THE BREAKING POINT

by Kathryn Wilson

Chapter One: The Start

My relationship with my twin wasn't exactly the glorified wonder that the Olsen twins make theirs out to be. We weren't even cookies and cream, or cops and donuts. We were more along the lines of apples and bread. She was the starlet and I was her shadow. Still a part of each other, but one was colorful and one was just plain. One was in the light and the other stood behind.

Christina was on the cheerleading team. She was on again and off again with the Quarterback of our five consecutive time championship football team. Every party had her name on it's list. She had a strong B+ average GPA. She had gorgeous blonde hair that shimmered and glowed whenever she so much as shrugged her shoulder. She walked effortlessly in the most impossible shoes. Everyone in the school wanted to be her friend and would do just about anything to be standing next to her in a picture posted on Facebook.

And of course, why wouldn't everyone love her? She was smart, athletic, sweet, fun, and flirty. Your classic all-american blonde. Yet she had that troublesome streak to her that made her the envy of every cooped up rich girl in the neighborhood. She was afraid of absolutely nothing, could drink half the guys in school under the table, and give any guy within sight a hard on just by dancing on a table. During the day she was perfect and dutiful, at night the wild party girl came out. They balanced perfectly, and no one saw anything but flawless grace and enthusiasm.

No one but me of course. I saw the mascara run down her cheeks after another breakup with Sam Lowen. I held her hair back as she threw up the fifth of tequila she'd drank. I saw her screaming at my mom when they fought. I saw her pinch at her love handles in the mirror and do about a thousand side bends to try to get rid of them.

None of these things changed who she was to me though. She was my sister. My twin. I loved her. She looked exactly like me, yet we were completely different. I don't know what went wrong with me when we were growing up. But she blossomed into this exquisit orchid and I in to a dandilion. Had I not been completely identical to her, to the point where people were constantly mixing us up. Had our father not been wildly successful in his law firm and made so much money and raised us in this rich California town... Perhaps I would have been completely forgettable.

But I was Christina's twin, and apart from how we dressed, spoke, walked, talked, acted, and functioned in society, we were precisely the same.

It was the start of our senior year. Our true time to shine. Christina and I rode together in our convertible mustang. It wasn't even a year old and lime green—Christina had insisted. The top was down and Christina's hair was blowing in the wind wildly. She'd taken it out of its snug bun just before rounding the corner for the last furlong to the school, so that it would look wind swept, but not be a mass of knots.

As we pulled into the school parking lot students walking to class beamed and waved at us, calling out “Morning Christina”, “Hey Christina”, “Christina!”, and occasionally “Hey Christina, Kristen”. It didn't bother me to be second best. I wasn't part of her scene by choice, it wasn't like she hadn't tried to get me to join the cheer team.

Christina just raised her hand and smiled behind her cool oversize sunglasses as we drove by all the people whom weren't in her elite circle. She was nice to everyone, but with so many people to see and talk to and flirt with, there was really only so much time to spend in pleasantries with the average Jane and Joe. I just tugged my baseball cap a litter snugger on my head. I wasn't interested in being everyone's best friend either.

We pulled into Christina's parking spot with ten minutes until class, just the right amount of time to spend socializing before going to class just moments before the bell. It wasn't like she had her name on the space, but everyone knew that's where the Cheer girls parked. No one would dare take her space. It was the closest space to the school save for the handicapped spots. If she had to park a row back, she'd be forced to through a puddle with her designer shoes. That just wouldn't due.

Which isn't to say Christina is all consumerism and materialistic. She did her community service with the homeless and the blind every year. She raised money for the poor children at christmas time. She was on the canned food drive committee. In fact, I imagine she was involved with everything at our school in some way or another. Genuinely she was a good person.

Her best friend pulled up a few seconds after us, as Christina was checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror. I was pulling my bag out from the back seat. The shiney black corvette screeched to a stop and Livvy seemed to hurl herself from the car. “Christina!” she cried. I looked up to see her face distrought and wondered what drama had happened last night. “You would not believe what Bernie said last night!” she went on to say. Bernie was her boyfriend, on and off like Christina. He was a runningback on the football team and best friends with Sam. He was also one of the only black guys in the school, and Livvy one of the only black girls, which of course made them perfect for eachother. “Oh hey Kristen,” she said to me, flashing me a polite smile.

“Hey,” I said and got out of the car. I'd heard this story before. It was the same one Christina cried to me about every few months when she and Sam would break up and the same one Livvy would come over and cry to me and Christina about as well. The specifics changed, but in the end it was always the same. One of them had done something stupid and the other made a big deal about it. They would be made for a couple days, hook back up on the weekend at a party, and everything would be back to normal.

“What did he do?” Christina demanded, pushing her sunglasses up on her head, wrought with concern.

I didn't wait around for the explanation. I was already making my way into the school. While Christina had a policy of never being tardy, seeing as how she was too classy for that—that was for druggies and lowlifes—I was usually always five or so minutes early. I would get a nice seat near the back and I would take out my headphones and listen to some Coldplay or Goo Goo Dolls before class. Sometimes I'd listen to something more hard core, like Adema or Disturbed when I was having a bad day.

My classmates generally treated me with a sort of quiet respect as they filed in and sat around me. Sometimes they would be friendly with me in attempts to get in on my sister's good side, but that never really worked. I had my couple of friends I'd had since elementry school, and I wasn't really interested in new ones. Gin, short for Ginger, was ridiculously redheaded, with freckles everywhere, and somewhat of a hippie, although she had the same don't care attitude as me. She was going to the Art Institute in Portland as soon as she graduated, so she didn't really have time for any of this high school bullshit, as she liked to call it. She sat next to me and dropped her book on the desk with a smack. By saying she didn't have time for any of this high school bullshit, she really meant she just didn't care about anyone. “Hey Kristen, how are you today?”

I shrugged, I had my headphones on, but she knew I could hear her. “Same as always.” It wasn't like she really cared how my day was either way.

“SSDD,” Claire said, sitting down on my other side. SSDD meant same shit different day. Claire was a short brunette who was constantly struggling with her weight. She was the kind of person that constantly needed approval. She needed friends to tell her she was pretty and thin enough over and over. She was needy like that. But she'd always be there for you in your insecure moments, she was always the first to dish out compliments. And always the first to spot the cutest guy in the mall. Claire had “hot guy radar”, as I liked to call it.

There were a few other people that would sit near me in my classes and often sat with us at lunch. Megan, the plain jane good girl who was only not popular because her parents didn't make enough money. Emily, the chubbiest of us all who was loud and usually vulgar, but almost always more entertaining than offensive. And then there was Raquelle, who was tall, completely flat-chested, a cross country runner, and mormon. None of them were in my first class, American Literature.

“What are you doing tonight?” Claire asked eagerly. Hoping to get in on some action this weekend. It was friday of the second week of classes. Long enough into the term that everyone had pretty much forgotten that they'd spent the last three months partying. Not far enough into the term that anyone was the least bit worried about midterms yet. It was the perfect time for Fall term parties.

“Christina wants me to DD for her.”

Gin groaned, “she always wants you to be the designated driver. Why don't you tell her to stay sober and drive her own ass home?”

“Mostly because she won't,” I said, opening my notebook to a blank page.

“You're so gulible. She needs to learn to be responsible.”

I shrugged.

“I think it sounds like fun! We should all go!” Claire said, all but blatantly inviting herself. I didn't really care, but at the same time I didn't want to be responsible for anyone more than my sister. She was handful enough. I would have been willing to let her tag along nonetheless, but this wasn't a high school party. Christina had been planning on going to it for weeks. I imagine it had something to do with the current off period she was freshly in with Sam. This was a college party. A frat party. Very few high school girls could say they were invited to a frat party. We were about fifteen minutes out of the college town and all the single girls would sit outside Jamba Juice and watch the college football players come in and out just after practice. Not that they had a chance in the world or that the guys would give them more than a second's glance, but they could say they'd seen Josh Trekker and all his muscled glory up close and personal. Josh Trekker was the quarterback, the college equivalent of Christina's Sam.

“Its a list party,” I said quietly, not wanting to alert the whole classroom that my sister and I were on the list for a frat party.

“Oh,” Claire said, somewhat disappointed. “Where at?”

“Delta Chi,” I mumbled.

“A frat??” she hissed, her eyes wide with envy. It wasn't the first one we'd been to, but what she didn't know, and I wasn't going to tell her either, was that this was the frat where all the football players under 21 would be at. It was entirely exclusive and would max out at probably 500 people. Only the best looking people would be there. I was actually a little surprised the word hadn't gone around yet that we were going, but I imagine Christina was keeping it quiet for Sam's sake.

I nodded. “Its not a big deal,” I lied. The word would be out about it by monday and drama would rein the school for the next week about it.

Gin made an ugy noise, “thank god I'm going away to college and won't have to deal with a school of shallow alcoholics.”

And then the teacher called for our attention and we shut up, though Claire kept sending me longing looks that made me feel jealous for not setting it up so she could go. Her hot guy radar might've spontaneously combusted anyway.