The Similars (The Similars #1)(33)

“I didn’t mean—”

“What’s wrong with you, anyway?” I lash out. “Any normal person would say something reassuring.”

“Haven’t I told you enough times, Emma? My upbringing didn’t make me normal.”

“And you think I am? My mother died when I was three. I have no memories of her outside the ones I’ve recreated from old photographs. I live with my dad, which is essentially like living with a corpse. We aren’t that different, you and me.”

Levi stares at me.

“What?” I snap at him. “What now?”

“You think you know anything about what my life has been like?” Levi breathes deeply. “Try living in near isolation for sixteen years. Try never meeting or hanging out with any kids your age except for five other clones who you have nothing in common with, besides the fact that you’re all genetic mistakes.” Levi stands quite close to me now, so close I can practically feel his chest heave up and down.

“Try living a life so lonely you thought you might never know what it’s like to have a friend you’ve chosen yourself. Try getting sent away, at age sixteen, to attend the prep school of the dead kid you were cloned from.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him express this much emotion or intensity. I don’t know if I’m afraid, but I’m definitely unnerved.

Sick over Prudence and aching to be back in my dorm room, I continue down the road. Neither of us says another word the whole way back to campus. My thoughts and his breathing are all I hear.

Back in my room, I find a pensive Pippa outside my door. For the second time, my heart leaps, thinking it’s my roommate. Still, seeing Pippa here is both comforting and disorienting. It’s not a new sensation. It’s how I feel whenever I see Levi.

“I—I waited for you. I hope you don’t mind,” Pippa says quietly. “You got a package.” She hands me a letter-size envelope, but with something bulky inside. My eyes immediately dart to the return address. J. Porter, Palo Alto, CA. My heart does a flip-flop. That’s Jane Ward’s maiden name. A package from Oliver’s mom? I ache to open it, but not now. I unlock the door and we go inside, where I stuff the package under my mattress for later, when I can be alone.

“Have you heard anything else?” Pippa presses. “About Pru?”

“She’s gone,” I choke out before I can stop myself.

Pippa sucks in a tight breath. “Gone? You mean—”

“Not, gone gone.” I let out a sigh that’s more like a sob. “Levi and I, we went to the hospital to see her. We skipped out on duty,” I explain. “When we got there, they said she checked out the same night she arrived.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Pippa says, agitated.

“What if they’ve taken her someplace else. Home? Or—” I stop before I give Pippa the same terror I felt envisioning Pru’s lifeless body being slid into a coffin.

“This must all be a mistake,” Pippa goes on. Her voice pleads with me—or the universe?—to make Pru okay. It’s like she’s even more shaken by what’s happened than I am. Suddenly it makes sense. Of course she’s distressed. She may not have known her for long, but Pru is quite literally Pippa’s other half.

“There has to be some other explanation for this,” Pippa continues. “Right?”

I nod because it feels like the right thing to do. The truth is, I have no idea.

*

In American history the next morning, Mr. Park projects a holographic world map in our view space. Countries are color-coded: some blue, some orange, some red.

“Blue countries,” Mr. Park’s voice booms, “are countries where cloning is currently illegal.”

If the class wasn’t paying full attention before, we are now. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Theodora stiffen.

“Red countries are safe spaces for clones. Orange countries are nations where a law has not been put in place one way or the other.”

Five hands shoot into the air, and as the discussion turns into another debate on cloning, its history, and the most recent Supreme Court case on clones’ rights, I do my best not to look at Levi. Things were tense when we parted ways yesterday. I don’t want to talk to him, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk to me.

I’m snapped out of my reverie when the discussion turns to Albert Seymour, the young American scientist who took cloning to the next level, helping couples and individuals around the world conceive children who would be genetic replicas of one of their parents.

“Who is familiar with Dr. Seymour’s famous primate experiment?” Mr. Park asks.

Silence. Apparently none of us have heard of it before. Mr. Park scans the room. “Theodora? Levi? Is it safe to assume you know about it?”

I allow myself to glance over at Levi. After getting so emotional yesterday, Levi looks nothing short of bored this morning. Arms across his chest, hair in his eyes, he shrugs. “Albert Seymour created us. We know everything about him,” he says, standoffish.

“What Levi means,” Theodora chimes in, “is yes, we know all about his monkey experiment. But that’s classified information.”

“Wait a second. Go back,” Henry, the boy who asked Theodora on a date, interjects. “What do you mean, Albert Seymour created you? I thought that lab technician created you. And that you were an accident, of sorts.”