The One Who Lived

Prologue

In my family there has always been this running joke about who was the favorite child. There isn't much competition as I am only one of two children, but there has always been the joke that she was their favorite, or that I was their favorite from her point of view.

The thing is – Anni is the favorite.

I don't just mean in the sense of parents or dinner table jokes – I mean it in every aspect possible. It may be bold to make a statement like that about your sibling, and it may sound like I am jealous, but I'm not.

Anni has this way about her that makes her capable of getting anything and being anyone that she wants. She is the girl that everyone wants to be but can never become — me included.

Sure, I am only 18 months younger and a single grade behind her, but that doesn't mean a thing on any scale. She has all the girl friends and guy friends. Hell, she is even best friends with the clique of my grade who doesn't even know my name. Anni goes to all the parties and has more fun in one night than I imagine I will ever have in my entire life.

It also doesn't help that Anni looks as if she should be casted for a live-action Barbie movie instead of living in this small Missouri town. With her naturally light blonde hair, big blue eyes, and body that she works way too hard for. She also has this porcelain skin that looks like she uses expensive facial cleansers when she actually only uses a bar of soap.

Sometimes I think that she looks more like a doll than a person because of the perfection she strived for and achieved.

Anni is perfect in every way of the meaning, and I truly mean that with admiration and not a single twig of jealousy. Anni lives a life that I could only fathom in my wildest dreams.

I guess, she lives.

Anni lives — that is what she does – she lives.

I jump a little as my phone ringer pierces through my dark room at three in the morning as I wait for Anni and her friends to come home.

One thing that Anni doesn't known is that I wait. I always wait for the soft click of the back door to know that she is home safe. Sometimes it means that I stay up until six AM and other times it only means one AM. Though, no matter the time – I have never cared. I need the peace of mind that only comes from the knowledge of her being home to even be able to consider sleeping.

I ignore the sudden stillness that fills the empty house as my bones start to freeze like I know something is wrong as soon as that jingle fills my room – I just don't yet know what the terribly wrong thing is. I stare at the iPhone screen because there is no reason that Camille Church's name should be running across my phone screen right now. Camille only has my number because she pays me to do her book reports.

There is no way that Camille is calling me at three AM on a Saturday night for a book report.

"Cami? Are you okay?" I ask trying to pretend like my voice isn't shaking, and that there is not a ball of fear growing inside of me right now.

I hear Camille's sniffle, and I swear that my stomach immediately drops to the core of the earth. "There was an accident. A really bad accident, Adan." Camille makes me flinch when she says my whole name.

Anni and I have hated our names since we were little girls, because everyone always thinks that they are calling for a boy.

My parents like to insist that they weren't planning for nor wanting boys, and that they liked our nicknames with the names that they chose, but that doesn't change the fact that it has complicated every document that we have had to fill out since childhood. Why couldn't they just name us Anni and Ada? Why did we have to be Channing and Adan?