Page 16 of Raise Hell

Four

Excerpt from the diary of Olivia Pratt:

I think I’m obsessed.

I always thought it was silly when people talked about love at first sight. That just means you think someone is really hot. You can’t love someone that you don’t know.

And then I saw him.

He’s hot, of course. But a lot of guys at St. Bart’s are hot. They must put something in the water here, haha. But he’s different. He has this power that just forces people to pay attention to him. They orbit around him like planets circling the sun.

But he has no idea that I exist.

That has to change. I just know that if he gets the chance, he’ll realize that we’re meant to be together.

I’ve never wanted anyone this much in my entire life.

* * *

Everybody wants an identical twin.

Hollywood can’t stop making movies about the shenanigans that ensue when twins switch places, how fun it is to have a very best friend for life who also looks just like you. Some people even think that twins have special powers, like they can read each other’s minds or feel each other’s pain.

Olivia and I never had anything resembling that kind of relationship.

Even as kids, we were completely different.

No surprise there.

Everybody knows that if one twin is smart, then the other one is funny. If one is a good girl, then her sister must be bad to the bone.

It’s easy to guess which of us ended up on each side of that divide.

Olivia is older by fifteen minutes, but I like to think I kicked her out the womb for some peace and quiet. Like hitting the snooze button to catch some extra winks.

We were close as kids, at least that’s what people tell me. But the older we got, the more we grew apart.

Olivia and Evangeline

Via and Gigi.

Strangers with the same face.

Olivia was always our parents’ favorite. The more rules I broke, the more compliant she became. When I fought back against my father’s ridiculous rules, she would follow them to the letter, so I looked like a whiny brat. They always held her up as the shiny example I was too stupid to follow.

She made the grades to get into a prestigious school like St. Bart’s, while I’ve been in and out of juvie since I was twelve.

But that’s a story for another time.

My father has always been the my house, my rules type, so I’ve been on my own for years since he kicked me out. The last time I lived at home was right before I dropped out of the tenth grade. I can’t even remember the argument that led to me leaving the last time.

Maybe it was the ridiculous curfew and his refusal to let me wear pants or dresses with hems above the knee. Or maybe it was when I made it clear that I probably wouldn’t be saving myself for marriage because I considered it an archaic and antifeminist institution. He got enraged enough to start throwing my shit around the room. Keep in mind that he cheats on my mother with women young enough to be the older sister Olivia refused to admit she always wanted.

There is nothing I hate more than a hypocrite, especially a falsely religious one.

He loved to use scripture to control us, while breaking every covenant in the Bible himself.

Granted, the conversation about sex might have gone better if he hadn’t walked in on me in the middle of giving my first blowjob. Our pool boy had to leave the county before he could find work again.

---