Different

April thought that it was fitting that when Sterling kissed her for the first time, April closed the door. It had meant more than April had realized at the time. It hadn’t been just a choice to close the door so people wouldn’t walk in on them. No, it was a conscious decision. It was April, for the first time in her life, being a hundred percent herself. She had never felt happier; more in tune with herself and her surroundings and what happiness truly meant. It was like living in black and white for so long and then starting to see colors all at once. It was so shocking that she felt dizzy and her whole body seemed to know exactly what to do even as her mind was being overwhelmed by sensations and feelings she had never experienced; that she had never imagined possible. When April closed the door, she gave Sterling permission to be inside; to know all of her and judge her worthy or unworthy of her. And Sterling accepted all of April.

When she opened the door for Sterling to leave the school, she was making Sterling leave her. April tried to compartmentalize her thoughts and her feelings; she tried to think every path that could lead her to at least a minimum amount of happiness. That’s all she had been doing in her life; choosing paths that could lead to an acceptable and/or survivable amount of fulfillment. She knew total fulfilment wasn’t something she would ever attain in the moment she accepted that she liked girls and only girls and that nothing could change that. She really tried but once again she had this feeling that her attempts, her constant futile chase for some kind of perfection, were all in vain. She had never won and she supposed that love, of all things, was the one she was most likely to fail. She wished that she had thought enough about how this was doomed since the beginning; that she had rationalized enough to just leave that room and never look into Sterling’s eyes again. At the same time, she wished she hadn’t thought about it at all. She wished that her mind had been quiet and just enjoying those precious fleeting moments that she would never have again.  In the end, she hadn’t be smart enough to just leave nor stupid enough to just give in.

She watched as Sterling kissed Luke. She watched them hugging and watched her entering her mom’s car and leaving. April tried to gather within herself anger at the girl that was begging her for a chance just one minute ago just for now be kissing a boy as if nothing had happened. Anger didn’t come. Nothing new came. No anger or envy or fear or hatred. Just the sadness. A sadness so immense, April didn’t shed a tear.  She didn't have the strength to cry. She only stared at something, at nothing, at everything. Then she turned around and went back to where the students were gathered. April had been pretending her whole life. Today wouldn’t be different. She didn’t think it would come a day that would be different.

Sterling cried that night. She had a lot of reasons to cry. She had been lied to her entire life, she had just been kidnapped and held at gunpoint by her biological mother and her abusive boyfriend, she had just discovered that the only thing she had always felt truly and undeniably hers, her twin, wasn’t her twin at all. All that after being rejected by the first person that had made Sterling feel whole for the first time. Sterling cried for all that. It wasn’t even April. Yes, Sterling liked April and the pain threatened to undo her but what hurt the most was that Sterling had finally understood a piece of herself she had never seen or known just for someone to judge it not beautiful enough to be displayed for others to see. Because that was what April did. She deemed their connection unworthy of a try because of fear that it wasn’t pretty for others.

Sterling told herself that it wasn’t fair of her to think like that. Unlike April, Sterling had her sister that would love her unconditionally and she thought that her parents wouldn’t hate her; that eventually they would accept her just like she was. But now her sister wasn’t her sister and her parents weren’t her parents so Sterling had difficulty believing anything but heartbreak or misery. She heard Blair laying on bed next to her.

“Quit thinking that shit.” She said and Sterling almost laughed.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.” Sterling said back.

“Of course I know. I’m your twin.” Blair said in that Blair way of daring the universe to say something back. Unfortunately, for them, the universe had already said something. That they weren’t twins. Not even sisters. “See? Exactly that shit you just thought.” Blair said again.

“So what should I think?” Sterling asked shifting on bed to look Blair in the eyes.

“You should think fuck it.” Blair said and Sterling winced. “You should think fuck it that we weren’t born from the same womb. Fuck it that mom and dad had been lying to us and a supreme master fuck it for who kidnapped you.” Blair continued.

“My mom kidnapped me.” Sterling said quietly and Blair shook her head stubbornly.

“That wasn’t your mom. Our mom is at the end of the hallway with our dad.” Blair said and when Sterling opened her mouth, Blair beat her to it. “And if you don’t accept them as parents, that’s okay. They won’t be my parents either. We’ll be twin Jesus of Immaculate conception.” Blair said. “But we will be twins.” Blair finished in a way that told Sterling not to contradict her. Sterling didn’t feel like it, though. Blair was right. They were twins and they would always be twins. Or else how could they explain their twin thing? How could they explain this connection so strong that gave them strength to face it all together? Then Blair smiled as if she knew indeed what Sterling was thinking and had seen that she had come to that conclusion.

“Twin Jesus?” Sterling asked after some time and Blair smirked.

“The more the better.” Blair answered making Sterling laugh.

“April broke up with me.” Sterling said after some time of laying on bed silently.

“Bad for her. You’re too hot for her anyway.” Blair said and Sterling nodded distracted because she didn’t know what to say and she didn’t know why she had brought up the subject in the first place. “I found out today, after spilling all my feelings to Miles in front of his whole family, that he had never told them about me.” Blair said quietly.

“What?” Sterling asked confused.

“Turned out he was ashamed of me.” Blair said and then laughed unamused. “We’re twins even in heartbreak.”

They stayed there hugging each other and pretending that they weren’t seeing each other’s tear until they drift off to sleep. When April woke up, she was feeling knew. Like a Lego house that had been just torn down just to be rebuilt. She took a deep breath. She would rebuild herself stronger and wiser and braver. She would be strong enough to look right in the eyes of the people gossiping about what happened. She would be wise enough never to trust someone as easily as she had done just to be heartbroken. And she would be brave enough to show everyone all of her without fearing them deeming it ugly.

She left her bed, took a shower, put on new clothes and smiled. She didn’t need anyone to hold her hand like she had asked April to because she was enough to stand for herself. She woke up Blair.

“Blair, I’m okay. I’m different.”