Final Girl Gemini

We sit across from each other. Me, and... other me.

I would say "old me," but that's not quite right. He looks my age. This isn't the me I was before, but the me I would be now. If things had been different.

If I hadn't transitioned.

I can't say how long we sit like this. Maybe a few minutes, though it's felt like hours.

I reach out. An instinct, a curiosity. That is my body, after all. Or was. Or might have been. He reaches back, the tips of his fingers to mine. It's electric. Like a static shock delivered to a bratty sibling.

"Ouch!" I recoil.

He hisses through his teeth, a sharp intake of breath.

We stare at each other again.

"How...?" I start to ask. But I don't even know where this question is going.

"I don't know." He shrugs his broad shoulders. His voice is so deeper than mine. So performatively masc. Like the way I used to talk around college roommates, or the bros at the gym.

I look at my finger where the zap happened. My manicured nail is cracked, the polish peeled, the flesh red and burned.

"Okay, look. I need you to not..." I struggle for the words again. His very presence feels offensive. Like the awful smell of something that got stuck in the crawl space and died, reeking up the whole house. "I need you to not be here, okay?"

He sets his jaw, raises his chin. "You think you can make me leave?"

Oh God, did I ever sound like that? I can feel the disgust bleeding from my pores.

"No. I mean, God." I rub my temples, take a breath, and blow all the air out of my lungs. "I can't have people seeing you."

"So, you're ashamed of me."

"No. Yes. No. I mean, look, I've worked extremely hard to get to where I am. To be who I am. And I don't want to people to see—" I gesture at him, his entire body. "—this. You've already confused my boyfriend, and sent mom into an actual fit."

He folds his arms and leans back in his seat. "Don't I have a right to exist?"

"We can't both—"

"How we doing? Can I get you two started with anything?"

I jump at the waiter's arrival. "I'm fine."

"Diet Coke," says my Other, staring straight at me.

We always order diet Coke.

I always order diet Coke.

I look him dead in the eye. "You know what? I'll have one, too. Thanks. And I'll have the steak. Rare."

"Is that how you order when you're on dates with men?" he asks, voice dripping with distain. "Get the most expensive thing on the menu? You can eat for free every night of the week if you're a chick, right?"

I cross my legs away from him. "Fuck. You."

The waiter's eyes dart apprehensively between us. "Are you guys related?"

"Alfredo pasta," my Other says.

"Basic ass bitch," I mutter.

"I'll get that start for you guys." The waiter practically runs away.

"So, how we gonna settle this?" He says. "We only have one bank account between us. One apartment. One of everything. Do we split it all? Go halfsies?"

"You can't treat this like a divorce, dumbass. You really think we can split who gets to have our family? Or fucking social security? C'mon! It's one of us or the other and you know it."

"I was joking. Don't be such a bitch."

"Well, you can't have my life. You need to stop being a problem, okay? Have fun paying for this shit."

I grab my purse and leave.

#

I come home to find that he's changed the lock on my apartment door. I circle the complex, looking for an open window and find my dresses, skirts, and shoes in boxes by the dumpster. I just about scream.

This means war.

I change all my passwords, lock him out of my finances.

The next day, I leave work to find my car stolen.

Enough is enough.

I leave a note on the door of our—my—apartment. The apartment I've been locked out of. It reads, "Meet me where I thought about ending things. I know you know the place. Come alone."

I don't sign it. He'll recognize our handwriting.

#

The cemetery is just how I remember it. Twilight descends into darkness, and bats are on the hunt.

A car pulls up. My car. I hear the engine shut off, the familiar hand brake. The door opens and closes.

He calls out in the dark. "Reyna? Are you here?"

I wait, hidden, picking dirt from under my nails.

I hear him sigh. "It's this place isn't it? This is where we... diverged, or whatever."

I'd come to the same conclusion, but I won't giving him the satisfaction of being right. I hold my peace. Besides, I didn't bring him here to talk.

It's not until he turns to walk back to the car that I step out from hiding and swing the shovel with all my strength. The metal clangs in contact with his head. He collapses to his hands and knees. He groans as blood dribbles along the line of his jaw.

"Goodbye, Ryan," I say. "You should know, I never hated you. But if you ever come back to haunt me again, I'll end you again."

And I smash his head in with a shovel.

##