Walking into ASB my junior year, I thought I understood coincidence. I thought I knew what it looked like when two people simply happened to exist in the same place at the same time. But then I saw her. Her eyes didn’t just meet mine; they locked, completely widened. It seemed like she was looking for something, but I couldn’t tell what. I told myself it was nothing. Just another person. Just another face in a crazy ASB room. But she wasn’t just that.
After that day, she started appearing everywhere. Not very obviously, but if I looked hard enough, she was always there. Turning a corner, she’d already be there. Walking into a room, she somehow was there too. Coincidences happen all the time, right? But was this really a coincidence anymore? The pattern kept continuing…
Then there were all the similarities. And not just basic things, but really specific ones. We liked the same Starbucks drinks, the same random foods, the same little things like squishies. Even the way we reacted to stuff was similar. It was weird in a way I couldn’t explain. It felt less like we were becoming similar and more like I was looking into a direct reflection of myself.
And the questions, gosh, there were so many. At the time, I just thought she was being friendly and trying to get to know me, which I appreciated. But looking back, it almost felt like she already knew the answers, but just wanted to hear me say it.
The more I thought about it, the more everything started to click into place. The timing of everything, how familiar she felt even though she shouldn’t have, how natural it was to talk to her like I’d known her way longer than I actually had. It was confusing, but more than that, it was difficult to ignore.
And then it hit me. She wasn’t following me. She wasn’t just similar to me. She wasn’t a coincidence at all. Penny Nunes is my long-lost sister.