Still Here

"Summer was over, and so were we." Lacey was humming a familiar song when Lelia's eyes opened. Light poured in and flooded Leila's awareness. In the corner, to the left, she saw Lacey, leafing through a magazine. They were identical twins. Leila felt the beginning of an electric current course through her body, but it never connected. Confused, she stared at Lacey until Lacey looked up. “She’s awake!!!!!!!!” Lacey screamed with alarm.

A nurse walked in and approached Leila with hesitancy, fiddling with the machines and wires twisting in and around Leila's body.

“What’s going on?” Leila said, loudly. “Hey!” the nurse whispered and leaned down close to her ear. "Hey!" the nurse repeated. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Leila said, with irritation. The nurse did not respond and her eyes passed over Leila's face without making contact. She turned on a tiny flashlight and flicked it into Leila's eyes. The nurse turned away and spoke to Lacey. “Her eyes are still dilated. And she’s still not tracking. At all.”

“Are you talking about me?” Leila asked, her voice more diminished. She looked at Lacey, who started wiping tears from her eyes. “Are you guys talking about me? What is going on?” Leila screamed. Neither Lacey nor the nurse reacted. Leila tried to swallow. Nothing. She tried to move her head. Below her eyes, it felt like her body had dissolved.

“I'm so sorry. I’ll get the Doctor, and have him explain what’s next for you and your family.” The nurse put a hand on Lacey's shoulder before turning and hurrying out of the room.

Lacey scanned Leila's face briefly, and adjusted her bedsheets, tucking the blanket tightly around Leila's arms. Leila became more agitated when Lacey failed to acknowledge her gaze. “Can you hear me, Lacey?” Leila shouted. But nothing actually came out. It was just the sound of her own voice as she remembered it, in her head.

The silence was deafening as Lacey sat back down without responding to Leila.

A few weeks earlier, Leila and Lacey were filming social media content in their breakfast nook, in the beachfront house they shared. Of the forty-three takes, they'd deleted forty-two. The light was not right, and they were behind schedule because Lacey was on the verge of a panic attack in the middle of filming: Lacey had read a comment that suggested both her and Leila were AI generated. To prevent Lacey's spiral, Leila took the phone gently from her sister and deleted the comment. “Can we do one more take?” Leila smiled. “We’re good. Trust me.” The analytics confirmed that together or alone, they commanded and mesmerized. Was it her, Lacey, or the fact that they were twins? It wasn’t possible to know.

At the end of the shoot, she turned to Lacey. “Let’s call this one the “Summer of Change." She turned away, not wanting to see Lacey's reaction. "I’d really like to transition to fall content with some solo posts. I think it's time.” The next few moments were a blur. There were sharp words and there were tears. She got into her pink and gray Range Rover alone and sped off down the beach, kicking up sand. Her last memories before waking up in the hospital to Lacey's song: a blaring horn, crunching metal, and sand blowing across the windshield as her car rolled to a stop.

As she lay in her hospital bed, memories of basic physical sensations that were now conspicuously absent flooded her consciousness. She heard movement in the room but disassociated herself from it as her gaze landed somewhere in a distant corner, unoccupied by sound or movement. Then she heard the voice of a doctor above her, authoritative and confident. He said, “There’s no evidence of awareness.”

She fell into a deep sleep that turned into a coma. When she awoke, the room was different. She noticed a cluster of balloons that said "Congrats! We made it!!!!" The wall behind it was a huge poster of her and Lacey. A banner displayed: “You made 10 Million Followers!!”

What was she still doing in the hospital? How much time had passed? When was she going to get out? Where was her mom? Did their followers know what happened?

A few hours later, her social media manger, Paul, her mother, and Lacey entered the room and sat around her bed eating Chinese food – Leila’s favorite.

Paul then announced, “I told you we could rebuild Leila. 10 million f’ing followers.” The sound of Leila and Lacey’s lilting voices began playing from his phone. Her mother stood up. “I can’t do this in front of Leila.” Her voice cracked and became thick with tears. “I’ll be in the hallway.”

Paul shrugged. “Whatever. I don't have a problem showing Leila. Maybe somewhere in there, she’ll know what’s happening and appreciate it, right?” He looked toward Lacey. She stared at her hands, and didn’t respond. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes. She shook her head slightly, but not vigorously enough to deter Paul, who held the phone 6 inches in front of Leila’s face and pressed play.

Leila saw herself talking first but she didn’t recognize her voice. It was the same, but slightly different. A light scar stretched across her face and over her temple, which was otherwise flawless. Her highlights were fresh, she had a deep tan, and their beach house looked like it had been updated with new decor.

The title of the video was “Summer of Change: One Year Later!” In the video, Lacey then began gushing about the day that Leila nearly died in the car crash, right outside of their home on the beach. Digital Leila put a hand on Lacey’s shoulder and chimed in. “I don’t remember anything about that day. All I have is this.” She pointed to the scar and turned to the camera.

“Thank you to the excellent surgeons at Shady Creek Hospital, I was able to get my life back. And thanks to you guys, I can continue my channel with Lacey. We’re truly the epitome of twin power. Summer changed us, but for the better!”

The twins proceeded to giddily walk viewers through new summer makeup trends. Paul paused the video. “2 Million views. Just posted this an hour ago. Can’t make this up.”

He started reading the comments below the video and smiled as he scrolled.

“Wow. She looks incredible after everything she’s been through.”

“She hasn’t aged a bit!”

“The twins never stop giving.”

“LOL…remember when people used to think they were AI?”

He laughed and said, “The irony. They’re eating this up.”

Lacey still hadn’t looked at Leila. Paul restarted video.

Digital Leila laughed, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and leaned into the camera.

“I love y’all.” Paul let the video continue as a nurse entered, humming to herself as she adjusted Leila’s IV. She stopped, and glanced at Leila's face, then at the video playing on Paul’s phone.

“I swear,” she said softly. “She looks even better now.” She smiled. “I still can’t tell you two apart.” She looked directly into Leila’s eyes and gave the faintest wink before wiping the saliva from the corner of Leila’s mouth. A tear slid slowly across Leila’s temple.

The nurse completed her routine, and Paul and Lacey eventually left. Leila stared into the empty room. Somewhere beyond the hospital walls, another version of Leila laughed into a camera. Everyone else believed it was her.