Splitsville (Unedited Draft)

Chapter Three- Mary and Anne

MARYANNE\'S DORM...

Maryanne awoke slowly from an intensely comfortable sleep. No- scratch that- Mary- Mary awoke slowly from an intensely comfortable sleep. Anne was next to her- her sweet breath tickling Mary\'s nose and cheek. She looked content and peaceful. How could Mary have ever thought that she was the evil twin? Anne was so calm and reasonable, while Mary had lost all sense of sanity until Anne had shown up and reminded her who she- who they were. Mary was only half herself without Anne\'s steadying presence.

Anne stirred in her sleep, snuggling in to rest her head on Mary\'s shoulder and Mary noticed that Anne wasn\'t just sleeping on Mary\'s shoulder but in it! Mary could see her arm and shoulder and, at the same time, she could see Anne\'s head, but they were both occupying the same space on the pillow. She knew she should be really creeped out or something by the sight, but it was strangely comforting- it was just Anne anyway. Mary shrugged her shoulder and Anne didn\'t even move. It didn’t hurt Mary\'s shoulder either- in fact, it felt a nice kind of tingly where she and Anne were in the same space. Mary wiggled down a little lower on the bed and tried to slide into Anne a little further. Anne made a grunty noise and wiggled around, too, instinctively helping Mary line them up completely down to the fingertips and Damn! But that felt incredible.

Mary was almost back to sleep cocooned in the shimmering warmth of Anne\'s body when Anne sat bolt upright and twisted her head around to look at her. \"Holy shit! Where are my legs?\"

\"It\'s all right, Anne. They\'re still there,\" Mary answered.

\"Then where are your legs?\" Anne asked.

\"The same place. We sorta fit together.\"

Anne bent one leg, raising her knee to her chest while Mary\'s corresponding leg stayed straight, resting against the mattress. \"Wow. How are we doing that?\"

\"Not sure. It feels great though, doesn\'t it?\"

Anne laid back into Mary. \"Yeah, it really does,\" Anne agreed, the motion of her mouth tickling Mary\'s lips. \"We really should get up though. I have a first period lecture and I really can\'t miss because I\'m already failing.\"

\"All right, you go to class and I\'ll stay in bed,\" Mary proposed lazily.

Anne got up and, even though it didn’t hurt for Anne to leave, Mary missed her.

\"Fine,\" Anne replied. \"I\'ll go to class and you can stay here and do the laundry.\"

\"Yes, Mother,\" Mary said through the blanket she had pulled up over her head.

\"Oh, and you can also catch up on all that reading I\'ve been putting off. It\'s new info- I should be able to learn it while you read,\" Anne added, searching the closet for something cute to wear.

\"Maybe I should go to class and you can try to read the impossible physics text,\" Mary suggested.

\"As you wish, dear. And I\'ll go to the dining hall, while you shower,\" Anne agreed.

\"Wait, no- I want to get to eat. I really need chocolate to understand physics- it\'s brain food.\" Mary regretfully got out of bed and took the cute top Anne had selected from her and offered the frilly pink bathrobe in its stead.

\"Chocolate for breakfast?\" Anne scolded, scowling at Mary a minute before taking the bathrobe and fetching the toilet kit.

\"Hot cocoa,\" Mary said while searching out the right pants to complete her outfit.

\"I guess that will do. Just make sure you swirl it around in your mouth a lot so I can taste it better,\" Anne requested.

\"You really think you\'ll be able to taste what I taste?\"

\"You didn\'t notice that last night with the Chinese? I didn\'t have any of that spicy General Tso\'s chicken, but I tasted every bite you had. I even have the heartburn to prove it.\" She patted her sternum indicating where the heartburn was bothering her, and then she stripped off her pjs and wrapped up in her robe.

\"That is so cool. Seriously, I know I should still be freaked and worried and wondering how we\'re gonna get back to being one person, but I\'m not seeing the downside to being split in two like this.\"

\"Shh! Don\'t jinx it!\" Anne warned and immediately knocked three times on the only bit of wood in the dorm room- the molding around the door. Then she opened the door and headed the wrong way for the bathroom, stopped five steps on, turned around and found her way to the shower.

***

Shortly after Anne finished in the bathroom, she could taste that Mary had chosen Belgian waffles with too much butter and syrup to go with the cocoa for breakfast. And what was that- a donut? Shaking her head at Mary\'s dietary recklessness, Anne put in a load of laundry and got a little bit motion sick as Mary rode the bus across campus to Prof. Drake\'s lecture. Anne got a coke from the vending machine and a few swigs fixed both of their bellies right up. Then Anne settled down in a pile of pillows on her bed and got busy reading four chapters from New Dimensions in Physics.

Well, reading four chapters from New Dimensions in Physics had been her plan, but when she opened the book, everything was written backwards- no, it was her- she saw everything backwards. Old lefty strikes again. She tried to read the text anyway, but it was really hard and made her head hurt. Then she glanced up at the mirror and saw Mary there- she looked just like Mary in the mirror- the mole was on the wrong- no, right- the mole was on the right side in the mirror. She picked up the book, walked across the room and held the book up to the mirror. The letters weren\'t backwards anymore. The words were in the right order again. She was in business.

Three hours later, Mary was in Advanced Basket Weaving and Anne was finished with both the reading and the laundry. Interestingly, the physics had made much more sense than she had expected, especially since much of the reading was the same information that Mary was hearing in lecture. Getting it from both sources somehow worked much better than only hearing it or only reading it. Anne idly wondered if the fact that they were split but both of them still functioned meant that their combined IQs were twice what Maryanne had had. And wasn\'t it strange that even though Anne felt that Maryanne\'s memories were her own, she didn\'t exactly feel like she was still Maryanne. She felt more like she was half of Maryanne- the left half. It was just unbelievably weird, but also, somehow okay as long as Mary was around- as long as she could feel what Mary felt. Speaking of what Mary felt- Mary was probably hungry since Anne was famished, so Anne slipped on the pretty new sandals Maryanne had bought the week before and went to the dining hall for lunch.

THE DINING HALL...

As she got her dining card swiped and walked into the lunch rush, Anne thought about how much it was now coming in handy that Maryanne had had her key ring and her entire wallet on her during the split- now they had two keys to the dorm and two id cards and two dining hall passes. Anne got in the food line and made sure to counteract the extra butter and syrup from breakfast with a naked salad and fresh fruit with her meal. Matt came into the dining hall just as she sat down, so she waved him over hoping that maybe he\'d have worked out some of what had happened the day before.

\"Hey, Matt, have a seat,\" Anne said, trying to be low key. She could do low key. It didn\'t matter that Matt was her only lifeline in the surreal world that was her life for the last day. No, not her only lifeline- their only lifeline. Mary needed the same thing from Matt that Anne did- answers without questions. The answers they needed without the questions he might ask if she was too overzealous. She could do low key.

\"Thanks,\" he replied, smiling and sat, pulling his chair just a few inches too far into her personal space. \"You look great today. How\'s the bump on the noodle?\" He pointed to the cut above her temple.

\"Only sore when I press on it,\" she assured him.

A moment later Matt got a perplexed look on his face, shook his head and asked, \"Wait, Maryanne, didn\'t that cut used to be on the other side of your head?\" He pointed to the unblemished right side of Anne\'s head- the place where Mary had her cut.

\"Um, no,\" Anne told him in complete truthfulness. \"This is where I had the cut on my head yesterday.\"

\"How strange. I could have sworn-\"

\"Matt, head lacerations don\'t just migrate to the other side of the skull for the winter,\" Anne interrupted. \"This booboo was in the same exact place on my head yesterday, triple promise.\"

\"Of course. I\'m sorry, I didn\'t mean anything by it. Memory is funny, huh?\"

\"Yeah, I guess. Listen, Matt, do you have any new information about what happened to Moores yet?\"

\"Uh yeah, but not here, okay,\" he answered, looking around cautiously, \"we should talk about it in private.\"

\"Sure okay,\" Anne consented.

THE PHYSICS BUILDING...

Matt\'s office was in great disarray. \"I was working out some of these figures most of the night- I just can\'t get them to work out. I get so close to getting it and then- I\'m not sure. It\'s as if there\'s some factor I haven\'t accounted for, some variable that is missing,\" Matt explained, shuffling papers to show her a large number of chicken scratched equations.

\"And you have no idea what\'s missing?\" Anne asked.

\"It would help if I could get back into the lab and recheck some things, but it\'s still officially a crime scene since they\'re calling it arson and they\'re not convinced that Moores is dead.\"

\"So, uh- is there anything I can do to help?\" Anne asked.

\"Maryanne, sweetheart, it\'s nice of you to offer, but no, there really isn\'t,\" Matt informed her just as the phone buried somewhere on his desk rang. \"I\'m sorry. I should get that.\" He rooted around in the papers and disks and empty coffee cups until he found the extension and put the handset to his head. \"Yellow,\" he slurred into the phone. \"Uh-huh.... Of course, sir.... No, it\'s not a problem.... Yes.... All right I\'ll be right there.... Okay, yeah, uh-huh, right, okay- goodbye, sir.\" Matt hung up and addressed Anne again, \"That was my advisor. I need to run a really quick errand for him. I\'ll be back in less than ten, I promise. Can you wait? I want to talk about something with you.\"

\"Sure thing. I\'ll be right here,\" Anne pledged.

\"Great. Be right back,\" he told her and hurriedly left.

Anne sat in Matt\'s chair and tried to make either heads or tails of the figures he\'d been waving at her before. It was useless. Matt was right- she couldn\'t help. She couldn\'t help unless she was willing to tell Matt about Mary and herself being split. And that was something that, for some reason neither of them had articulated, she and Mary weren\'t willing to do. Maybe it was a desire not to be taken for crazy chicks. Or maybe it was that they were kinda enjoying all the weirdness of it. Maybe they were crazy if they liked being freaks of science.

Speaking of crazy, Anne was getting a little creeped out sitting alone three floors underground in the building where what had happened to Maryanne had happened. She almost felt like someone was there with her- watching her, or maybe waiting just outside in the hall until the right moment to strike. It was stupid. There was no one there and they only person who\'d ever done her any real harm- Moores- he was dead. She saw him vanish from existence herself- or Maryanne had. That she was certain of- Moores was dead. Dead, dead, dead. \"Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead,\" she chanted to reassure herself.

You wish, Blondie.

Anne thought she heard it, but then she was sure it had to be her imagination. \"Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead,\" she chanted again and there was no reply. Anne would have whiled away the rest of the time that Matt was running his errand by looking out the window, except she was three stories underground, so there was no window, which was depressing. How did Matt function like that, she wondered- never having a window to gaze out of as he thought out his equations, never getting any fresh air to wake his brain and body up after a long hard think. She was certain she couldn\'t work that way, herself- Mary couldn\'t have either- neither of her could.

Anne was certain she heard laughter this time, but there was no way Matt was back yet. Maybe there was someone laughing in Mary\'s earshot, Anne told herself. Then, just to be sure, she said, \"He\'s dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.\"

Maybe someone near Mary was smoking, too because Anne was certain she smelled smoke. She got up and poked her head out Matt\'s door. Looking down the hall, she didn\'t see any signs of anyone around to produce cigarette smoke- it was a non-smoking building but that didn\'t mean much. Anne went back and sat back down in front of Matt\'s computer. Since she was getting so bored that she was imagining voices and laughter and non-existent smoke, Anne clicked around Matt\'s desktop until she found Solitaire and lost herself in a few games.

After three games, Anne noticed that she was sweating and then she really wished that there were a window in the office. A moment later, a familiar klaxon was ringing in her ears. It was the same one she\'d heard when she woke split from Mary and Oh Shit! That meant the smoke she kept imagining was real. There was a fire! Anne went to the door and pulled it open.

The hall was hotter, but she didn\'t see flames, so she went out, trying to remember the right direction to the stairs. She had only been down here that one other time and everything was now backwards from that memory. After a few panicked turnarounds, Anne found the stairwell. Through the small high window in the door, she could see fire on the other side. Taking a calming breath, Anne tried to think how to get out. She concentrated on what she remembered of how the building was set up- what she\'d seen going up and down the stairs, what the building looked like from the outside. Maybe she could figure where the logical place for another staircase to be.

She remembered following Matt down flights and flights of stairs as Maryanne. She remembered coming down here with Matt today and then she remembered following Matt to a side door and out of the building the day before. She found her way to the other stairs and felt the door because it didn\'t have a window. It was hot, really hot, but Anne couldn\'t expect that there were more than two staircases in the building, so she decided to open it anyway. Remembering her third-grade fire safety lesson from \"Officer Squirt, the Firefighting Chimp\", Anne got down on her hands and knees before opening it. Officer Squirt would be proud to know that he saved Anne\'s life at that moment because, as soon as she opened the door, a large flare rushed through at the top of the doorframe, but on the floor Anne wasn\'t burned. She slammed the door and crawled a ways back down the hall.

Anne was cut off and she didn\'t even know if anyone knew to look for her down there. For all she knew, Matt might not be back from his errand or maybe he was caught in the fire somewhere, too. Anne took a page from Mary\'s book and freaked out until a sudden coolness came over her. It was no the coolness of being calm- like she suddenly knew everything was going to be all right. It wasn\'t that at all. It was the coolness of being immersed in cold, cold water. She felt wet without being wet- like Mary had described to her about the shower from the night before. Then she got an idea! An awful idea. Anne got a wonderful, awful idea.

Anne crawled back to the stairs, opened the door, ducked the flames and crawled on through. She was almost certain it wouldn\'t work, but it was try now or wait for the flames to come and take her later and she didn\'t feel like waiting. It worked. Anne was intensely hot from the fire she was crawling around and through as she made her way up to the ground level. Anne was chilled to the bone by what felt like ice water Mary was soaking in. It hurt like a mother, but her hair and her flesh didn\'t burn even when she had to pass directly through the fire. Her clothes, on the other hand, kept catching on fire and she had to stop, drop and roll repeatedly to keep from ending up completely naked by the time she emerged from the building.

There were fire trucks outside the building for the second time in two days but luckily, Anne managed to get out once again without being noticed.

***

THE HEINSELROTH BUILDING...

Mary had to leave class to get a drink of water because she was so parched and overheated. Then she spent long minutes drinking from the fountain but not feeling any better- in fact, it was getting worst. Maybe she was getting sick. Mary gave up on the water fountain and decided to get the bus back to the dorm. She was out of breath by the time she got to the campus bus stop. A Goth girl was waiting for the bus, too and she was defiantly smoking a cigarette as if her personal freedom of expression depended on it. Mary moved a little way down because the smoke was making her nauseous and sort of panicky. The smoke smell lingered and Mary was so damn hot she was sweating. Mary had passed the gym on her way from class to the bus stop- there was a shower in the gym, wasn\'t there?

THE MENDEL GYNNASIUM...

Mary arrived at the Mendel Gymnasium completely out of breath, completely covered in sweat and completely panicked. She no longer cared about anything but getting cool, so she stripped off her shirt before she reached the privacy of the ladies locker-room and was in the shower- set to its coldest temperature- she was in the shower before getting her underclothes off. It helped, but it wasn\'t enough. After a moment, Mary peeked her head out of the shower hoping to find someone to call 911 for her, but the locker-room was empty. She did spy a big hydrotherapy tub, so she rushed out to it, still dripping wet and naked but for her bra and panties and turned the cold tap on full blast. As the tub filled, she found the fridge and carried as many ice packs as she could over to the tub and dumped them in. Then she got in and submerged her head.

Being under the water felt much better- much, much better. She still felt blazing hot but she was also so cold that her teeth were chattering which made it hard to hold her breath. Mary opened her eyes and watched the lights reflect in the water above her. She still smelled smoke, which was kinda impossible since she was still holding her breath. Mary realized that she\'d been holding her breath for a long time- a really long time, but she didn\'t feel the urge to breath in, wasn\'t having that lung-scared moment that you get when you\'ve held your breath too long and the need to breath comes to the forefront of your attention. Anne had to be breathing for her- it had to be. But where was Anne that all she could smell was smoke? Suddenly Mary could see a long heavy door with flames showing through a small window- Fire, Anne was caught in a fire!

Mary laid under the water as the burning feeling got hotter and the smoke smell got so strong, she coughed and had to sit up for a moment to clear the water from her lungs. The heat was infinitely worst with her head above the water, so she quickly splashed back down into the welcome of the icy tub. Mary spent the next few minutes wondering if Anne would die in the flames or if she, herself- Mary would drown or if one of them dying meant that the other one would die also.

Then, the heat\'s intensity lessened abruptly and Mary could raise her head from the water. It felt good to use her own lungs again instead of relying on Anne\'s. Soon Mary was able to leave the bath altogether and then she was frigidly cold. She wrapped up in a few towels and went in search of her clothes. She wasn\'t sure if the feeling of being in fire had stopped because Anne was safe or Anne was dead- she really hoped it wasn\'t the second one.