Fake Affection

Chapter 1

Melanie

When I was six and Marissa was nine, I remember my mother would always dress us up alike for family reunions as if we were identical twins. It was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as sitting in chemistry class of Quinton high and having people talk about your sister and how popular and "hot" she was while Mr. Ortiz would take attendance and yell out your last name as everyone turns to look at you, asking you if you were related to Marissa Sinclaire. You would say yes and they would reply with a flat, "Oh." That made me feel like I wasn't good enough to be Marissa Sinclaire's sister. Marissa was beautiful while I was ordinary, she was tall I was average, she was more developed I was...not. I'd been trying so hard to be different from her, I even changed my hair color to pink last year but people weren't that impressed as they were when Marissa dyed her hair honey-blonde when she came to visit from college. She had always been the beautiful one with her big brown eyes, long, straight strawberry-blonde hair and supermodel-like body. I was the pretty one with long, wavy red-orange hair, hazel-brown eyes and freckles that were only noticeable if you'd put a magnifying glass up to my face. I envied Marissa.

Now that Marissa's out of the house, my parent's are constantly behind my back, watching my every move to make sure I did my homework or went to bed early. They cared less about me when Marissa was around, now that she was gone they all of a sudden wanted to pay more attention to me.

It was the second week of school on a tedious Monday morning and I couldn't have been any happier now that summer was over. Summer with my parent's was like spending summer with the parent's from the Fairly Oddparents. They were so annoying and happy, too happy. I kind of felt bad for them, having to spend time with their youngest daughter because their oldest daughter was off to college. They favored Marissa eventhough they never admitted it.

I sat in class doodling in the back of my noteback, writing my name in different formats such as bubbled, cursive, and block letters. Mr. Ortiz finished the attendance right when the announcements came on.

"I hope everyone had a great weekend." Principal Henley said happily over the intercom. I tuned him out on half of the announcements and thought of ways I could be different from my sister my Senior year of high school. The only thing I'm good at was art, I loved sketching and painting, that's the only thing I could do that Marissa couldn't. But I wanted to do something that will make me stand out. Marissa had already done volleyball, basketball, soft-ball, soccer, and she was also the president of student council.

"The boy's soccer tryouts start today after school along with the cheerleading tryouts." Principal Henley added. My head shot up when I heard this. I could have sworn I heard the "halleluja" song playing in my head. This was like fate, a gift from God or something. That's what I'll do, cheerleading, eventhough I have no flexibility or experience whatsoever, but I would do anything to seperate myself from my sister. She was never really the cheerleading type because she thought it exploited young girl's by wearing short skirts and dancing provocative, so this would be great for me, I just had to make the team.

"You should totally tryout, Melanie!" My best friend and former captain of the cheerleading squad, Natalie exclaimed as she and my other friend Brooke sat on the opposite side of our lunch table. Natalie and Brooke were well-known around school and if student's here didn't know me as Marissa Sinclaire's little sister, they definitely knew me as Nat and Brooke's innocent best friend. If not my sister, Natalie was sure the prettiest girl in the whole school with her long black curls and clear blue eyes, but honestly I think the only reason why she was popular was because her dad used to manage famous singer's "back in the day." Brooke was the all-american party girl. She was more of the girl-next-door type of person with her shoulder length straight blonde hair and ditzy personality. When people saw us together, they would be somewhat surprised because they don't expect the prettiest party girl's of the school to be hanging around the artsy ugly-duckling. I mean, I'm not ugly but I'm not hot either.