It was night again. Thursday night. Jack was sitting up in his bed, having awoken this time because he was hungry. He wished now that he'd eaten his Chinese.

The whispering was there as always in the still darkness. What unnerved him was that he could still tell it was about him; he just couldn't understand what was being said. He didn't know why he heard things, only that he did. He didn't know why he saw things, only that he did. And he didn't know why everyone else found it so easy to pay attention while he didn't.

His stomach growled in the darkness. The solitary shadow in the room shook. It was at the window, its being pressed up against the glass. Jack knew that if he moved to the window, tried to see what it was staring at, it would move somewhere else. The boy wondered briefly where all the other spots of gloom had gone. He was relieved that they weren't there, watching him. Maybe they were hiding under his bed or in his closet. That was fine with him. They could go wherever they wanted to, as long as they stayed as elusive as they'd always been. They'd never touched him. Never come close to him. He didn't particularly like them inhabiting his room, but at least they kept their distance.

Just as the shadows were mysteriously lessening, the whispering had grown more frequent and unsettling.

Jack listened to his own breathing. Tried to calm his stomach. He didn't want to go down to the kitchen and get food. Too dark. Uncertain. The creaking of the floorboards would scare him. He just wanted to fall back to sleep.

"You up?" came a voice from the hallway, drifting in from behind the bedroom door. Jack hadn't realized it had opened.

It was Kyle.

"Yes," said Jack, noticing how good it felt to hear the voice of something he could see and understand.

Kyle came in, closed the door behind him, quietly padded across the floor to his brother's bed and sat on the edge of it. He looked tired but concerned. His hair was a mess and his pajama T-shirt hung low on one shoulder. His skin was pale as a ghost in the shafts of moonlight coming in through the window. Jack wondered if he looked as disheveled as his twin.

"What time is it?" asked Kyle.

Jack shrugged.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

Another shrug. "Just couldn't," he replied. If he said he was hungry, he'd get a remark about not eating dinner. If he mentioned the noises, the whispers, he'd get another blank look and a sigh.

"Yeah, me neither. Don't know why." He looked hard at his brother, then added, "Actually, I think it's you. I think I'm awake because you're awake. I think it's because you're worried about something. You know how they say twins can feel each other's thoughts sometimes? I never believed that, because I never know what you're thinking. But I—I was wondering if maybe this time I did feel what you felt. Because I have this worried feeling in my stomach, and I don't have anything to be worried about." He paused. "Do you?"

Why aren't you like your brother, retard?

Why had that popped into his head all of a sudden? It was what the kids at school had said over and over, ages ago—called him retard—when he and Kyle were in elementary school. Until his parents had talked with the teachers and made them stop.

"I don't know," Jack replied to his brother. "Maybe." He wished he could tell someone about the whispers. How they'd been about him.

"Look. I would kind of like to sleep, Jack," said Kyle, sitting cross-legged. "Just tell me what your head is so worried about so I can go back to sleep. Because I won't be able to unless I figure this out."

"I don't feel worried in my head," Jack softly replied, staring past his brother. "I feel worried here." He pressed a hand against his chest.

"You are worried, then. I knew it." Kyle sighed. Slumped his shoulders. "Isn't it weird how we're so different? I mean, did you ever really think about it? I like to run around and talk to people and go kind of crazy sometimes. You, though . . . well, sometimes I think you'd be fine living in a cave by yourself. You never talk much or do much. Even me—well, I've lived with you our whole lives, and I still feel like I don't know you half the time."

Jack smiled. "Sometimes I don't know me either," he replied, thinking of how strange the things around him were suddenly becoming.

Shaking his head, Kyle said, "See? It's the weird stuff you say. How you've never cared what people say behind your back. You never even tell mom or dad how much they make fun of you."

Jack thought. He and Kyle had never been so different until about the time they entered sixth grade. In fact, when they were little kids, Jack's imagination had given them all sorts of fun games to play. The two had acted as close as brothers should. Then, they'd begun to grow into adolescence. Kyle had realized quickly that he would not be accepted by his peers if he continued to play along with Jack. Kyle had begun to care more about fitting in than about remaining faithful to his brother, and since then—since Kyle began to grow up—the two boys had drifted further away from each other than even they knew. Sometimes, though, sometimes their different perspectives grew faint. Kyle would lose his cool for a moment, or Jack would try to act normal. Then, they could actually understand one another.

That was what this moment was. Sitting on Jack's bed, drenched in moonlight, staring at one another as if looking into a mirror. The brothers felt like brothers.

"Anyway," Kyle sighed, "if you just tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help. Then we could both get back to sleep."

The little black spot that had been hiding under the bed flitted back up to the windowsill. Jack saw it out of the corner of his eyes. If he told his brother what was really bothering him, it would be the same old argument. Instead, he replied, "I forgot to do my homework."

"You did?" asked Kyle. "Wait, no you didn't. I saw you do it. We were both sitting at the table, before my soccer game."

"I'm hungry," he tried again.

"Well, you should've eaten your dinner. You hardly ate any dinner. Besides. That's not it. I can tell, Jack; I know you a little better than you might think."

Jack opened his mouth slightly, like he wanted to say something, but then he shut it and looked down at the sheets that twisted around him. His fingers played with the corner of the sheet.

"Fine," Kyle finally said, disappointment clear in his voice. "Keep me up all night with your problems. Thanks a lot, Jack." He swung his legs off of the bed and quietly fumed out of the room. Jack frowned in the darkness. The shadow flickered at his window. The whispering picked up right as Kyle closed the door behind him.