Free Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee Page A

these, which I couldn’t understand. We’d never met any other conjoined twins in real life. Those books were the closest thing we had.
    Like the Hiltons and the McCoys, Hailey and I had always been, essentially, perfectly healthy. Sure, we’d had a few extra doctors’ visits when we were small, and a bit of continuing physical therapy and extra monitoring—more when we were younger, less and less as time went on—butfor the most part, we seemed to have as good a shot at full lives as any singletons we knew.
    â€œIt’s not such a bad place,” I said. “You act like Bear Pass is some kind of hell on earth, but it’s actually really beautiful. Do you ever look around? Really take it in? The huge green trees? The mountain air, the stars?”
    â€œSeriously? You’re trying to sell me on the scenery? It might be beautiful, but how would we even know? We’ve never seen anything else. We’ve never seen any other mountains, or any other trees. We’ve never seen the ocean. Or a lake, or any other river besides the one that runs through town. We’ve never seen the New York skyline, or the Eiffel Tower. Or the Golden Gate Bridge. We’ve never—”
    â€œThe Eiffel Tower? How are we going to get there? How are we going to fit ourselves onto an airplane? I mean, how do the seats even work?”
    For a brief moment she was actually quiet, and I thought maybe she was seeing reason. But then she said, “I think we could probably do it. It might not be super-comfortable for such a long trip, since we’d have to be stretched away from each other and angled a little weird from the seats and everything, but if the seats are close enough, I think we could make it work. And anyway, even if we couldn’t, there are always cruise ships.”
    I sighed. “Okay, fine, whatever. But what about thepeople here? They’ve been good to us, Hailey. It’s like everybody’s family here.”
    â€œYeah, sometimes literally. The amount of inbreeding—”
    â€œNo. Stop. That’s not true. We’ve lived here all our lives, and in all that time nobody has ever sent reporters after us. Nobody has ever posted anything about us online. They’ve respected our privacy, they’ve protected us, and they’ve treated us like real people. Have you ever thought about how amazing that is?”
    â€œClara, okay, but don’t you understand? I want to see museums. I want to see original paintings, and the churches of medieval Europe. I want to study with real artists, or I’ll never be able to become one myself.”
    â€œIf you would just think about the film studies department—”
    â€œGoddamn film studies.” She sucked in her breath. “Okay, fine. You want me to make films so bad? I’ll apply for film studies at Sutter. I’ll do that for you. I mean, I want to try new things, right? I might as well start with that, but that’s not where it stops. I want to try a lot of things.”
    She paused, and I could feel what she was going to say before she said it, and I wanted to stop her, but I didn’t know how.
    â€œLike dancing,” she said.
    â€œWhat, like tap dancing?” I blurted, before she could go on. “Ballet? Or do you want—”
    â€œYou know what I want.”
    She was right. I did.
    â€œI’m asking Alek to the dance,” she said, “and you should still ask Max.”
    â€œOh, you have got to be kidding. Didn’t you see how much we freaked him out?”
    â€œIt was a little weird,” she said, “but Juanita and I shouldn’t have been so bitchy to him. Anyway, you can’t make assumptions about what it means or what he’s capable of. You can’t go off crying in a corner every time someone acts strangely around you.”
    I shook my head in the darkness. “Yeah, right, Hailey. The way he was looking at us, we might as well