The Elevator in the Winchester building on Winslet Street

We were born on the 3rd of October, in the hospital on Fourth Street, and our mother's called us Edward.

We lived a block away from each other our whole lives. He lived on Strathman Avenue, a stones throw away from Portman Avenue where I lived until I was ten years old. When my family moved, I changed schools to the Catholic college in the east of town.

When his family moved, when we were twelve years old, they also moved to the east. They again moved down the street from my family. Same street, but I lived on the north end of the street and he lived a kilometre away in the south end of the same street. It was more like a highway, really, the way that it ran from north to south of our hometown.

His bus to school every morning took the same route as mine. But I took the early morning bus to practice soccer in the mornings and he rushed to school everyday, attending the school just as the first bell rang. The thought of him running for the bus every day makes my eye twitch. But that's Edward. It feels quintessentially him to run late like that.

I can imagine him, young, his windswept hair flying free over his brow as he rushes, shirt untucked to his first class of the morning. I can guarantee he only had a pen in his pocket and that he asked his desk-mate for paper.

While Teddy was bluffing his way through school and working a part-time job in the evenings, I was straightening my tie and pulling up my socks, shirt firmly tucked. I got a scholarship to the Catholic college, Teddy didn't. You see, there was one thing that made us entirely different.

I was, unfortunately, far more lucky than Teddy. Firstly, because no one decided to call me 'Teddy' as a nickname every day of my life. Secondly, because my father never got sick.

But, even though we should have crossed paths many times before, we never met.

We met in an elevator in the Winchester building on Winslet Street. I was interviewing for a role as an intern in their design department. I pressed the button to get to the eighth floor and then watched mindlessly as the doors slowly closed behind me. It was at the last moment that Teddy's arm burst through the gap in the doors.

He bounced into the room. That flowing, crazed hair, windswept over his forehead, that he brushed away from his face, catching my attention. He mashed the button for the twentieth floor.

"Come on, come on, come on," he mumbled under his breath. The elevator doors closed.

I kept thinking that he looked like my older brother. The hair, the eyes, the way he held himself. I ignored this, of course. Just a coincidence. Then when I turned away and saw myself reflected in the elevator metal. Except it wasn't my reflection. It was his.

By then my heart was pounding. My head was starting to ache. My pulse rang in my ears. I was thinking along the lines of "doppelganger".

I skipped my stop in the elevator. I felt him glance my way but when I didn't move, he just jammed the button with his finger and the door closed again. We rode up the eight floors to his floor and when we got there, he ran out into the long hallway.

"Dad!" He called. "Dad!"

I stepped out after him. My phone was ringing. I answered it.

"Mum?"

"Oh, honey, are you okay?"

I hesitated for too long. "Yes?"

I watched as the man who looked like me searched and searched the doors on this abandoned floor.

"I've got to go, mum."

I hung up the phone even as she protested. I slid it into my pocket.

"Who are you?" I called after the man.

He turned to me, eyes desperate. "Teddy. Edward. Edward Jones. Do you know where they moved the patients to? Where's my dad?"

I stared at him for a moment, mouth agape. I felt like I was separate from my body. I felt light and empty and shivery.

Teddy moved closer, his footsteps echoing in the space. It felt like my heart would explode with effort. "Do you know where Martin Jones is?"

"My father is at home," I responded.

Teddy frowned at me. Finally, recognition seemed to light in his eyes. "Who are you?"