She’s my sister, for God’s sake.
Even though we’re different.
We’re so, so different and she doesn’t like me very much.
But I absolutely love her and admire her.
Like I loved and admired my mother, who was also very different from me. The only thing is that my mother – as exasperated as I made her – loved me back.
My mother was a highly educated college professor who brought up two daughters all on her own after her husband left her. Until her heart gave way and she died suddenly, leaving us to be raised by her closest friend whom she’d always been in touch with, Leah.
But my mother had been a planner and along with her updated will, she also left us both some money for college.
Sarah is very much like her, actually. Ambitious, driven, beautiful.
Back when we were kids, I idolized my sister.
I idolized her beauty, her straight shiny hair.
I’d follow her around with my toys in tow. I’d ask her to play with me, play with my dolls.
She was my big sister. She was my best friend by default.
Or she should’ve been.
But she never thought so. She always found me annoying, a nuisance. An overenthusiastic puppy, I think. Well, she described me as such to one of her friends because I wouldn’t leave them alone.
That was super hurtful. I think I cried.
But when I grew up, I understood why.
Why Sarah never liked me. It’s because she’s perfect.
She’s beautiful. She’s a straight-A student. She is popular. She is obedient. She follows the rules. She’s smart and intelligent. She’s practical, unemotional. She has a great job.
Whereas me, I’m the opposite of that.
Even though I have freckles and my hair is savage and wild and my golden eyes are witchy, I look exactly like my sister.
But that’s where the similarities end.
I never had a lot of friends. I can barely pass a subject, let alone score perfect As. I don’t even think I’m going to college, let alone getting a great job. My only ambition right now is to run away and live somewhere else so I don’t try to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
Not to mention I don’t evenwantto be perfect.
I don’t want to be like her or all the perfect people out there. Perfection intimidates me. All the rules intimidate me.
All I’ve ever wanted is to be myself, however flawed and imperfect that may be.
And all I’ve ever wanted is for my imperfection to be somehow perfect for him.
For her boyfriend.
So yeah, why would she like me?
On top of being completely different from her, I’m secretly betraying her. Her hatred for me is totally warranted.
But this isn’t about me and her and how different we are.
