Remember the Alphabet

Chapter Three: Leaving What You Love

I was on my laptop, pretending to do a school project, but really looking up tips for packing light and fixing down the details of the little Air B&B apartment I was going to move into when I arrived in Cleveland the day after tomorrow.

This morning the harsh sunlight streaming through the far window had woke me much earlier than I would have liked- 7:15, to be exact- and I immediately reached over for my laptop to start trip preparations, which I would undoubtably be doing all day. That had its complications though. For one, my parents would wonder if I spent all day in my room, trying to conceal the fact that I was packing up everything I own and was looking at train schedules. And there was Alphie. She would never let me go, over her dead body. She would throw herself into my suitcase and unpack all my things. She would go online and cancel my Air B&B or rip up my tickets. Alphie had always been a drama queen, which was very unhelpful in this scenario. I mean, I knew she was only trying to make me stay because she loved me and cared about me, but it was still annoying. I didn't need her to look out for me like she always thought she needed to, just because she's 2 and a half minutes older. I'm 18. I'm an adult now.

Just then, the door of our room swung open and I hastily closed the tab on my laptop, and pretended to be typing up the stupid 25 page research paper we'd been assigned. Sure enough, Alphie breezed into the room in her pajamas, holding her hair products bag and carrying the strong scent of chemical straightener with her.

My sister and I both have a vat of crazy thick, enormously curly brown hair that I always stick in a fuzzy braid with tons of bobby pins. Alphie gets up early every morning to straighten her hair until it hangs in glossy waves. This is the only way you can tell us apart. When we were little, it was just impossible. When my hair was cut it got a little easier. And now this.

Alphie and I are identical down to our weirdly stubby pinkies and our ugly knobbly knees. We both are the same height, 5 feet 7 inches, have the same light brown skin and hazel eyes. We even have the same shoe size. But while I've never worn a speck of makeup except to my parent's wedding and my aunt's funeral, Alphie always spends hours decorating her face with countless silly products. And although we both have pretty small boobs, Alphie wears padding in her bras.

I expected my sister to start yelling and being dramatic and emotional and "prohibiting" me from going anywhere, but she just gave me a cool smile and floated over to her bed as if she was a evil queen who had just captured her prey.

I glared over at her. "Alphie, what the fuck did you do?!"

"Oh, nothing," she said smugly, her back to me as she rustled around in her drawers.

"Sure as hell doesn't look like nothing." No one but my sister, Rooney and Carter and maybe Marie and Hillie had ever heard me swear. Well, now I didn't talk to or swear at Rooney anymore. Or Carter...

Alphie turned to look at my indignant expression with a haughty smile. She didn't say anything, but her eyes strayed to her dresser. I looked there too, and my mouth fell open as an image of my ticket flapping in the breeze from last night tiptoed into my mind.

"Alpha Helaine Stewart no you absolutely did not!" I yelled at her.

Alphie winced when I said her whole name. She hates our names- Alpha and Beta. I hate them too. They're the most stupidly unoriginal names for twins possible. Don't ask me what my parents were thinking. I mean, who names their kids after letters in the alphabet? When we were little, Rooney and my parents used to call the pair of us Alphabet. That was when we did everything together.

"I did what I had to do, Beta," Alphie sneered."So you don't go running and sniveling after some little bitch who never deserved you."

I winced too when she said my full name- I go by B- and then again when she called Carter a bitch. Not for the first or last time, I wanted to slap her. "Don't call Carter a bitch and give me my ticket!" I scream at her, leaping off my bed and snapping my laptop shut. "Why can't you stop being so scared and just let me go already! Can't you see, I'm an adult now! This is what I want!"