My Twin Sister Died

My parents, who’d practically forgotten I existed, suddenly remembered their crazy older daughter and pulled me out of the mental hospital. They were hiding the news of my twin sister’s death, keeping her body in the freezer at home. Meanwhile, I was supposed to impersonate her at school. To make every single person who ever messed with her pay the price. Even the school’s golden boy, her crush, ended up on his knees, begging for my mercy.

1

My sister, Lily, had killed herself.

My parents picked me up from the mental facility—my personal prison for the last decade. The ride home was filled with my mother's tearful account of everything Lily had been through.

When we got home, a deep freezer sat in the living room. Inside, they’d placed Lily's body. She looked just as sweet and pretty as I remembered, her eyes closed like she was just asleep. Except, there were so many bruises on her, places where she'd been hurt and they'd left dark marks. Some looked old, and some were fresh, like she’d been burned with a cigarette.

Her phone buzzed on the table. I used her face to unlock it. The screen was flooded with notifications.

The most recent messages caught my eye:

“Lily, you ditch school again and you're dead meat."

“Don’t forget I still have those nudes of you. Bet you anything if Brad sees what a slut you are, he’ll think you’re trash."

"You better be here tomorrow. Or you will not like the consequences!"

The last text had a video attached. When I opened it, it showed Lily in a dark, disgusting alley. A bunch of people had her pinned to the ground, covered in dirt, her school uniform torn to shreds while they laughed and yelled obscenities.

My parents were squeezing my hands, I knew what they wanted—revenge. They drove me to school.

At the entrance to my classroom, my uniform reeked of paint, I took a look around the room. My teacher saw me and frowned, pointing to a desk by the trash can.

“Lily, you dare skip class again? You clearly don't care about school, so you belong right there with the trash,” she said.

I ignored the stares and made my way to my desk.

Lily had always kept a diary. And sure enough, there it was, shoved in my desk. The pages were filled with her pain, how alone she felt. Also, there was a guy she had a crush on, Brad. Every time his name came up, she talked about something awful that had happened to her.

Then she wrote down a quote Brad had told her:

“Even when life is tough, we have to find the courage to start over.”

It sounded sweet, but it also sounded like a challenge to Lily who had been facing bullying every day.

Reading the diary, it became clear: this wasn't some random bullying thing. Someone was making sure Lily’s life was miserable, that someone had pushed her to suicide.

2

The bell rang.

A girl with way too much makeup and an even worse attitude got to her feet faster than the teacher. She strutted towards me, a pack of girls, all mean-mugging, following her. According to the diary, this was p...