Mathieu just wanted to be his own person. Being a identical twin meant you had to share everything, attention, glory, and at times, even their identities were combined and they would be known as “the twins.” Considering this, it was inevitable that they had a bit of sibling rivalry, he and his sister fought over everything, they just wanted something to themselves without having to share it with each other.

A look of contentment passes over Mathieu’s face. After being lost with his best friend Justin for 5 hours, he had been more than happy to see the familiar roads leading up to his house once again.  Don’t get him wrong, he loved spending time with Justin, but when your best friend gets you lost in a whole other city because he forgot to check the route to get to an amusement park, you tend to get a little frustrated. He flopped down on his blue green comforter and closed his eyes.

“Mathieu, you need to buy the lottery”

“Wait, who are you? No, more importantly, where are you and how am I hearing you right now?”

“That doesn’t matter Mathieu, just go buy the lottery. I swear I know the numbers!” The voice replied.

“Wait, I recognize that voice...MOM? Is that you? How are you here, you’re supposed to be dead!”

“And I am dead, well kind of. I’m dead in real life, but not in your mind.”

“What does that mean.”

Katherine peeked from behind the old creaky Victorian style door.

“Mat-” She stopped herself. Her usual playful brother was serious for once, there was no trace of joy on his face. That wasn’t the most concerning part though, what really made Katherine’s heart race was the fact the Mathieu was sitting on the edge of his bed, stiff as a board, talking. Now that might seem normal to you, but when the person you’re talking to is not there, it might raise some eyebrows. Katherine looked around the room again just to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Sure enough, no one else was there, and Mathieu just kept talking and talking seemingly to himself, the short pauses in between each sentence suggested there was someone else talking to him although she heard no one.

“Never mind what it means Mathieu, just go buy it. The numbers are 5-9-2-8-5-3-4.”

Mathieu was left confused. His mom had died a few years ago when he was just a kid, but he could’ve sworn he heard her voice. It was exactly how he remembered it even though it had been a few years since he last heard it. It wasn’t your “normal” woman's voice, high pitched and squeaky, it was actually quite the opposite, slightly on the lower side with a slight rasp due to all the talking she did. His mom loved to talk, it could be about anything and everything, she would just go on for hours rambling about the her adventures while Mathieu and his sister clung to her every word. You would think that her stories were the most outrageous and crazy stories that had no chance of being true, but when her friends came around and you asked them about the stories, they would just laugh and say “Oh I remember when that happened! Good times, good times!”

One thing Mathieu especially remembered about her however, was her ability to always be right. It didn’t matter how big or small the matter was, she was always right. For example, when he was 8 and his mom told him to put on his winter coat even though he didn’t want to. He’d went out to play in the soft blanket of fresh snow with his friends that day without his coat and spent the rest of the week in bed, surrounded by tissues. He had to watch his friends play in the snow during the week as the fresh batch of snow slowly turned grayer. The snow eventually melted while he was still stuck in “house arrest.” Or that time in 4th grade where she told him not to do his project on the solar system because she knew every other kid would do it. He’d been shocked the next week to find out that he’d been the only one in the class to not have done his project on Saturn or Neptune. His mom had been right about everything, so that’s why when the voice told him to buy the lottery ticket, he knew that if the numbers ended matching, it would be his mom. He decided to go out and buy the ticket, the only problem was that the nearest lottery store was in the neighboring city because their city mayor didn’t believe in gambling.

Over the next week, he’d been a walking train wreck. Everyday, all he did was wait for the voice to come back. Day after day, he became less and less like himself and by the 3rd day since he heard the voice, and he was already becoming thin and pale. It also didn’t help that the people closest to him began to ask questions about his health but every time they brought it up, he just cut them off with an “I’m fine” and quickly changed the subject. He knew he couldn’t tell anyone because not only would they think he was crazy, but he always had to share his mom’s attention with Katherine when she was alive. This was his chance to have her attention all to himself, his chance to have something that wasn’t also part Katherine’s.

Katherine peeked around the corner, the house was dead silent, and their dad was gone again for one of his "business trips” which Katherine thought was just an excuse to get away from her and Mathieu. His business trips have also increased more frequently as more time since their mom died passed. Their dad had been so wrapped up in his work since their mom died that he couldn’t even tell you what grade they were in, let alone eat dinner with them. Katherine was fed up with Mathieu’s short cut off answers and decided to corner him in his room so he couldn’t escape. Now all she was waiting for was for Mathieu to go to the bathroom so she could sneak in his room. She peeked again, no one was there. It was the perfect time to go in. As she walked in, she was shocked to see the room was a mess considering that Mathieu’s room usually looked so neat and pristine. His bedroom window has been left open, clothes were strewn across the room and his covers had been carelessly thrown on the bed. She assumed that he only just took a nap and didn’t have time to fix the bed. She sat down on the messy covers and waited for him to come out. She waited, and waited, and waited some more. Before long, 30 minutes had passed and he still hadn’t come out of the bathroom yet. Katherine was getting more and more worried as each second passed.

She walked over the door and tried to open it. Locked. Each moment that Mathieu didn’t come out, Katherine thought of another horrible reason that he hadn’t come out yet.

“Maybe he fell and hit his head,” she thought, “Or maybe he’d been electrocuted by a cord falling into the water.”

Katherine knew she was being ridiculous at this point and none of those things actually happened, but as a twin, she couldn’t help but be concerned. Finally, she couldn’t take the agonizing torture of waiting for him to come out anymore and she just had to go in there and find Mathieu.

“Okay Mathieu, I don’t know if you’re alive in there or not so shout if you are.” She gave him a chance to answer.

No reply. The house was dead silent except for the ticking of the clock, a sound which she’d found herself growing a hatred for, and the soft exhale of air coming from none other other than her own nose.

“Okay then, I’m coming in there in 3.”

Still no reply.

“2.”

Katherine readied herself.

“1.”

She charged shoulder first like a linebacker into the locked door. Halfway on her route to the door, she’d begun to think it was a bad idea, but it was too late to turn back now so she just kept running. It felt like an eternity before she finally made contact with the door and when she did, instant regret came over her. Now not only was the door still locked, but now her shoulder was throbbing with pain. She didn’t know what to do, the door was quite obviously not going to break anytime soon and she didn’t have the key to open it.

“The key! Oh how could I have been so stupid,” Katherine exclaimed suddenly.

Hurtling down the staircase 2 at a time, she reached their kitchen in record time and hurriedly, she flung open their junk drawer and rummaged like a mad man until she found what she was looking for. Proudly holding up the rusty key that was linked to a chain, she ran back up to Mathieu’s room.

“This better work, because if it doesn’t, I don’t have a Plan C,” she muttered to herself.

She pushed the ancient key into the doorknob and turned. Click.

The door swung open and Katherine found herself face to face with nothing. Of course there were toothbrushes and hair products, but missing in the midst of all that was Mathieu.

To say Katherine was aghast would be an understatement. There were absolutely no words that could describe what Katherine was feeling right now. She couldn’t believe that he’d snuck out and hadn’t even bothered to tell her about it.

“If he’s going to sneak out,” she declared, “Then I am going to go out and find him,” and out the window she went.

She checked her watch again, this had not been a good idea. She was now outside in the pitch black darkness by herself at 1am in the morning and she was freezing. In her hurry to find ever wandering Mathieu and get him back to the house, she’d forgotten to take a jacket. Suddenly, up head by the bus stop, she saw a silhouette, their figure cast by the dull orange street lights above. The figure was seemingly distraught, head in hands, slumped over on the cold hard bench.

Cautiously, Katherine walked up contemplating if she should walk past the guy or not for fear that he was going to kill her with a hidden knife or something. At last, she decided to take her chances and walk past the guy, the hooded person seemed pretty young and nice, not really the traits a murderer would have. As Katherine got close, the guy didn’t move an inch so she advanced even closer. Oddly enough, the man had on the same hoodie that Mathieu loved to wear.

She laughed quietly to herself in her head, “Oh it’s probably a coincidence. Haha, I need to tell Mathieu about this when I find him.”

Then in one swift move, the guy turned and made eye contact with Katherine. Honey brown eyes met their exact same shade of honey brown eyes, that could only be one person.

“Mathieu!” She screamed and ran over to him.

He seemed to register who she was in the split second before she tackled hugged him to the floor.

“What are you doing here?” The tone wasn’t accusatory or mean, he was just simply asking her a question.

At this point her initial joy of seeing Mathieu had faded away, and all that was left was her pure unleashed anger at him for leaving.

“WHAT AM I DOING HERE? What are YOU doing here?!” She rolling now, talking a mile a minute. “You just left without telling me Mathieu! Mom is already gone, and Dad leaves all the time on his “business trips,” you can’t just leave too! It’s not fair.”

“You just don’t understand Katherine, I hear mom all the time, she talks to me! Everyday, I swear, I hear her! She’s even the one that made me come here in the first place. Well she didn’t tell me to come here exactly, I was supposed to get on the 11:30 bus to go to Rocksdale, but I missed that bus, so I’m here, waiting for the next one.”

“What do you mean “mom” talks to you? Why would she? We all knew I was her favorite, why isn’t she talking to me instead?”

It was true, even though their mom never said it out loud, Katherine was an exact replica of their mom. Hair, clothes, even their interests matched up, anyone who’s ever met the 2 of them had asked if they were sisters. That’s how close they were. Mathieu had always been jealous of all the extra attention their mom had paid to Katherine. That’s why when he heard the voice, he didn’t tell Katherine about it. He was afraid if he told her, the voice would choose to talk to Katherine instead of him and he would be lonely again.

“I don’t know okay? I’ve just been hearing mom’s voice in my head and I didn’t want to tell you because you guys will get along better and I’ll have to share another thing of mine again,” Mathieu finally let out. It felt good to finally let out his secret.

Katherine didn’t know what to do. She’d never known that he felt this way, but now looking back, she’d realised that Mathieu had always seemed more held back in talking to her or sharing his things with her as the years progressed. After a couple minutes of just standing in front of him, she reached forward and hugged him. She tried to convey all her apologies into that one hug because she hadn’t truly realised how distant they’ve grown since their mom’s death.

“Let’s go home.” The silence was finally broken with those 3 words, and they turned, lottery forgotten, family issues, and everything in between, left at Bus Stop 82.

They were ready turn the page and start living as brother and sister.