nathan dawson's pov

I don't need to look at the mirror to see myself. Just like that morning, all I needed to do was to lift my gaze from my half-eaten PB & J sandwich and there I was. The boy with sky blue eyes, sun-kissed caramel brown hair and full lips curved into a smile. The boy who was talking with my step dad about something I didn't care to know about.

As you might have guessed already, that boy isn't me. His name is Nicholas Dawson and he is 14 minutes older than me. Eighteen years ago we shared the same egg, which was split in two, and thus we have the same genes. Nicholas Dawson was a pef*ct replica of me, or I was of him depending on how you preferred to think about it.

Oh wait, did I say perf*ct? 

Although we looked the same, almost inextricably, we had our differences. Whereas Nicholas brushed his hair every morning, mine fell on my face messy and unset. Instead of having a trim trained body like Nicholas did, mine looked like I didn't even know what the word weightlifting meant. 

And last but not the least: I was the one with the scar. It wasn't a face-splitting or even that noticeable scar, just a round spot on my chin that only stood out in the summer when the rest of my skin got tanned. One had to look closely in order to see it, so yet again, it didn't really help with the distinction.

Externally, that is.

I got the scar from a baseball bat, which Nicholas swung straight to my face in one perf*ctly aimed curve. I learned two important lessons that day. The first one was that one needs to step back after pitching a ball. The second was that baseball — or any other sport — wasn't really my thing. Thus the lack of muscles.

Nicholas on the other hand was the team captain of our school's Varsity team. He was also the one with a gorgeous girlfriend and a bunch of popular friends. It's probably not that difficult to guess which one of us was a straight A student and which one barely passed the courses. 

Yup, it's not easy to be compared to the perf*ct version of yourself. It surely didn't help that it happened every passing moment. By. Every. Single. Person. 

It was painfully clear to me that the boy who was sitting opposite me talking with my step dad was nothing like me. He was the golden boy and I was the black sheep, a no-good replica of someone I could never live up to.

"Stop daydreaming, hon." My so-called daydreaming was interrupted by my mom, who pressed a kiss on the top of my head on her way to get her daily dose of coffee. She, Camille Brown, was sweet as sugar, but she became a ticking time bomb if she was denied from a steady flow of caffeine. 

"Gosh, we're going to be late!" Nicholas' exclamation startled me so badly I almost dropped the sandwich I had picked up from my plate again. "Come on, Nathan. And where's Jonathan?" 
 
Just like that our typical havoc had begun. Jonathan was nowhere to be found, I wasn't done with my breakfast and Nicholas, our unfortunate chauffeur was going to be late from practice.

I had to abandon the rest of my sandwich to go look for Jonathan while Nicholas was already hurrying out of the house. It was, after all, the end of the world, if you ever missed a practice. Or were late for like a minute or two.

Luckily I found Jonathan from dad's home office and got him out of the door before Nicholas sped out of the yard. We dropped off Jonathan by the elementary school and then continued our journey to.. wait, we were missing a stop.

"Aren't we going to get Audrey Grace?" I turned to look at Nicholas, who was concentrating on the road in front of us. He didn't so much as glance at me.

"Nope. Not this time." There was something in his voice that I couldn't quite read, but I didn't bother to give it another thought. Instead I lowered my gaze back to my phone and continued chatting with my friends.

A few moments later, when I was slouching towards my regular spot, I thought it was going to be a boring day just like all the other days. The same old hour sitting at the same old table, chatting with the same old friends until the same old classes would start.

How many years had I spent hoping something thrilling would come and turn my boring life upside down? How many years had I dreamed of something worth mentioning finally happening in my oh so uneventful life?

If I had only known how my life would change in just a couple of hours, I would have prayed to stick with the same old perf*ctly humdrum world of mine. 

"Hey, you." Those were the first words he ever said to me. My wild card, the one life had just thrown at me, came in the form of a guy I had never seen before.

When I lifted my gaze, to meet a pair of dark grey eyes, I had just about enough time to think: He's —

Then I was already flying in the air, my vision filled with shiny little stars and my mouth hanging open by surprise. A few seconds later I thudded on the ground and landed on my butt with a groan.

"W-why would you do that to me?" I cried out, clasping a hand over my nose that was already dripping crimson to my white shirt.

°°°°

"My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can't be loved as I am."

– anais nin –