Can't You Tell?

Chapter One

Ivy and I held hands from the very first moment.

Our mother says that when she first saw us together, laid side by side sleeping, we were holding hands and we kept moving in our sleep to be near to each other.

Most sisters would hate sharing a room with their sibling: but Ivy and I even shared a bed until we were ten. Even now, when one of us is scared, we will sleep together and chase nightmares away with our reflection.

Ivy and I do have a few things about us that aren't identical. For example, Ivy is a lot more neurotic than me. We made a friend once, way way back on our first day of kinder. That girl had another friend. We were both upset, but Ivy screamed and cried the loudest. You couldn't have us and someone else. It had to be always... Us. So no one else was ever our friend, and we were perfectly okay with our unspoken rule.

We are popular though. We're pretty, we can be nice if we feel like it, and that's all anyone really needs to be called popular. Lots of boys like us. We don't like anyone. But who cares. We're in grade eight now.

"Ivy!"

I turned around, and flashed Ivy a quick look. We instantly changed who we were. I was Ivy. Ivy was Lily. It was that easy, and that real. This was no pretending game: we felt as though, in a single moment, we had switched our souls and our minds. We were one person, and when we weren't together, we could choose who we were. Our names were nothing but who we chose to be. I wasn't really Lily. She wasn't really Ivy. They were just two names for us to alternate between when we felt like it. We were one entity.

"Yes?" I replied.

"Oh my gosh, guess what, Max said he has a crush on you!!" said some girl both Ivy and I didn't know the name of. She was just another stupid girl, trying to be our friend.

Of course, this Max (whoever the hell he was) didn't like Ivy. He didn't like either of us: we were the same. You can't just have one.

"Well, could you tell him to meet me after class? I'd like to talk to him."

"Oh my gosh, he's gonna be so happy!"

"I didn't say I liked him. I just want to talk."

The dumb girl looked at me 'knowingly', and sauntered off.

Ivy and I laughed at her without moving or changing our facial expressions.

And then we were one again.