VEDA
"Nicole, get your scraggly ass out here right now! You bitch!"
I screamed the words into the empty foyer, listening for a response as they echoed through the sparsely furnished rooms of my twin sister's fancy new downtown condo, and not surprised when I didn’t receive one. This was the third time I'd been here in the past week, and every time I had to come back, I only got more and more pissed off.
When there was still no answer, I shut the front door and laid my spare key on the overpriced marble table—I wouldn't be needing it anymore—and narrowed my eyes at the obnoxious vase of flowers she kept there just because she knew I was allergic to them.
Right on cue, I sneezed. With a snarl, I grabbed the vase, stalked as well as I could in my flip-flops across the main room to the patio doors that led out to the balcony, flung them open, and nearly chucked the entire thing over the railing. But the blast of Texas heat made me pause at the last minute and gave me time to rethink what I was about to do. Taking the flowers out of the vase, I threw them over, then dropped the vase on the patio, smiling as it smashed into tiny shards of glass. "Oops." After all, if I dropped a crystal vase fifteen floors down, I'd probably kill someone, and I really didn't want that on my conscience, even if I didn't get caught.
I went back into the air-conditioned condo and shut the doors again, muting the sounds of the city down below and the likely tirade that would be aimed at me when a cluster of daisies and carnations landed on someone's head.
Dusting the pollen off my hands, I felt a surge of satisfaction. I was done being my sister's errand runner, grocery shopper, and whatever the hell else Nicole deemed herself too rich and famous to do for herself. I'd been doing it since she got her first acting job two years ago, and as she got more and more offers for jobs, and more and more full of herself, I'd wanted to quit many times. But I didn't. Because she was my fucking sister.
But this last demand of hers...ha! This, I would not do.
Reaching into the front pocket of the artfully ripped jean shorts I'd scored at Goodwill, I pulled out the invitation I'd gotten in the mail earlier this week. It was covered in some kind of loopy calligraphy that I eventually interpreted to be Nicole's way of ordering me to be her maid of honor in her upcoming nuptials. Where she would marry someone I, her very own sister, had never met and that I'd known absolutely nothing about until I'd received the invitation. A wedding I probably wouldn't have even been invited to if it wasn't for the fact that I was her only sister, and that at least one of our parents would be pissed enough to cut her off from the family if she didn't offer me this exalted position.
Done. I am so fucking done.
"Nicole!" I yelled again, just in case she was ignoring me. Popping my head into her bedroom, I scanned the rumpled king-sized bed with the gaudy yellow comforter—I hated yellow—before walking over to the bathroom. My sister was nowhere to be found, so I wandered back out to the kitchen and grabbed a wineglass and a bottle of something that was on the very bottom rack of her wine fridge—which meant she was saving it for a special occasion. Pulling my cell out of my back pocket, I sat down and set my phone on the couch cushion beside me, poured myself a glass of wine, turned on the TV, and put my dusty flip-flops up on her spotless coffee table. And I intended to park my ass right there until the bitch came home.
Or until I ran out of wine and needed another bottle. Or a bathroom.
Images flashed across the television screen, but I had no idea what I was watching. All I kept thinking about was how heartbroken our father would be when he found out I'd disowned my sister, but I needed a change. I needed my own life.
My mother, however...well, she probably wouldn't even notice I wasn't coming around anymore. She'd always preferred my older sister over me. Nicole was the child she'd planned on having. I...was not.
I was the unexpected twin with the damaged heart that was never supposed to have happened. Because we were premature, I was born with a patent ductus arteriosus (or PDA). Luckily, the hole was small, and a simple surgery closed the opening between the two major blood vessels leading from my heart, leaving me with two very faint, very small scars under my left arm that were barely visible now. And other than periodic checkups with my cardiologist, I've lived a normal life. My mother, however, had wanted to adopt me out and only keep the healthy baby, but my father somehow managed to talk her out of it. One of the few times he'd been successful at that. How did I know this? Because my mother told me this right to my face when I was thirteen years old.
And honestly, after twenty-two years of feeling nothing from my mother but apathy, I wished he'd have let her do it. Because even though the doctors fixed my heart, I've never been good enough for my mother, no matter how hard I'd tried. My grades were never as good as Nicole's. I was never coordinated enough to be a cheerleader like Nicole. I didn't know how to act around our parent's high society friends, while Nicole could charm them with nothing but a smile and a flip of her bleached, white-blonde hair. Nicole's best friend was the daughter of a man who owned a multi-million-dollar company and invited the entire family out on his yacht. My best friend for the last fifteen years was Sammy, a black lesbian, which of course had to mean I was gay, too. I wasn't, but my mother refused to believe me. And to her, having a daughter who wasn't a “normal” woman was a personal affront to her family's good breeding. I'd spent my entire life feeling like I wasn't worthy. Like I wasn't "as good as."
Trying to get away from my dark thoughts, I took a large gulp of my sister's expensive wine, but I barely tasted the different notes of cherry and chocolate or how smooth it was on my tongue, because no matter how much I tried to run away from it, I was beginning to think my mother was right. I'd barely graduated high school. Never went to college—not because I couldn't afford it, which was true, but because I just didn't want to. I could get jobs, but had a hard time keeping them, either because I got bored or I got fired. And if Nicole hadn't hired me to be her lackey, I probably would've ended up out on the street by now.
However, that didn't mean I had to put up with my sister's abuse anymore. Every word she directed toward me, every little thing she conned me into doing for her, every time she looked down her nose at me...
No. I was fucking done. I might not be as charming as her, or as smart as her, or even as sexy as her—because I was a bit "thicker" as Mom loved to remind me, despite the fact we were identical twins—but I was worth something to somebody. Somewhere.
And maybe if I got the hell away from my sister, I'd start believing that.
I heard the click of the front door and swung my head in that direction, frowning as I waited for the room to right itself again. Maybe the wine hadn't been such a good idea. But then again, maybe it would give me the courage to say what I had to say without giving Nicole the opportunity to make me doubt my own words, as she tended to do.
Setting my wine glass next to the nearly empty bottle, I got to my feet and unconsciously pushed back my shoulders and raised my chin. Taking a deep breath, I turned to face my only sibling, my twin, who I both loved and hated in equal measure. Well, maybe like sixty/forty.
Seventy/thirty?
I waited to hear the heels she always wore clacking across the stained concrete floors as she waltzed into the room with her usual air of self-importance, arms full of shopping bags since it was Saturday and she always shopped on the weekends unless she was on set. When I didn't hear anything, I sidestepped my way out from between the couch and the coffee table and walked over to the center of the room so I could see the front door.
A tall, good-looking man with dark hair and a short beard stood just out of view of where I'd been sitting. He was wearing a tailored, nondescript suit that would easily blend in with all of the other businessmen working in the city. Behind him was another man dressed much the same, only his black hair stuck straight up on his head. Sunglasses hid his eyes and a five o'clock shadow covered his hard jaw. He was even taller than the other guy. Neither one looked surprised to see me.
Could one of these guys be the fiancé I'd yet to meet?
My normal cautious nature dulled by the wine, I threw my hands in the air as if to say, "Finally!", smiled, and walked toward them. When I got close enough to shake the hand of the first one, I opened my mouth to introduce myself to my new brother-in-law...
And had a piece of cloth stuffed into it. Before I could spit it out or get my limbs to coordinate with what my brain was trying to tell me to do, suit number two was behind me, tying a gag around my head. My fight-or-flight instinct didn't fully kick in until a black hood was pulled down over my face. When my arms were pulled behind my back, I threw my body weight into the guy behind me, throwing him off balance as I kicked out at the one in front of me. My flip-flop met nothing but empty air though, and I was caught before I could fall to the floor and get the hood off my head.
"I didn't want to do this," one of them muttered.
A hand came up under my hood and a cloth was pressed to my nose and mouth. It smelled sweet and slightly like chemicals, and I tried to breathe through my mouth, but the gag made it impossible. I moaned as my head began to swim.
And then I knew nothing else.