CHAPTER ONE

Miki walked down the familiar hallway on the second floor of her house. She stopped outside her sister's room and contemplated knocking on the door. Although they had never been close, Miki still desperately sought her sister's affection and respect. Raye was older than Miki by two years and had clearly gotten all the good looks in the family. The sister's were often teased by relatives who declared that Miki was the brains and Raye was the beauty. And it was true. Raye, who stood at 5 feet, 3 inches had long flowing blond hair, green eyes and a body that looked like it belonged to a supermodel. Men whistled at her wherever she went and women always had looks of jealousy and resentment on their faces. Perhaps part of the reason people never thought of her as intelligent was because she only had to bat her long eyelashes and flash a smile and she could do whatever she wanted. She was one of those people who had things handed to her her entire life. Surprisingly she didn't have many boyfriends. It wasn't that she wasn't asked on dates; it was that she simply wasn't interested. In fact, Raye didn't spend much time with boys at all, except for one, Lucas. Raye and Lucas had been good friends for the past two years. They met when they both joined the same club at school, tennis. Raye would often discuss at dinner time what the club had done that day and more specifically, what Lucas had done. Miki often sat at that same table and wondered what was so great about this guy. Since Miki was only in junior high school she had never met Lucas and thus didn't understand her sister's fascination with him.

Miki, who had red hair which was always worn in a ponytail, and brown eyes, still had a child-like mentality. She was enjoying the freedom of not worrying about what to wear to school, or how to apply makeup and felt that the world of high school was far too complex. That was what brought her outside Raye's bedroom. Miki had graduated from junior high back in the spring and was now going to be starting high school, the same one which her sister currently attended. She had come to the room to ask for advice but was hesitant. She feared her sister's ridicule and sincerely hoped Raye would not be so cruel as to spread unkind rumours about her on the first day. As she realized her first day of school was only hours away, knots began to form in Miki's stomach. Determined to be brave, Miki closed her eyes, knocked on Raye's door and waited for a response. She heard a muffled voice call for her to come in and she did. Raye's room was in a state of disaster. Clothes, shoes, and accessories were thrown haphazardly all around. It looked as though Raye were looking for something and had emptied every drawer in her room to find it. Miki carefully walked past all the piles to close the space between her and Raye's bathroom. When she approached the doorway a frightening image stood before her. Raye's long blond hair was held atop her head by curlers and she had a thick gooey green substance covering her face. Miki took a step backward from the shock of seeing her.

"What?" The green faced girl asked.

"Well, I've never seen you like this before. What the hell is all that for anyways?"

"This? Oh, well I want my hair to be curly tomorrow. Lucas once told me he liked it, and since he's in my homeroom class I wanted him to see it like that again."

"And the green stuff?" Miki asked with a perplexed look on her face.

"That's my beauty mask. It makes my skin soft."

"Is this Lucas guy really worth all this?"

"Ugh, you're such a child. OF COURSE he's worth it. If you had ever had a boyfriend you would understand that."

"Lucas is your boyfriend? I thought you were just friends."

"We are, but that's all going to change after tomorrow, that's why I have to look my best, I'm going to ask Lucas to by my boyfriend."

"Is it really that easy? You just ask him to and he will?"

"I'm sorry, but seriously, have you not looked at me? I'm clearly the prettiest girl in school, not to mention the most popular. Why wouldn't he want to be my boyfriend? Every other guy in school has asked me."

"Well if every other guy asked you, why hasn't he? Maybe he doesn't like you that way. Besides, shouldn't he like you for who you are as a person, and not what you look like?"

"Oh, well excuse me Oprah. Listen kid, life's not like that alright. Now, I have to get some beauty sleep before tomorrow, go back to your room, you should get some sleep too or you're going to have ugly bags under your eyes on your first day of school. God, that would be so embarrassing."

"Ya, wouldn't want to embarrass the almighty queen of shallowness."

"Just close the door on your way out."

Miki left the room without asking any of the questions she had been thinking about all summer. She hated her sister's vanity and secretly hoped Lucas would reject her.

******

The next morning quickly came and Miki knew that it wasn't going to be a good day. It had rained all night and was still raining when Miki opened the blinds in her room. She grumbled something incoherently to herself and then closed the door to her bathroom to take a shower. Raye, who had already been awake for over an hour was busy fixing up her makeup and doing the finishing touches to her hair. She looked in the mirror and smiled to herself knowing that not even rain could ruin her mood. She placed her notebook and a pen in her purse and then walked downstairs to ask her mother for a ride to school. Her father had already left for work, so only the three women were left in the house. Raye knew that while her father had always favoured Miki, her mother had always favoured her. Raye grabbed her large pink umbrella and then asked her mother for a ride to school. Her mother happily agreed and they left the house. Miki was in her room pulling her wet hair into a ponytail when she heard the car back into the street. She raced down the stairs and threw open the door in an attempt to stop them but it was too late. She went back upstairs to put the remaining books in her backpack, grabbed her small broken black umbrella and left the house.

By the time she had made it to school she was soaking we and the first bell had already rung. She couldn't believe she was late on her first day. She knew how mortifying it would be to walk into a classroom full of students who had made it there on time, especially when she didn't even know where her classroom was. Although she had been to the school before to see plays that Raye had been in, it seemed so much larger and intimidating now. She started wandering the empty hallways in hopes that she would be able to find her room. At the end of the third hallway she was stopped by a teacher who told her she needed a late slip before she went to class. The teacher then directed her to the office and told her the secretary would be able to direct her to her classroom. She thanked the teacher and quickly made her way to the office. It was a small room surrounded by windows and a rectangular desk separated the room in two. On one side there were mailboxes with each teacher's name on them and two doors, one which led to the principal's office and the other which led to the vice principal's office. On the side of the room where Miki stood there were 3 chairs side by side, all of which were currently empty. Miki suddenly felt shame realizing that it was the first day of school and she was already in the office.

She approached the secretary's desk and asked for a late slip. When asked why she was late she considered telling the elderly woman that her mother drove off and left her behind, but instead chose to say that she had gotten lost. The secretary signed the pink slip and handed it to Miki with a skeptical look on her face. Miki turned around and felt her backpack brush someone's arm. She felt the blood rush to her face knowing that this person had probably heard her say she was lost, so she kept her face turned toward the ground as she apologized. She heard a boy's voice telling her it was okay, that it was his fault for standing too close and she immediately felt more at ease. Miki realized that maybe people at this school were nice and that it was only her sister who was cruel. She lifted her gaze from the floor to get a glimpse of the boy who had been kind but when she finally looked up she saw that he had already approached the desk and now had his back turned toward her. Miki left the office and headed for class and wondered who that boy had been.

******

Since Miki had missed most of her homeroom class, one of the other students was kind enough to fill her in on the morning announcements. Most of the announcements were boring, but one did catch her attention. At lunch time the gym would be used for all the school's clubs. They would set up tables for the new students to sign up for any club they wished to participate in. It sounded exciting as there were only a certain number of available spots and club membership was granted on a first come first serve basis. Miki, who had always been good at sports, couldn't wait to see what was being offered. She thought of joining the tennis team with her sister but then dismissed the idea knowing that Raye would not approve. When lunch time finally rolled around Miki raced to the gym so that she could have her pick of clubs. But, to her dismay, when she arrived she saw that the gym was already full of people. She looked around and saw that table after table was pulling down their signs and preparing to leave as they had already filled their quota. Miki tried to see which clubs were still accepting people. Raye and a few others were standing behind the tennis table waiting for people to join. Miki started to walk toward them but when she caught her sister's glare she quickly turned around. Beside that table was the chess club and next to them were the math scholars. There was definitely no one eager to join those clubs and Miki was no exception. She walked over to the other side of the room and the first thing that caught her eye was the badminton table. True, it was a much tamer sport than the ones she was used to but in her desperation to join something she signed up. Besides, the sport was in a way similar to tennis, so she thought that maybe she and Raye would now have this in common.

Miki left the gym and headed toward the cafeteria. It was a large room with prison style seating. Long benches went from one side of the room to the other with a narrow pathway down the centre. It wasn't quite what she was expecting, however the piles of garbage on the table tops and floor were. She looked around for a place to sit and then opened her backpack to pull out her lunch. When she unzipped the bag she realized that in her haste she had left the lunch she made for herself the night before in the fridge. Defeated and hungry Miki slumped over and leaned her face on the table. She wasn't sure how long she had been like that but when she sat back up she noticed that there were people sitting on either side of her. Miki recognized them as students from her first period class. The girl, who wore glasses and had long black hair pulled back into a braid, was the same one who had told her the morning announcements. The boy, who looked to be over 6 feet tall and had short brown hair, just sat there smiling at her. The girl introduced herself first.

"Hi, I'm Kay, I'm in your first period class and this is Damien, he's in our class too. We saw you looking kind of lonely. Are you ok?"

"Huh? Oh ya, I'm fine, just forgot my lunch."

"Here, you can have some of mine, I always bring too much." Damien said.

"Ya, Damien here loves to cook, but he never eats half of the things he makes which is a shame because it tastes really good."

"Gotta watch my weight doll. A pound here, a pound there, and then it's all downhill."

"Ya and maybe I'd believe that if you weren't so perfectly physically fit. I mean seriously, look at you, you're hot. Of course all gay guys are."

Miki felt a flush come over her face for the second time that day. She couldn't believe that these people who she had just met were being so open about things like that. Not that it mattered to her any, but her surprise was quite obvious.

"Oh sorry hun, didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, sometimes Kay says things without thinking first."

"That's ok, it's not a big deal. So I guess you guys have known each other for a while, when did you meet?"

"We go way back, all the way to grade one, back when I liked girls and Kay liked me." Miki watched as Damien winked at Kay.

"Oh shut up, that was forever ago," Kay said with her nose scrunched. "But anyways, now we're the best of friends. So how about you, what's your story?"

"I don't really have much of one to tell."

"That's ok," Damien replied. "Kay forgot to mention that she's also really nosy. But she did tell me that she told you about the club sign up, did you go?"

"Yes actually, I signed up for the badminton team, I didn't realize how crazy this sign up thing is. Most of the clubs were already full when I got there."

"Ya, these things are pretty competitive. Most of it is just about people wanting to belong to a certain social group. I doubt they even care about the club."

"So what about you guys? Did you sign up for anything?"

Kay and Damien looked at each other and started laughing. "Us? Are you kidding?" Kay replied. "We're not really joiners. The only club we belong to is the lazy slackers do whatever you feel like doing club."

"Oh I see."

"Hey don't feel bad, if you like the whole club thing that's totally cool. It's just not for us is all. Anyways, the bell's about to go for next period, see you tomorrow."

Miki watched as Kay and Damien got up from their seats and left the cafeteria. The bell rang and Miki reluctantly got up to go to class.

******

In the last class of the day an announcement was made of which clubs had practice after school. Miki couldn't believe that they had practice on the first day of school but figured that after the way the day had gone so far, it was only natural. When she reached the gym she saw that most of the students had already changed into their gym clothes. Miki told one of the girls from her team that she didn't have a change of clothes with her, but was told that freshman weren't expected to. Apparently, this practice was more of an orientation for freshman so that they could get to know their team. Miki looked around for other students like her but quickly understood that she was the only new member to the team this year. She did however see that other teams were practicing in the gym as well. Most of them she didn't pay much attention to, but the one that caught her eye was the tennis club. She couldn't believe her misfortune in having to see her perfect sister enjoy her club.

Raye was wearing a white tank top with the school logo sewn in over her heart and black track pants with a white strip down the side. Her hair lay in ringlets around her face and even in gym clothes she was beautiful. She began orienting the few new recruits on proper team etiquette. She always felt that it was important for everyone to be committed to the team; mostly it was because she didn't want anyone to make her look back. Lucas stood by her side looking bored as he had already heard her spiel over lunch. Raye didn't notice though. She was happy he was there and even happier that they had ended up being in all the same classes. And even though she spoke to the freshman abut proper behaviour, in her mind she was planning how she would tell Lucas that he was lucky enough to be her boyfriend. When each member of the team had finished speaking they dismissed the freshmen. Everyone was heading back to the locker room to change and Raye took that opportunity to pull Lucas aside.

"Lucas, do you have a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've decided that I want you to be my boyfriend."

Lucas couldn't hide the shock on his face. "What? Why?"

"You like me don't you?"

"Well, we're friends so of course I like you but I don't really see."

"Good, it's settled then. You're my boyfriend okay. I'm going to go change now, I'll call you tonight."

"But Raye I."

"What?"

"Nothing, nevermind."

Raye walked back to the change room with a smile on her face. She knew Lucas would be happy, and now, she was really happy too. Lucas was the perfect guy for her and she knew in her heart that this was right.

******

Miki walked home after practice and saw that it was still raining. Her practice had ended earlier than Raye's, and she didn't want to sit around waiting. High school was nothing like she expected it to be, and it left her feeling confused and out of place. With her eyes focused on the ground ahead of her, Miki followed the paved path that led to her house. She was so deep in thought that she didn't notice the boy standing on the path before her. She continued walking and bumped right into him; the bump caused her to lose balance and fall back hitting the ground hard.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" The boy asked.

His voice seemed familiar to Miki but she didn't yet know why. "Yes, sorry, it's my fault for not looking where I was going."

"You're right, it was your fault, but don't worry about it. You aren't hurt right?"

"No, I'm fine, I just feel a little stupid is all." Miki got up from the ground and tried to brush herself off. The rain had turned most of the dirt into mud so she ended up looking a lot dirtier than she did before she tried to clean herself off. When she stood up she looked at the boy she had bumped into. He looked to be older than her but still in high school. He wasn't strikingly handsome but he had some good qualities. He did seem to be genuinely concerned if she was okay or not and that endeared him to her.

"Hey, I know you," the boy said, "you're that girl from the office this morning, the one who got lost."

"Ya, thanks for bringing that up again, I had almost managed to forget about it."

"Hey, don't worry, no big deal, your secret is safe with me."

"Why does that not make me feel any better?"

"It should, I swear I won't tell."

Miki thought of making a rude remark, but when she saw the sincerity in his eyes she realized that he really did mean to keep the embarrassing moment from that morning to himself. "It's not that important, but thanks."

"So, I know we don't really know each other but can I ask you a question?"

Miki was about to reply when they heard the crack of thunder in the sky. "I tell you what, you can ask me whatever you want as soon as we get out of the rain."

"Deal."

Clutching their umbrellas, the two strangers ran toward the nearest building, the coffee shop around the corner. Once inside they each ordered a hot cup of coffee and then sat down at one of the tables.

"Ok so what did you want to ask me?"

"Well, this is going to sound strange but it's a personal question. I wanted to ask you because I don't know you. I guess I just wanted an honest opinion."

"No one you know will be honest with you?"

"Probably not, they'll tell me to do what they think is best for everyone, but not necessarily best for me."

"I see, so you just want someone who will tell it like it is I guess, and you think I'm that person."

"Well, it's worth a try right?"

"Ok, so what did you want to know?"

******

A short while later Raye heard the front door open and close. She wondered what had taken Miki so long to get home. She couldn't wait to tell Miki that Lucas was now her boyfriend. It wasn't that she wanted to bond with her sister, but rather that she couldn't wait to spread the news. She heard Miki's footsteps on the stairs and left her room to meet her in the hallway. When she saw Miki she gasped. She was covered in dirt and soaking wet, if she didn't know better she would have thought Miki got into a fight.

"What the hell happened to you?" Raye inquired.

"I fell."

"So why are you home so late?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't' realize I had to report my every move to you."

"You known what, normally your sarcasm would piss me off but I'm in such a good mood right now I'm going to let that slide."

"Well goody for me."

"You're really wearing on my patience Miki, if you're not careful I won't tell you my good news."

"Not that I care, but what is it?"

"I asked Lucas to be my boyfriend today and he said yes."

"That's swell, at least one of us is having a good day."

"What's wrong with your day?"

"I'm sorry, but do you not see me standing her dirty and wet? Besides, remember this morning when you and mom took off without me?"

"It's not my fault you're too slow, maybe if you were ready on time we wouldn't have left without you."

"If only that made me feel better, but really, it doesn't, ugh, why does everything always have to be about you? You aren't Marsha Brady for God's sake!"

"You're just jealous because you're ugly. I can't believe I thought you'd be happy for me. Here I was waiting to tell you about me and Lucas and all you do is throw your rudeness and sarcasm in my face!"

"See Raye, that's your problem. You were waiting to tell me about the great things that happened to you but you're not even interested in any of the things that happen to me!"

"Did something happen?"

"Well, I think I met someone."

"Who?"

"Actually, I never got his name. I bumped into him on the street and we went for coffee and talked. He's actually pretty nice and he goes to our school."

"Really? I wonder who it was, it must not have been anyone I know."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because no one I know would ever be caught talking to a loser like you!"

Raye turned around and entered her room slamming the door behind her. Miki rolled her eyes and sighed before walking toward her own room. She threw her dirty clothes in the laundry hamper and took a shower. She never realized how nice hot water and soap felt and when she finished she was left feeling refreshed. She put on a blue tracksuit and went downstairs. On her way she passed Raye's room and saw that the door was still closed. She didn't know what right Raye thought she had to be angry but was sure that in her own twisted way she felt justified in her treatment of her sister.

When Miki reached the main floor she heard the doorbell ring. She couldn't imagine who would be here at this time of day but went to answer the door anyways. When she looked through the peephole she saw the face of the boy she had spend the afternoon with. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, although she didn't know how he knew where she lived. She opened the door and saw that he looked surprised to see her.

"Hi," Miki said, "what are you doing here?"

"I. um. well. how are you?"

"I'm okay, would you like to come in?"

"Sure."

"To be honest, I'm surprised to see you, how do you know where I live?"

"Well. I. you see. I was. um. in the neighbourhood."

"Okay. well I guess that doesn't really matter. Oh, by the way, I don't think you ever told me your name."

"Oh, my name's."

Miki turned when she heard the stairs creaking. She didn't know how she would explain this strange boy in the house and she especially didn't want Raye around to ruin things for her. Miki told the boy she would be right back and left the foyer to stop whoever it was before they entered the room. When she got to the stairwell however, no one was there. She guessed they had just gone through a different room and a strange feeling of anxiety came over her. She walked back to the foyer but was surprised with what she saw. Raye was standing there talking to the boy and it looked as though they knew each other. Miki continued standing in the doorway watching as they conversed. It was starting to make sense to her now. The boy looked confused earlier because he was expecting Raye to answer the door, that's how he knew where she lived. Except that he didn't know that Miki and Raye were sisters. Miki walked toward them and Raye turned to face her.

"Oh Miki, I'm glad you're here. There's someone I want you to meet."

"Actually I."

"This is Lucas, my boyfriend."

******

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Dun dun dun. ok so a raise of hands of everyone who saw this coming.