I lay curled up on my bed. Unmoving. I had the covers pulled up to my chin as I stared at the ceiling. How to even begin to describe how I was feeling. The incredible emptiness that was sickeningly eating away at my insides. It was so strange how just one night could change everything. Everything. I felt like my life was over.

Victoria was gone.

My twin came trotting into the room just then, in high spirits as usual. If she was at all upset about the events that occurred two nights ago, she didn’t show it. I imagine she was doing her best to be cheery for my sake. Not that she should be sad really. Victoria hadn’t been her horse. No, Victoria had been mine. My soul mate and lifeline.

Christina flung open the curtains of our largest window, sending piercing late afternoon light flooding through the room. “Come on Kris! Perk up! Get your lazy ass out of that bed and you’ll start feeling better!” she called in an obnoxiously loud voice. I merely pulled the covers up over my head in reply.

My relationship with my twin wasn't exactly the glorified wonder that the Olsen twins make theirs out to be. We weren’t two peas in a pod. In fact, we weren't even cookies and cream, or cops and donuts. We were more along the lines of apples and bread: of the same general category, food—or in our case people—but we didn’t exactly occupy the same serving plate at the dinner table. 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 just me.

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

Now she was a fresh high school grad, as of about a week ago, already accepted to the high class—and even higher tuition—local private college. Whose frat parties she had, of course, been going to for over a year already. At a month and a half shy of 18 years old, she was on her way to conquering the world, one stilettoed step at a time.

And of course, why wouldn't she be successful? 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 winking at him. During the day she was perfect and dutiful, but 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 half a 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 or what went right with her when we were growing up. But she blossomed into this exquisite 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.

“Wanna come to a party with me tonight?” Christina asked as she slowly applied a fresh coat of lipstick on her perfectly pink pouty lips. Then she beamed into the mirror to see its effects. That was me there in the mirror. Her mirror image, but ultimately not her and nothing like her. Then she fluffed her blonde hair. It was short, just like mine. We both used to have super long beautiful hair but our mother had made the mistake of telling us never to cut it, so Christina got it into her head one day to do exactly that. Out she dragged me and we cut it off. It hung just above our shoulders, slightly wavy. You never tell Christina not to do something. It’s like fueling the fire. Don't kiss that boy. She kisses the boy. Don't wear thongs. She wears thongs. Don't stay out all night. She stays out all night. Don't break curfue, she does.

“No,” I said, my voice cracked a little. It was hoarse from crying. Really, a party was where everything wrong in my life had all began.

The sound of the music as we made our way down into the basement of some fraternity was like a physical blow. I could feel the base thud in my chest. I didn't know what song it was, but I'd heard it before. On the radio, at other parties, or maybe had Christina played it. Some rap or hip hop song. It had one of those beats that changed the way you walked, made your every step be in time with the song.

Christina kissed my cheek before spinning off to the bar. She'd taken a couple of shots of tequila before we'd left the house, so she was already buzzing. Alcohol made her flirty and affectionate. Which usually ended in her making out with someone—or multiple someone’s—by the end of the night. It was why she was invited to things like this. She was fun and it boosted guys' egos, but she had the no-strings-attached attitude.

I followed her slowly, picking my way past people. Many nodded to me like I was Christina. Unless we were standing next to each other, you really couldn't tell us apart. She stood at the bar, standing on her tiptoes to lean across the counter to show off her boobs to the tender. We were only about 5'4” so really any amount of counter leaning was quite impressive. He was smiling, so it must have been working great. A few of the guys behind her turned and I could tell they were saying something about her ass, clad in its tiny little jean skirt. She was wearing this tight black halter top that exposed her dainty back and shoulders. It had splatters of white strewn across it that glowed iridescent under the black lights.

I just wore jeans and a dark grey tank top with sequins strewn about up one side. They glistened under the blacklights, but didn't glow almost blindingly like white did. I really didn't care to draw that much attention to myself, not that it would have, everyone else had some form of white on to draw attention to them too.

Christina got some red colored concoction and left the bar and came back to me. Offering it to me, of course, she said “this night is going to be crazy, I can feel it already.”

“Me too,” I said, shaking my designated driver head at her drink. She brought it to her lips and drank about half of it down in a few gulps. Clearly, it was going to be one of those nights. She took a step back and faltered a little on her flashy black stilettos. “Careful with that,” I said.

She waved her hand at me dismissively, then threw back her head and started moving her hips to the music.

Suddenly a guy appeared next to us with dark brown buzz cut hair. He had one of those charmer smiles and a body like a football player, which I imagined he was. He reached out and tucked Christina's hair behind her ear. “Hello beautiful,” he said in a deep low voice that I could barely hear over the pound of the music. He shot me a similarly charming smile, but I imagine he couldn't miss that Christina was the easier and more welcoming catch.

“Hey!” she said, her eyebrows raising with her voice. “Who are you?”

“Mark Hammilton,” he said loudly to both of us, his eyes flicking at me to include. “You two can't be twins, are you? Because I don't think the universe can handle two such gorgeous girls.”

She laughed and tossed her hair with a flick of her head. A little bit of her drink splashed out onto the floor. No one seemed to care. “We are twins! You don't happen to be Hammilton from the football team, do you?”

Mark beamed at her in a way that could only mean that he was, in fact, that very person. I couldn’t even imagine the candy bar Mark had just become in Christina’s eyes.

A couch was catching my eye in the distance and the heals Christina had made me wear were killing my feet so I gently touched his shoulder in a it-was-good-to-meet-you kind of way and started towards it.

It was going to be a long night.

As much as Christina liked moving around the party, she kept going back to Mark, something about him had obviously caught her interest. Probably because he was similar to Sam, both were football players. Granted, he was ridiculously attractive, how could he not be with that white perfect smile and chiseled body. He was like the definition of man, but not really my type. I didn't like that overtly cocky attitude. I didn't like being treated like I should feel privileged to be standing next to someone, which is the kind of attitude he had. Or perhaps I was biased since that was Sam's attitude and I didn’t particularly like Sam. Really I didn't know him, but it wasn't exactly on my list of priorities to get to know him.

I kept my eye on this new Mark guy and stayed in my corner. Occasionally I got up to move around or dodge people who were convinced I was Christina and wouldn't believe me when I told them I was her twin. She knew a surprising amount of very drunk or very stupid people. Perhaps they were both.

And then a whoop sounded from the door into the basement. The crowd of people making cheering and greeting noises blocked my view from seeing who or what it was. Mark put his arm around Christina and led her in the direction, a big smile on his face as he yelled something over the music to her. Curiously I stood up to get a better look, but didn't make my way towards the mass.

Finally a guy broke from the crowd, a thirty pack of Bud Light in each hand. He was tall, over six feet tall, with messy blonde hair and a hard jaw but he had a big smile on his face as he laughed at something someone yelled at him. He was wearing a white wife beater and hip-fitting baggy black jeans. He was one of those thin lean muscled people, but his shoulders budged as he lifted the cases of beer at Mark, who'd stopped him. Mark hit him in the shoulder with his fist and the guy surprisingly didn't budge. He just smirked and said something that I couldn't begin to hear from across the room with a big black speaker pulsing behind me. I watched him be introduced to Christina whom he politely nodded at, but he was probably the first person who didn't take an extra ten seconds to roam his eyes over her body and smile or whoop approvingly. He just looked past her and around the room.

Then his eyes fell on me, and I felt stupid for just standing there staring at him. I looked down and sat back down on the couch, feeling out of place. But when I looked back up he was still looking at me, then he glanced back at Christina, obviously making the twinship connection. I smiled and nodded at him. He didn't nod back, he just looked at me for a moment and then smiled and said something to Mark and walked toward the bar and away from me. The song changed and Christina put her hands on Mark's delectably buff chest and started pushing him back towards the mass of dancing people blocking my view to the bar where the blonde guy had disappeared to. She weaved into the swarm and I could just barely make out Mark's head probably a foot or more above hers.

I crossed my legs and laid my head back on the couch and closed my eyes. I liked the song that was playing. He was singing about how “you're way too beautiful girl”. It reminded me of my sister.