Flames in the Family Tree

Part 2- Lily/Lucy POV

~~~~~~LILY~~~~~~

When Darien and I were little, all the way up through now, our parents had this story to tell us. She always began it with, "you're such good kids. Unlike that last set of twins," with a laugh. Darien and I would just look at each other and laugh too, because there's no way that story could be real. They told it in a funny way like it was fake, so we just figured it was fake.
          "Where did we leave them?" asked dad one evening when we were twelve or something.
          "We left them somewhere around Pittsburgh," answered mom. Last time she told it, it was around Morgantown. The time before that, it was in Ohio. The time before that, it was at the scenic overlook past the local high school. That's when I knew she was just bullshitting.
          Only more recently, at twenty years old, did I realize how fucked up it was to even make up a story like that. These kids were so misbehaved and bratty that they abandoned them on the Interstate and never saw them again? Leading up to the realization, things between me and my mother, her and Darien, and her and my father had already been... rough. To make a long story short, she always criticized everyone for every little thing, especially things that don't matter. She would turn a positive memory into a bad one, just like the other night how the four of us were spending time in the living room watching music videos, and she brought up the story about the twins again. All I do whenever I hear the story again is pretend like it's funny and shut down later in my bedroom. Every argument (which happened a few times a week, or once a week if I got lucky) ended with crying myself to sleep with sad songs.
          Even Darien doesn't seem to understand how bad it is. He still defends her like it's the end of the world when anything happens. For example, mom will have yet another one of her outbursts to shame me for something, and he'll join in on the shaming. I wonder sometimes: does he even think it's fucked up to make up a story about an old set of twins you abandoned on the side of the Interstate?
          Sometimes, I even had irrational fears of being abandoned myself, like mom and dad always told of that fake set of twins they used to have. With these fears lingering in the back of my mind, I even look forward to going to work at the grocery store during the summer, which says something because it's work. My coworker Lucy makes everything better. Not only do we look alike with our thick brunette hair and dark brown eyes, but she always talks to me and gets to know me when we are not busy at our cash registers.

~~~~~~LUCY~~~~~~

Another day, another handful of pennies. This cashier job is not what I wanted for life. But there was no other opportunity for anything better after years of therapy took up all my money. My younger co-worker, Lily, was at the register next to me, just working for the summer to get through college, as she's nineteen going on twenty. She's great at customer service but very quiet.
          Something I've been so curious about but too scared to ask her, though, was about her family. I knew that she and I shared a last name, but a lot of people around the area have the same last name without being related. The resemblance between her and I, though, was striking. Hmm. Nineteen, going on twenty. That means she was born just months after Drew and I were first abandoned in the forest park. The resemblance was eerie. How have I only caught a hold of this now, and it's been a few months already of me working here? I need to meet her parents.

A few days of grueling busy work had passed, and then, oddly enough, I saw two familiar faces go through Lily's check-out line. "Hi Mom, hi Dad," she said to them with an uncomfortable smile on her face while bagging their groceries.
          My heart dropped. There is no fucking way. Yet, they just passed right by me like I was nothing, like I didn't exist. They had a whole other child after abandoning us. THEY HAD A WHOLE OTHER CHILD AFTER ABANDONING US. A whole other child that still lived with them.
          Acting like I didn't just get destroyed, I casually asked her, "Are those your parents?"
         "Yes." She made that uncomfortable smile and chuckle again. I knew she was hiding something. She analyzed my face, noticing the same discomfort. "What's wrong, Lucy?"
          My heart pounded, and my breathing got heavier and heavier by the second. "Oh, it's nothing." I then turned back to my register to take care of the customer that had just popped up out of nowhere.
          As soon as the sudden, long and busy line of customers disappeared, Lily went right back to her questions. It's always that exhausted look cashiers give one another after a rush. This time was different from any other rush. "Lucy, are you sure you're okay?"
          I sighed in and out, about to change both of our lives. "It's your parents."
          She gave me a concerned look. "What about them?"
          I directed her to stand over the back of my register and whispered in her ear, "They were my birth parents too."
          She backed away, dropping her jaw and covering her mouth. I saw the confusion in her eyes mixed with shock, sadness, and a hint of fear. "No way. What?"
          "Yes, way."
          "I can't believe it."
          "I know it's hard to believe, but I can prove it to you."
          "So, we were sisters? This whole time?"
          "Yup, and I have a long story to tell."
          I was burnt out from work and life, just telling it all casually. I told her everything from the way they treated me and Drew, the grand abandonment, my life with Uncle James and Aunt Pam while being forced to make angry phone calls back to our "parents," the smaller abandonments in between, and the years of therapy that came after. The whole time, she managed to stay calm but I could tell she was about to cry.
          "That's funny you're telling that story," she told me, still on the edge. "Because our parents told me and my twin brother the exact same one to us all the time as if it was fake. Every time she told it, she changed the location of where they dropped the last set of twins off." She made quotes with her fingers while saying "last set of twins." "You mean to tell me that it was real this whole time?"
          I now understood the discomfort in her whenever our parents went through her line. That story explained everything. "Yes, it was real this whole time."
          I didn't care that it was in the middle of the grocery store, where people could see and our boss could overhear. My sister gave me a hug with no words. And with no hesitation, I hugged her back. Over this short month of working with her, I saw so much of my young self in her. But only a few moments ago did that make sense. We let go shortly after to head back to work for the few customers who I knew would soon appear out of nowhere. Just to be safe so no one can see.
          At the end of my shift that day and the beginning of Lily's last break, in the office, we checked the schedule for a day we both had off. "On Thursday," I told her, "let's go meet my twin brother. He told me he's off then too."
          She nodded her head with an "okay. We can meet my twin brother too."
          But little did I think- what atrocities would Louise and Richard commit if they knew that Lily knew it was real? I had forgotten that she still lives with them. "Wait," I addressed her. "What will our parents think of this?"
          Casually with a nod, she answered, "They'll be fine with it. I've become really good at lying."
          It's quite sad, really. I have many bad memories of lying about my friends or who I was going to hang out with when I was six and seven, and later when I was living with Uncle James and Aunt Pam. If I were ever allowed to hang out with friends at all, that is. Only rarely, about once a year if we were lucky, Drew and I were allowed to hang out with friends outside school. The few times that we did, our mother was watching over us (whether it be chaperoning with us or having a friend of theirs spy on us) for our every move and for someone else to say something wrong.
          When I finally moved out of Pam and James's place with no help because they forced Drew to stay even though he wanted to help, I spent the entire day celebrating. But later that night, I cried so much because of the guilt that I didn't take him with me. I cried even more with him sitting next to his hospital bed at twenty-six after things got so bad that he tried to kill himself.