Twin(k)s

Inkognito

inkognitowrites@yahoo.com

They stared at each other in the dim glow of the basement TV, the kind of blue light that made everything look a little more dramatic than it actually was.

“So wait,” Gabe said slowly, “you’re gay?”

Eli nodded. “Yeah.”

Gabe blinked. “I thought I was gay.”

“Are you gay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Gabe said, genuinely distressed. “I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Well,” Eli sighed. “This is gay.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “What’s gay?”

“This,” Eli said, gesturing vaguely between them. “This whole scenario. It’s all gay.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. I might not be gay.”

“I’m not saying you’re gay,” Eli replied calmly. “I’m saying this situation is gay. This scenario that we have found ourselves in. It is, categorically, gay.”

“It’s not gay.”

“Dude. It’s totally gay.”

Gabe was quiet for a second, like he was genuinely trying to compute something complicated and failing.

“I think I’m being haunted,” he admitted.

“By what?”

“A gay ghost.”

There was a pause.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been absorbing your internalized vibes,” Gabe explained. “Like a sponge. A twin sponge. A twinge.”

Eli groaned. “You’re such a dumbass.”

Gabe stared down at his hands like they might hand him the cold, hard truth. “But am I a gay dumbass?”

“We’ll cross that rainbow bridge when we get to it.”

Gabe looked back at his brother. “So if you’re gay, and we’re twins, doesn’t that mean I have a hundred percent chance of being gay too?”

“That’s not how that works.”

“How do you know? You’re not some gay-twin-doctor-scientist.”

“Neither are you.”

“Exactly! Our ignorance cancels each other out,” Gabe declared, like a man unveiling a scientific breakthrough in the field of BS.

Eli tossed a pillow at Gabe’s head. “Dude. Quit acting gay.”

“Wait. Like metaphorically or for real?”

Eli dropped onto the futon with a groan and his arms flung dramatically overhead. “Why are you like this?”

“I don’t know!” Gabe said in exasperation. “I woke up this week and suddenly every sentence people say sounds like a euphemism!”

Eli lifted his head and one eyebrow simultaneously. “What? How?”

“Let’s see, there was ‘Batting for the other team,’ ‘Are you coming out,’ ‘Who’s your daddy.’” Gabe counted them off on his fingers. “Someone even called us ‘twinks’ in public!”

“They were definitely saying twins.”

“Were they, Eli? Were they really? Because the guy winked at us.”

Eli rolled his eyes. “Maybe he has a twin fetish.”

Gabe rubbed his temples. “See?! How am I supposed to function like this? Am I gay? Are you gay? Am I gay because you’re gay? Am I just leaking gay through osmosis?”

“Dude,” Eli deadpanned. “I came out five minutes ago and you’ve already made it entirely about you.”

“I’m not trying to! I’m just scared I’ve been living a lie.”

“You’re straight.”

“Allegedly!” Gabe said, flailing.

Eli pulled a blanket over his head. “I hate this.”

Gabe paced in a tiny circle. “Just hear me out. What if you being gay triggered something in our twin DNA? Like a gay gene that only activates when the other twin accepts himself?”

Eli’s muffled voice came from under the blanket. “This is not ‘X-Men.’”

“It’s a mutation of sorts!”

“You’re a mutation.”

“No! I’m just spiraling, Eli!”

Eli sat up slowly, the blanket sliding off his head like the world’s most exhausted gay ghost.

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his face. “Let me try this. I’m gay. You’re not. You’re just... insane. Problem solved.”

“But how can you be so sure? Like, how do you know you’re gay?”

Eli blinked. “Uh. Because I like guys.”

“That’s it? That’s your metric?”

“It’s the main one, yeah.”

Gabe stopped pacing. “Okay. So maybe I’m not, like, gay-gay. But I could still be gay-adjacent.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It could be! Like twin latency. Think about it. You’re gay and I’m experiencing it remotely. Like Bluetooth.”

Eli groaned again and flopped backward. “Just stick me back in the closet already.”

Gabe flopped next to him dramatically. “I just want answers, man. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

There was a long silence.

“I didn’t know who I was either. For a long time,” Eli said in a quiet voice.

Gabe turned his head. “Yeah, but you actually had something to figure out. I’m just over here catching stray euphemisms and breaking into a sweat every time someone says something like ‘closet’ or ‘daddy.’”

Eli smiled faintly. “That’s just you being a drama queen.”

“Like—”

“Stop. Don’t even say it.”

“Fine. But what if my straight brain is so synced to your gay brain it’s having secondhand confusion. Like sympathy confusion.”

“You’re just making up syndromes now.”

“I’m not saying I’m gay,” Gabe sighed. “I’m saying I’ve been so emotionally codependent on you for eighteen years that I might’ve short-circuited.”

Eli snorted. “Now that actually sounds legit.”

 

The next morning, Gabe strutted into the kitchen wearing a shirt that said, “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look anyway.”

It looked like the result of a fight between a Cricut and fragile masculinity.

Eli didn’t look up from his breakfast. “Classy.”

Gabe opened the fridge with gusto. “Just felt like being myself today.”

Eli took a bite of cereal. “Right. And did the gay ghost sign off on this outfit, or…?”

“No ghosts,” Gabe declared. “Ghost-free. Vibe-cleansed. I did a hetero saging last night.”

“You mean you burned Axe body spray and screamed into your pillow.”

“I was manifesting.”

They sat in silence as they ate.

“So,” Eli said finally, “you gonna tell me what the actual hell that spiral was last night?”

“Nope. I’m going to repress it like a well-adjusted straight man.”

Eli looked up. “You’re going to get even weirder, aren’t you?”

“Almost definitely.”

Eli took another bite and shrugged. “Whatever.”

That was the thing about being twins.

You didn’t have to fix each other.

You just had to know when the other was a lost cause for the day.