A Question That Lingers.

What could you do, even, when you have never been lonely–not once? Not in your thoughts, not in your fears, not even in thy silent moments. It is reassuring, it is almost poetry. And the more you ponder on it, the more disconcerting it is.

The Twin Within examines this concept by the life of a young girl, Cassie, who struggles to find her identity in a world where she is always made to feel different. What starts as something easy to relate to as a coming-of-age story turns out to be much more curious as an emotional and psychological exploration of identity and connection and the invisible.

A Life Marked by Difference

Cassie is faced with real struggles. As a person with cerebral palsy, she experiences physical difficulties on a daily basis that make her an easy target of bullies. Stumbling over classmates, ridicule, and a sense of being in a constant judgmental spotlight, such experiences form the way she views herself.

She doesn’t just feel different. She thinks that she is.

And her surrounding is every day strengthening that belief.

The Unexplainable Feeling

But there’s something else, something harder to define. Cassie has had a feeling of something odd since she was a child. Something that she does not see or touch, but feels.

A note of reassurance.

A quiet awareness.

Someone is. there is a feeling.

Initially it seems like fantasy. However, later on in the story, that feeling starts to have a heavier load.

A Discovery That Changes Everything

The climax is a twist when Cassie finds out that she used to have a twin- a brother who was in the womb but did not come into the world. Or, at least, not as we know.

The concept of a vanishing twin brings a strong change of point of view. But what then about that other twin? What does it mean that some of them still live in her, physically, genetically or even emotionally?

The presence that she has always experienced suddenly does not appear so imaginary anymore.

Loneliness Reimagined

Cassie has never been able to cope with loneliness. There is being an only child, bullying, and not understood, all of which create a silent isolation in her.

Yet this finding turns it all upside down.

What is she being not alone in the first place?

What were the chances that the comfort that at times she experienced was not imaginary?

The tale also tenderly questions the notion of loneliness, indicating that we can be connected in ways that we do not entirely comprehend.

The Emotional Complexity

The idea is not as interesting as the responses of human Cassie, which is what makes this story interesting. She doesn’t immediately find peace in this discovery. Rather, she doubts it.

Is this soothing. or frightening?

Does it render her special? or strange?

Where does she stop, and where her twin begin?

These are the questions, which bring the story emotionality and authenticity.

A Story That Stays with You.

It is not a tale of an unknown twin. It is about identity – how we identify ourselves and how that identification can change so easily.

The experience of Cassie makes the readers think about themselves. Are we as single as we think? And are we molded by things we do not comprehend?

Final Thought

A question that the Twin Within leaves you with, is a silent but strong one:

What would happen when you have never been alone?

And better still. would that be the comfort you–or disturb you?