Chapter Two

Things only went downhill from here. Or maybe they had been going downhill all the time, only with my new knowledge I was able to notice them. It’s amazing, the suddenness of my sister’s hate. My grandmother used to say, “One foot in the water can send a thousand ripples.”

Cecile ignored me a lot, and when she did talk to me it was with the coldest voice she could muster—not to mention eyes that tried to either freeze or burn me.

I asked her why she was mad at me. She said she wasn’t. I asked her why she was ignoring me. She said she wasn’t. I said we still looked the same. She said we didn’t.

She asked my mom if she could have the spare bedroom.

She detached herself from me and Lana (who had stayed loyal). Caitlyn and Saffron were too much under my sister’s influence. Whatever she had told them about me—it worked. They now glared at me every time I passed.

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As the years went on, Cecile treated me worse and worse. She took every opportunity to remind me of how selfish and vain I was—though it was a lie. She always kept her cool—saying things under her breath or tapping notes in my room.

Once however, I was walking into the kitchen and out of no where, Cecile grabbed my collar and pushed me up against the wall. Her eyes are what I remember the most that day. They were full of hate and anger. I could see it radiating off her. In a low growl she spewed out the words, “You wretched girl! You took it all, didn’t you! You took everything and left me with nothing.”

Then she slapped me across face and dropped me, just as my mother entered the kitchen—acting as though we had just had a friendly debate.

There was a time when I opened my drawers and nothing was there because Cecile had burned it all.

My status fell fast from girl to person to thing. I was then called “The wretched thing” by my sister and her friends. I convinced myself it could have been worse. This was partly my reasoning for not doing anything about it; I knew that deep down Cecile was my twin and that maybe one day our twin ship could be salvaged. It was my personality that stopped me from being the things Cecile said I was. I could not bring myself to meet her level of aggressiveness.

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In high school things changed. Lana remained loyal to me and I accumulated a group of faithful friends. My sister tried to ward off people from my side, and though it worked at first, many got tired from my sister’s rants and stuck with me anyway.

An area where my sister remained successful though was the male area. Whenever a guy would even look at me, she made sure to tell them something—anything—to get them away from me.

On one particular day, in eleventh grade, I was sitting at my usual table in the lunchroom with my friends; Hannah was leader of our group—she decided who came in and who was kicked out. Lana and I were in the group as well as some others. It could have been called a clique I suppose. I never really bother to think about this until years later when I looked back and realised we all shared a common factor—our appearances.

On this day we were having our usual conversations—this time revolving around me.

Hannah took a bite of her apple. “Hey Charlotte, why don’t you ever tell CeCe to, you know, stick it somewhere.”

I shrugged. “It’s not me to tell someone that.”

Lana laughed, “Of course not.” Everyone agreed.

Kate tossed me a cookie. “You’re too nice Lottie,” she said, shaking her head.

“What?” Now I’d never heard that one before.

Hannah explained. “Everyone’s going to take advantage of you if you don’t tell them how you feel.”

“You don’t like how CeCe and gang treat you so tell them to stop,” Lana said.

Kate cracked her knuckles. “Or I will—no wait; I’ll get Brad to beat them up! He got on the football, basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, track, hockey, badminton, baseball, swimming, and lacrosse team this year!!”

“Wow, say that any faster and I think you’ll beat a world record!” Lana laughed.

Kate pouted—though you could tell she wasn’t really mad. “You’re just mad because I have a boyfriend and you don’t! Right Charlotte?”

I would have agreed with any of my friends to stop a fight—even a pretend one—but I was unable to at the moment because I had just seen something, rather someone who had permanently blinded me.

“Talk about Charlotte not being taken advantage of! You’re always trying to get her to join your side…” Hannah trailed away because she had also seen what I had seen.

The best-looking guy alive.

We all stopped what we were doing and stared.

It didn’t clue into me until he was almost in front of my face that he wanted to talk to me.

“Hey.”

All of my friends responded back but it was evident that he was only looking at me. I had no idea why. I mean, he could have picked any girl in the whole cafeteria.

“I heard about you from someone called Cecile.”

Oh.

I knew that my face should have darkened and I should have dismissed him because of my past experiences but somehow I was caught in his eyes. “Oh, um, yeah,” I stammered. “She’s my sister.”

He studied me for a second. “She said you’re a mental psychiatric ward patient.”

I sighed and broke the contact. I look at my friends who—true to their nature—offered sympathetic smiles instead of laughs of ‘I told you so’. I shrugged not bothering to look back up at him, knowing full well what was to come.

“She’s lying.”

He surprised me so much I think I stopped breathing as my head shot up. “W-what?”

He smiled. “You’re really pretty.” Then he turned and walked away.

I stared after him, still not understanding what happened. After awhile, I looked back at my friends to see if they had understood, but they were as confused as I was.

Finally someone spoke.

“Now that’s a first,” Hannah commented.

“Yeah, I don’t one guy who has passed CeCe’s first test,” Kate frowned. “He must be…different.”

Lana’s eyes gleamed. “I think this guy might be the first one who follows his heart instead of his ears.”

My friends and I excitedly agreed, and by the end of lunch we had all convinced ourselves he would come by again. As I left the lunch room, an image remained fresh in my head. As the guy had walked away, I had been speechless from what had happened—that is true—but it was partly because in my whole life, Cecile had never given me such an evil and malicious look as she did that lunch.

The hot guy—who I found later was Aaron—seemed to be following me all week. He wasn’t in any of my classes, but as they say; when you think about something, you see it everywhere.

Aaron did not talk to me, however until the next week. I wondered sometimes if he might have been just checking to make sure I wasn’t a mental patient. When he did approach me it was after school, in the courtyard.

“Hey.” He must have snuck up on me because I know I didn’t see him anywhere.

I was with Lana and Hannah and as loyal friends they stayed just in case. I think Lana only stayed because she liked watching the romance—if you could call it that.

I smoothed my skirt and self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Hey.” I was surprised at the calmness of my voice. I had expected a falter at the least.

If I hadn’t been so nervous, I might have noticed that he was a little jumpy too. “So, um what’s your favourite colour?”

We all seemed a little surprised by this odd question. At least it was better than what I was going to say: Are those brown pants you’re wearing?

“Red.”

“Oh, I like blue.”

Hannah and Lana decided it was a cue for them to speak too.

“I like Orange,” Lana said.

Hannah said, “Lavender’s for me.”

Before our extremely interesting conversation could continue, it was interrupted.

“Oh Aaron!!” Cecile shrilled. She pushed her way into our group and practically smothered Aaron. “I couldn’t find you. I need to tell you something,” she said laughed—although it did not reach her eyes. She tried to lead him away, but he was stronger than her and stood rooted in his position.

Cecile, noting this, did not want to embarrass herself—rather the opposite as she tried to do it to me.

She smiled innocently up at him, and nastily at me. “Oh Aaron,” she faked a frown, “silly, silly. I told you not to hang around my sister. I told you, she goes into these psycho and mental phases.”

Aaron laughed as though he had been told why the chicken crossed the road. “Yeah that’s a good one. Charlotte’s no mental patient! I’ve been noticing her all week. She’s as normal as anyone here—I might even be able to find some extraordinary things about her.” He looked at me so fondly that I blushed.

Cecile’s smile was gone and she became impatient. She had never had to deal with a guy this long. “Come Aaron. I told you, she’s dangerous. She once broke my window because she was so mad.”

“Hmm…” Aaron wasn’t even paying attention to her.

Cecile became desperate now. “And she’s a real pig at home—she throws food at everyone and um…throws up on you if she doesn’t like the vegetables!”

By now Lana and Hannah had, had it. Hannah forcefully pushed Cecile away from the group. “Shut-up Cecile, just shut-up.”

Cecile tried to push her back in but was met with Lana who held her at arm’s length. Her eyes blazed. “Get lost. Stop trying to ruin your sister’s life.”

Cecile shoved Lana and Hannah off of her. She knew she had didn’t stand a chance—but my sister never was the quitter.

As she backed away, she yelled at the top of her voice, “You’ll be sorry you ever talked to that idiot. Charlotte’s on her period and she’s damn moody!” Cecile burned me with her eyes. “And she has Leukemia so the blood comes out weird.” Then she ran away before an authority figure could catch her.

My blouse became severely wet with salty tears as I ran away from the courtyard and into the girls’ washroom. Just because I said I did not do anything about my sister, did not mean I did not feel her wrath. She had pulled many stunts like this past one and as usual I would run from the scene, tears streaming down my face. If it sounds stupid, think about what you would. Stand there and smile as people ask you why the blood that comes out is weird?

Lana and Hannah were nice enough to let me cry to my hearts content before they came in and gathered me up in a hug. They knew that only I had the power to stop my sister, and they respected that. Once I finished sobbing into their shirts, Hannah spoke up.

“Charlotte, it’s not as bad as you think,” she said in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” Lana agreed. “We told everyone in the courtyard that we were just acting out a play for the spring play. They bought it.”

I was confused. Usually people in this school did not ‘buy’ anything. Especially when it came from my sister’s mouth since some out the rumours she spread about me had turned out to be true.

Hannah sensed my confusion. “Aaron played along—or rather, he probably thought we were telling the truth.”

Ah. That would explain it. He didn’t know us and everyone else knew he didn’t know us.

Lana grinned mischievously. “And he’s waiting outside the washroom right now.”

I immediately perked up. “He is?” Oh no, my eyes were red, my lips puffy, my blouse wet and—

“Calm down,” Lana grabbed my hands from their rush in drying my face.

“Yeah,” Hannah led me over to the sink and allowed me to splash cool water on my face. “You look beautiful as always. Just wash your face and you’ll be fine.”

With that reassurance, I cleaned up and walked out of the washroom. I was met with a concerned Aaron.

As soon as he saw me, he grabbed me and hugged me. I was so surprised, I backed away a little. “Wha—?”

Aaron looked at me anxiously, “Is your sister really that evil?”

I don’t know how he knew, but to answer his question I just burst into a river of new tears.