Unforgivable Secret

August 15

It was the last day of summer vacation. The last day that I had to worry about ever going back to the first day of school.

Well, that was until I started college, but it would be so different then.

I wouldn’t have to worry about the Hawks and the Hawkettes and who they were torturing this year. Not that they’d ever done anything to me in the past, I was invisible to them, and that’s the way I liked it. I stayed under the radar, got done what I needed to get done, then got the hell away from the school.

I only participated in the debate club, because, well, that was one place I wouldn’t have to worry about any of the elite ever showing up, the soccer stars of the school and the band of um, what would be the right word to describe them…hoes that followed them around. None of them would ever be caught in such a club, as none of them knew much about anything that didn’t deal with themselves.

“Are you excited about this being your senior year?” Clarissa, my older sister by two years, belly-flopped down across my bed. She’d stopped over at home after we’d all gone shopping but had to go back to the college dorms in another hour for some sorority meeting.

I scrunched my nose up and shook my head. “No, not really. I’m just excited to be getting the hell out of there soon.”

I took out the three new outfits that I’d bought at the mall and placed them in the closet. My mom and sister had talked me into getting more clothes, even though I frowned on the idea of going through the whole size thing and then changing in the dressing areas where they both waited until I came out and did a few circles for them. I eventually gave in to getting the last three outfits that I’d tried on just so they would leave me alone.

“Oh. My. God.” Clarissa sat upright and pushed her long, perfect pin-straight brown hair off her face. “I had the time of my life my senior year, it was the bomb.”

I shook my head. When was anyone in my family going to realize I wasn’t Clarissa?

I didn’t act like Clarissa.

I didn’t do the same things as Clarissa.

And I certainly didn’t look like Clarissa.

Whereas my sister was thin, beautiful, fashionable, and had hundreds of guys drooling over her all the time, I was the complete opposite.

I was of average height at five feet five. My looks were average, not cover girl ability like my sister, but more on the lines of the girl-next-door. The one who would be the friend, but never the love interest or wet dream of any guy.

My face had a certain roundness that made my cheeks squeezable, primarily when I was around my grandmother. Even though I was almost eighteen years old, it never failed that when we went to grandma’s house, my cheeks were going to come home with red pinch marks.

My hair was light brown with a few natural blond highlights tossed about. It hung past my shoulders and had a bounce when I walked. Of course, it wasn’t like Clarissa’s, where it was straight, cut into the perfect style for my face, and always had a shine that said, ‘notice me.’

The most significant difference between us two, and the most recognized according to our mother since it was one area that she never let go of was our differences in weight.

Clarissa was curvy in all the right places. Her bra size was a ‘D’ so of course, that got her ample looks from the young and old. The rest of her body was lean, tan, and tight. Everything she wore she made look good.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t as fortunate.

It seemed I’d gotten the slip of a lousy gene somewhere in my genetic make-up, like the experiment went wrong syndrome. I wasn’t grossly overweight, not even close, but I could stand to lose a few pounds according to my mom, my sister, my dad, the nutritionist, the kids at school, well just society in general thought I should lose about thirty pounds.

I finally came out of my self-revelation and responded to Clarissa’s statement. “Well, obviously I’m not you. I just want to go and get out of there as quickly as possible.”

Clarissa got off the bed and straightened out her skirt and shirt. “You know what I think, little sister.” She looked into the mirror and brushed back her hair once again with her fingers and wiped the bit of eyeliner smudge mark that was on the corner of her eye. She glanced at me in the mirror’s reflection. “I think you need a boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes and looked away from my sister’s stare.

‘That’s easier said than done. I’m not like you and have every guy falling to their knees over me.’

“I think I need to keep on my game and get into a good college instead of worrying about boyfriends, parties, and the whos-who list at school.”

Clarissa shrugged her shoulders.

I’d always been like that, too much into being all that I could be in the academic world. I never went to parties, even though Clarissa had put mention into the groups at school, the Hawkettes, that I was her sister and should be asked to go wherever they went.

“Whatever, Morgan.” Clarissa walked over to the door and turned the knob. “You’re the one that’s going to look back on your high school years and wonder why you didn’t do things differently.” With that final comment, Clarissa walked out and shut the door behind her.

If hate looks could be felt through walls and doors, then my sister would have an ominous feeling about her. It wasn’t that I really hated my sister, just hated how she thought everything could be so easily solved.

Yeah, if I were anything like Clarissa then it would be an easy fix, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

I searched back through my closet. The clothes that I’d picked out on our shopping trip didn’t seem so appealing now. They were cute in a frumpy sort of way, but nothing like the clothes that the majority of other girls wore. They wore everything to the barest of the minimum. They followed the dress code, but it seemed that they took it to the extreme of shortness and sheerness of what was allowed.

I shifted the new clothes further to the back of the closet and brought my comfy clothes to the front. I had my black leggings, and dark emerald green, oversized tunic front and center as that was the first day of school choice of outfit I’d decided on. I wasn’t going to impress anyone, and it wasn’t like anyone would be looking at me for me to really care if I looked good.

I brushed the soft fabric of the shirt and nodded my head once, just to clarify the fact that this was the intended choice of clothing.

I shut the closet door and began to get the rest of tomorrow's essentials in order.