The Twins' Plan

A moment later, he could sense her presence in front of him.

"Well?" Hannah said.

"Scary-good," Madison said.

"I know. Ash and I haven't looked this similar since the third grade. Our parents are going to be so confused when they see us later. What do you think, Aiden, do I look like my sister?"

"Uh huh," he said, still staring at a non-specific spot on the wall.

"Aiden," Madison said. "You're not looking at Hannah. You've got to look at her if you're going to answer her question."

He swallowed, then slowly turned towards the blonde beauty.

His heart beat faster. He didn't know where to look. His glance darted from her legs to her chest, then back down to her shoes. Why couldn't he just be normal and look at her face?

"Yeah," he said, forgetting what question he was answering.

"Yeah, what?" Madison prodded. "You're just looking at her shoes."

"Umm..." he swallowed again, then slowly looked up, taking in every one of Hannah's curves until he reached her bright sapphire blue eyes.

She grinned, put her hands behind her back, and leaned forward a little.

"Do I look pretty, Aiden?" she asked.

"Yeah, Ashley."

"Hannah," his sister corrected, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Uh, sorry, Hannah. You look... uh..."

"Aiden, I'm ready for you," Miguel called out from beside his chair.

He quickly stood up and carefully maneuvered around Hannah, making his way over to the chair.

"How are you doing today, my friend?" Miguel said with a cheery grin.

"High taper fade and a brushed up top, please," he said nervously. He was focused on the mirror, where he could see Madison and Hannah exchanging whispered glances.

"Straight to business. I can respect that." Miguel reached for his clippers and laid out several guard sizes on the bench. He held Aiden's head between his hands and moved it around examining it from several angles. After about a minute, Miguel nodded confidently to himself.

"Your previous barber really hated you. But no worry, Miguel has you now."

Miguel frequently readjusted his head in different directions as he worked a combination of scissors and clippers until the person staring back at him resembled someone out of a fashion magazine.

"Ay, dios mio," Miguel said. "I've outdone myself."

It took him a minute to process that the person in the mirror was him. It was like his brain was trying to accept a new reality. Whatever shaggy-haired teenage bum had sat down about an hour ago was gone. He started to get up but Miguel spread one hand against his chest and pulled him back into the chair.

"Wait," Miguel said. "I'm going to do your eyebrows and shave those weak-ass hairs from your face. They still need a few years. No offense."

Miguel proceeded to go through what seemed like a well-practiced routine of plucking, shaving, and skin conditioning that left his face feeling a little tender. But the results were striking. He looked like a living photoshopped version of himself.

"Here, papi," Miguel handed him a card. "If you ever want to do face work, you call my guy Toni."

Face work? He was afraid to ask, so he just nodded and took the card.

"Ladies! Come see the final product." Miguel spun the chair revealing his newly-styled look to Madison and Hannah.

Hannah gasped and Madison stood up and dropped her jaw in what had to be an exaggerated mocking gesture.

"Hoo boy," Hannah said. "Miguel, you're gooood."

"I know," he said.

Madison stepped forward. "Aiden?" she said, as if she wasn't sure it was really him. She looked both shocked and impressed.

"It's me." He shrugged.

Hannah approached the chair and studied him from different angles. He avoided her direct gaze. His brain was trying to juggle the shock of the new look with the emotions of having Ashley -- no, Hannah Baker so close and interested in him.

"Mads, your brother is super cute. Like, boy band cute."

Wait, was that a complement?

"I know," Madison said. "This might complicate things."

Aiden looked up towards Miguel. "Is being boy-band cute a good thing?"

"Depends who you ask," Miguel said. "But these two ladies seem to think so."

A mischievous grin spread across Hannah's face. "Madison, pay Miguel. Introductions must be made!" She grabbed Aiden's hand and yanked him from the chair, then dragged him out the front door.

"World!" Hannah shouted as if trying to get an imaginary audience's attention. "I introduce you to... Aiden Miller!"

Aiden stared at her wide-eyed and frozen like a deer in headlights. Was she trying to embarrass him? But there was no one around. This all seemed so surreal.

"Well, Aiden, go on, take a bow," she said, gesturing to an empty parking lot.

A cauldron of emotions bubbled and stirred within him. Hannah looked just like Ashley, which gave him a baseline level of anxiety. Then, piled onto that was the fact that she was holding his hand, and not in that weak handshake way -- her fingers were interlocked with his.

"What is it?" she asked, cocking her head like a confused german shepherd. "Was my introduction not worthy enough?"

He remained silent, still a deer in headlights, his heart on the edge of a Baker-twin induced heart attack.

"Okay, don't worry," she said. "I can do better."

Hannah cleared her throat, then turned back towards the empty parking lot.

"My lords! My ladies! And everybody else here not taking up more than one parking space. Today, today, you are all blessed, for I have the pride, the privilege, nay, the pleasure, of introducing to you Aiden, a man reborn!"

Wait, that sounded a little like Chaucer's speech from the movie A Knight's Tale. It was easily his and Madison's favorite movie. As kids, they'd watch it over and over, then tape empty rolls of paper towels together into make-shift lances and joust against each other using pillows as their shields.

Hannah turned to him and whispered. "Better, right?"

Somehow he managed a nod. The weirdness of it all was discombobulating and seemed to dampen the anxiety coursing through every cell of his body.

She smiled, then continued with her crazy impromptu speech to no one.

"Aiden was recently styled by the hands of Miguel, a hair stylist so great, that some say he could give the Queen of Hearts frosted tips and not lose his head. And now, you behold Miguel's greatest achievement: Aiden the Transformed!"

This was so weird, but Hannah's crazy antics were somehow putting him at ease.

She turned back to him for a moment, as if looking for approval.

He managed an awkward smile, which prompted her to continue.

"Aiden can trace his transformation back to a cold, wintery night, upon which the gods forsook him and ruined his date with a freshman of such beauty, that it was said to rival that of Charlemange's."

He chuckled involuntarily.

She laughed with him, then continued.

"I first met Aiden while he was sitting atop a porcelain throne, asking God for forgiveness for eating habanero chicken wings."

Oh god, that moment.

He should've been more embarrassed recalling their awkward encounter in his and Madison's shared bathroom, but somehow it didn't feel so embarrassing now given the absurdity of this situation. Her whole face lit up before turning back towards an old rusted out Kia Sedona.

"Next, he amazed me still in geometry class, where his kindness and bravery saved a homeworkless beauty from the would-be punishments of their dreadful teacher."

He'd forgotten about that. It was sophomore year and one of the rare times he'd bailed his sister out after she'd forgotten her homework.

"And in Spanish class, he spent a year in silence because he could not pronounce the letter Ñ."

They both looked at each other and laughed. His Spanish pronunciations were so bad.

"And so, without further gilding the lily, and with no more ado, I give to you the one, the only, Aiden Miller!"

Just behind them, Madison began to clap. They all looked at each other and burst into hysterics. The whole thing had been so stupidly ridiculous that he couldn't help but laugh.

"Well, Aiden, go on, take a bow," Madison said.

He turned towards the parking lot and bowed. His mood had completely shifted.

"That was actually pretty impressive," he said.

She smiled. "I love improv. And it's my favorite movie, so I've watched that scene a hundred times. Did it help?"

It had. He still felt some mild lingering anxiety, but overall he felt good. He turned to Madison. "Was this part of today's plan?"

Madison looked at Hannah.

"Not planned," Hannah said. "But I always have a little wacky improv on standby. It always makes me feel at ease when I'm feeling stressed, and it seemed like you needed a little of that, so I just went for it."

"Thanks," he said. "I never thought--"

"That Hannah Baker could be so weird?" she said.

"Yes, I mean, no. You're not weird. Well, you are," he said, getting tangled up in his own words. Madison and Hannah seemed to find it amusing, but they let him finish.

"What I meant to say is that..." he took a deep breath and looked down at the ground. "I mess things up a lot, and it's been hard to fit in at school. Madison is the only person I've never felt awkward around, until today. So thanks for that."

Madison gave him a big hug, then Hannah joined in. Having the curves of two beautiful women wrapped around him was making his heart race again.

"Okay, I think I'm back to not feeling normal," he said.

The girls laughed and backed off.

"Don't worry," Hannah said. "We'll work on that."

Later that night, after a full day of anxiety-inducing activities with Madison and Ashley's doppelganger, he heard a soft knock on their shared bathroom door.

"Got a minute?" Madison said.

"Yeah, sure," he said, laying back on his bed and working on some deep breathing.

"Sorry about surprising you with Hannah today, but I was worried that you'd back out if you knew she'd come along."

"It's okay," he said. "You're right, Hannah's really cool and easy to be around."

She nodded.

"But Mads..." he said, hesitantly.

"Hmm?" she replied.

"It seems like Hannah is part of this plan of yours." He'd meant it as a question but it had come out as more of a statement.

"She is," she said, nodding. "She has to be."

"Has to be?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said. "Like I said earlier, my big brother is a total mess."

Coming from anyone else, those words would have hurt him, but he knew she'd said them from a place of love and caring.

"I don't get it, but I trust you," he said.

"Thank you," she said. "But it's not too hard to understand, if you really think about it."

He looked up at her, hoping for more of an explanation.

"Aiden, you've conditioned yourself to feel all these terrible feelings whenever you see Ashley, right?"

"Conditioned?" he said. "You mean like Pavlov's dog?"

She nodded. "Ashley is your bell, but instead of salivating, you just feel shitty about yourself. We need to break those negative associations, but to do that you'll need to spend a lot of time hearing that bell and replacing those feelings with new positive emotions."

Then it clicked. "So Hannah..."

Madison nodded. "It's kind of perfect, actually. If you spend enough time around Hannah, then all of those shitty feelings you get when you see Ashley will be reprogrammed. Lucky for you, Hannah is my best friend and would do just about anything for me."

"But what if I don't have a good time around her?"

A smirk tugged at the corner of Madison's mouth. "Today wasn't so bad, was it?"

He shook his head.

"Give her a chance," she said. "I really think you're going to like being around Hannah."

"What makes you so sure?" he said skeptically.

Her smirk stretched further. "Let's just say, we're a lot alike. And you like me, right?"

"Occasionally," he said, teasing her with a cheeky smirk.

She frowned and punched his arm softly.

"And what if I can't get past her looks?" he said.

She seemed to consider this. "It won't be easy at first. You'll probably feel a punch in the gut every time you see her. But over time, that punch should get softer and softer, until it's completely gone."

"Makes sense, I guess," he said. "So Hannah knows all about the plan?"

Madison hesitated for a minute. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but I might as well. Hannah helped me come up with the plan."

"She did?" He didn't mean to sound so surprised, but Hannah didn't strike him as someone who planned anything. Sure, she was smart, but she always seemed so spontaneous, like someone who expertly improvised their way through life. And besides that, Hannah didn't know him very well.

"A lot of people underestimate Hannah," she said. "They think because she's this pretty blonde co-captain of the cheerleading team, that she's some kind of ditz. But she's not. She's extremely smart. And she has this intuitive sense about people -- she knows what makes them tick. It's kind of scary, actually. If that girl ever decides to use her powers for evil... well, it would be a dark day for humanity."

Everyone knew that the Baker twins were special, but for different reasons. Hannah was the popular social type, having been homecoming queen three years in a row. And Ashley ranked second highest academically and was vice president of the student council.

"I always thought Ashley would be the one to take over the world," he said.

"Oh, Ashley could too, for sure," she said. "Just in a different way. While Hannah would charm her way to the top, Ashley would conquer through careful preparation and pure ingenuity."

Madison almost seemed jealous, which didn't make sense. Sure, Hannah and Ashley both had an enviable mix of intelligence and beauty, but neither of them held a candle to his twin sister. In truth, if anyone could take over the world, it was Madison.

"I've made them sound like bitches, haven't I?" She said regretfully. "I didn't mean to. Hannah's the best. And what happened between you and Ashley wasn't her fault, and it wasn't yours either. You just got some really bad dating advice and everything just went downhill after that."

"You know a lot about both of them," he said, avoiding the topic of the date from hell.

She shrugged. "I spend lots of time with Hannah, and I run into Ashley occasionally. Getting to know your best friend and her twin sister is pretty normal, you know."

"I thought I was your best friend?" He said in a mock-hurt tone.

Her eyes got serious. "Aiden, you're more than that. You're my twin. I don't know if Hannah and I will always be best friends, but you'll always be my brother."

He smiled, feeling like he was the luckiest brother in the world to have such an amazing sister like Madison.

"So... does Ashley ever talk about me?" he asked.

"No," she said. "And Aiden, I don't think you should get your hopes up about that."

"What?" he said innocently.

Madison pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, you know, that blossoming seed of a stupid idea in your Ashley-obsessed noggin. Right now, you have her on this pedestal, but Ashley is what you want, not what you need."

"She could be..."

Madison shook her head. "Doubt it."

"How can you be so sure?" he argued.

"I guess I can't," she said. "But I think I know both of you well enough. Ashley's like an oil painting of a shifting night sky at dusk, while you're a sunrise in a palette of vibrant watercolors."

He raised an eyebrow and was about to respond to her overly poetic metaphor when her fingers reached out and pressed against his lips.

"Just trust me, okay?"

Then she lowered her hand leaving the scent of lavender and shea butter on his lips. Why were her eyes so intense? And why did she keep asking him to trust her? Of course he trusted her. There wasn't anyone in the world he trusted more, she had to know that.

"I trust you," he reassured her.

Her eyes softened and she smiled.

"But, I'm not sure how I feel about being compared to a watercolor painting. Is that, like, code for being immature?"

She chuckled and kissed him on the cheek. "I happen to like watercolor paintings."

The next few weeks followed a regular routine: Hannah would come over after school and hang out in Madison's room like it was her job to just be there. Madison called it exposure therapy -- the idea being that each passing day of being in Hannah's presence would help him feel less anxiety ridden. And for the most part, it was working.

He'd usually sit at Madison's desk, doing homework or playing games on his laptop while Hannah and his sister lounged on her queen-sized bed. On the weekends, Madison thought up activities that would encourage him and Hannah to interact in fun and confidence-boosting ways. The first weekend was the haircut, followed by a scavenger hunt that ended with the three of them in a photo booth taking goofy photos of themselves. Their second weekend together had upped the awkwardness by challenging him to accompany Hannah on a lingerie shopping trip. As their third weekend together approached, Aiden wondered what they had planned.

"Hey Aiden, how do you feel about mud?" Hannah asked randomly.

"Mud?"

"Yeah," Hannah said, "You know, the brown and dirty stuff that's fun in the right circumstances."

Where could this be going? Was Hannah planning some kind of spa-like mud bath for him?

"Neutral, I guess," he said, figuring it was the safest answer for now.

"Good," she said, tapping her phone. "We're all registered, then." Moments later, a new email notification popped up. He glanced at Madison for any clue that might reveal what he'd been signed up for, but his sister only shrugged at him.

"Oh, don't panic," Hannah said. "It's only a little 5k mud run this weekend. It's going to be great, and it's for charity, so you can't back out."

"What do I have to do?" he asked cautiously.

"Run in mud for about three miles," Hannah said. "Hence, a mud run." She was grinning from ear to ear.

He opened the email to learn that for the low price of seventy five dollars, you get to run through the fields of a farm that had been transformed into a sticky, mucky obstacle course that was guaranteed to leave you covered from head to toe in brown sludgy mud. But aside from that, it didn't look too challenging. He could easily do three miles.

"I think we should make it interesting," Madison said.

Hannah and Madison exchanged mischievous glances, then smiled and nodded.

"It's decided then," Hannah said.

Aiden looked over towards Hannah. "What's decided?"

"The last person past the finish line pays for the entry fees," Hannah said.

He was a solid runner and in pretty good shape from basketball, so beating both of them would be an easy task.

"And loser does laundry," Madison added. "By hand."

Again, not too bad.

"And..." Hannah smirked devilishly. "The loser has to kiss the winners' muddy butts."

"Uhh, wait, what?" The words stumbled out of his mouth.

"Loser's lips on winners' muddy butt cheeks," Hannah repeated. "Both cheeks. Skin on skin."

"Why?" was all he could think to say in response.

"Just because," Hannah said. "Makes things interesting."

"Okay," he said reluctantly. Getting kissed on the butt cheeks by Hannah would be awkward, but probably not as awkward if it were Madison doing the kissing. Maybe he could just look away, like he did when getting stabbed in the arm for his yearly flu shot.

That next Saturday, he and Madison borrowed their mother's car and covered the seats in old towels, grabbed a change of clothes, and left to go pick up Hannah.

"Thanks for coming," Madison said. She was wearing a light blue tank top over a black sports bra, and some very skin tight spandex hot shorts. The whole outfit was form-fitting and revealed every curve of her athletic body, leaving very little to the imagination.