes after a game of poker."

"Here's your lunch," Addison spoke, passing the brown bagged lunch to Kyson. She stood and offered a hand to help Kyson up. "Your Parent Trap theory doesn't work," Addison began. "I've always lived with both of my parents."

"So have I. Well, adoptive parents. Except about the first week of my life or so," she blurted out. "Anyway, um, thanks," Kyson said, lifting her lunch up. "See you around."

"Wait," Addison spoke, stopping Kyson who'd already taken several steps down the hall. "Adoptive parents?"

"Well, yeah. I have no clue who my birth parents are. The adoption was a closed one, so my parents don't know anything about my birth parents," Kyson explained. "See you," she said, quickly heading down the hall before any further questions could be raised. Meeting her real life doppelganger was weird, and she was ready to head to solitude for lunch.

~o~

While Kyson had specifically sought out solitude for lunch, with nothing to distract her, Kyson spent her whole lunch period thinking about her brief conversation with Addison. They had to just be doppelgangers. Although she hadn't said anything specifically about it, it didn't sound like Addison was adopted. So there was no way the two could be related.

Following lunch, Kyson's thoughts about Addison were thrown from her mind during class. That was until she got to her final class of the day where she spotted a familiar face. "Addison," she spoke, spotting her doppelganger already seated in their English class.

"There's a seating chart," Addison spoke, motioning towards the front of the classroom.

"Great," Kyson's reply was somewhat sarcastic as she turned to see where her assigned seat was. "Looks like we get to share a table," Kyson said a minute later, dropping down into the seat beside Addison.

"Your name is Kyson?"

"That's what it says on my birth certificate. So, do you dye your hair this color?" Kyson asked, holding up a few strands of her own hair.

"I don't," Addison answered. "Dye doesn't stick to my hair. I've tried," she stressed. "But it doesn't work."

Kyson hummed. "Interesting," she spoke. "Dye doesn't stick to my hair either."

"My parents said it's a weird genetic thing, so," Addison trailed off and shrugged, unsure what more to say. She didn't get the chance to add anything more as their teacher, Mr. Sheppard, stepped to the front of the room.

"Good afternoon, class," he greeted everyone as he began to scan the students in front of him. When his eyes landed on Addison and Kyson, a shocked expression briefly passed over his features. "I—um," Mr. Sheppard stuttered, momentarily losing his train of thought. "We're going to go around and do introductions," he continued, remembering what he was trying to do in running his class. "Then, since we will spend a lot of time talking about what we read this semester, we're going to do an activity where we organize by birthdays without talking," he explained.

They spent a few minutes going around the classroom as everyone introduced who they were. Before the activity, Mr. Sheppard had a few more instructions for the activity about how the students could use any type of non-verbal communication to let their classmates know their birthday.

Once any questions students had were answered, everyone began to move towards the front of the classroom to try and get organized as Mr. Sheppard had instructed. There were several different methods people had to share their birthdays. Some students knew and used sign language to communicate their birthday, others showed numbers on their hands to explain months and days, a few drew words out in the air, and a couple people simply wrote their birthday on their hands.

Eventually, Kyson and Addison found their way to each other in the middle of the group. Kyson held her fingers up in the shape of an 'M' meaning month and then seven fingers to signify July. She then held up ten fingers twice, and then an additional five for the 25th.

Furrowing her brow, Addison wrote 'July 25' out in the air, then met Kyson's eyes with a questioning look on her face. In response, Kyson nodded.

"Looks like everyone's pretty well figured out where they need to go," Mr. Sheppard's voice broke through the silence of the room. "Kyson, Addison, it looks like you're the only ones who haven't figured out where you need to be. Is there a problem?" he asked.

"I told Addison my birthday and I thought she understood," Kyson replied, a slight bit of sassiness in her voice.

"I did," Addison replied, annoyed that Kyson's tone seemed to suggest she doubted Addison's intelligence. "It's just that July 25 is my birthday too."

"Hmm," Mr. Sheppard said. "This is interesting. I've never had students who share a birthday in my before when we do this activity."

"2002?" Kyson asked, turning to Addison.

"Yeah."

"I don't know the time I was born at, so we can't get any more precise."

"Do Kyson and Addison get points off?" someone at the beginning of the line piped in. "They're talking."

"This isn't worth any points, so no," Mr. Sheppard replied. "Let's see how everyone else did."

"Are you adopted?" Kyson whispered to Addison as Mr. Sheppard began checking the January birthdays.

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"So you think your parents are my parents and gave me up but kept you?" Kyson questioned.

"That's ridiculous."

"Yeah, well, we're literally identical, in case you didn't notice. Our birthday is the exact same date. I don't think that happens with doppelgangers. Plus, you said dye doesn't stick to your hair just like it doesn't stick to mine. I've never met anyone else who had that problem."

"Well, it has to be coincidence."

"July 25th and July 25th as we've already figured out. Addison, Kyson, is everything okay?"

"Yeah," the two answered together.

"Good," Mr. Sheppard replied as he continued down the line.

"We can't be twins, if that's what you're suggesting," Addison spoke.

"Whatever you say," Kyson replied with a roll of her eyes as she turned away from Addison and crossed her arms over her chest.

In a somewhat childish manner, neither of the two said anything more to each other during the remainder of the class period. "See you tomorrow," Addison said as she packed her things away when the final bell sounded. Even if she didn't like the accusations Kyson made about her parents, she couldn't leave things on a bad note with her.

"Yeah. You should talk to your parents," Kyson said, disappearing out of the classroom before Addison could ask any other questions. She headed towards her locker and did her best to avoid people on her way there and then on her way out of the school building where she found her dad waiting for her.

"How was your first day?" Bryan asked as Kyson got into the car.

"Do I have a twin?" she asked, ignoring her dad's question.

"No one ever told us you had a twin," Bryan replied. "If you did, we would have adopted you both. But the adoption was closed, so there's nothing we can do to see if you do have siblings."

"Okay," Kyson said. Maybe everything with Addison was a weird coincidence. Or a glitch in the matrix like some people said occasionally. Or, maybe Addison would get more answers if she actually talked to her parents.

A/N: Note, I have only seen the 1998 Parent Trap. I wanted to watch the original since I referenced version I've seen, but I don't have Disney + so I couldn't.

I also may or may not have stolen the name of the English teacher from my own English teacher in 10th and then again in 12th grade. . . ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And, since birthdays aren't a thing we know about the characters, I borrowed Meg's birthday for Kyson and Addison.

Also, it's time to 'get hype, get excited' because Z3 is coming! I know this is kind of old news now, but I'm super excited even if it will completely destroy my theories/ideas that led to this story.

Thanks for reading,

-CrazyHayniac