33
ONE LITTLE PUSH
For a moment, Ali couldn’t move. She stared at her sister opposite her. The girl’s eyes glinted. Her teeth glowed. Half her body was hidden in the mist, like she was a ghost.
Ali whipped around and headed toward the house. “You’re not supposed to be outside.”
Her twin caught her arm and dug her nails into her skin. “You’re not going anywhere, Ali.”
“Let go of me,” Ali said, trying to yank her arm away. But Courtney’s grip was firm. “I’ll scream,” she warned, fear rising in her voice.
Courtney chuckled. “No, you won’t. You won’t say anything.”
“Yes, I will,” Ali said. “Mom and Dad will come running.”
Courtney guffawed. “Um, didn’t you just see what I saw? Mom’s a little busy right now.”
“Then I’ll call Dad.”
Courtney’s smile stretched wider. “Dad’s passed out on the couch. Someone might have slipped something in his wine at dinner.”
Ali backed away, suddenly trembling. She really is crazy, she thought.
But “Courtney” just pulled her back. “And don’t think Jason’s going to come rescue you,” she whispered in Ali’s ear. “He doesn’t give a shit about either of us. And as far as your friends go, they all left. Some end-of-seventh-grade sleepover, huh?”
“Let go of me!” Ali exclaimed. Her arm was starting to sting from the pressure of her sister’s fingernails, and her heart was beating so fast she thought it might explode in her chest. Her nostrils caught another whiff of that cigarette. The source was close, but it didn’t seem like her twin had been smoking. “What are you doing out here?”
Courtney chuckled again, the most horrible sound in the world. “Oh, I just wanted to see what your life is like. My life. What possessed you to pick those girls as your new friends? To torment me? To ruin my reputation?”
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Ali said defensively, suddenly feeling a rush of protectiveness for her friends. “They’re really sweet.”
“They’re really sweet,” Courtney mimicked. “Do you think they’ll still do everything you ask when they find out what you did?”
“They’ll never believe you,” Ali said, but even she heard the waver in her voice.
Courtney raised her chin. “They will if I tell them the truth about you.”
Ali tensed. All of a sudden, anger rushed through her, hot and potent. “The truth?” she asked. “And what would that be? How you manipulated me for years? How you got me sent to the hospital instead of you? How you stood there and told them I had to go away?”
“You did have to go away,” Courtney said, her voice eerily calm. “And you’re going to have to go again. You’re going to tell everyone what you did. And they’re never, ever going to forgive you.”
Fear streaked through Ali’s veins, but she stood her ground. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, planting her feet in the wet, chilly grass. She laughed as confidently as she could. “Do you really think it would be easy for you to step into my life and be me? I’ve done things you aren’t capable of. I’m better at being you than you ever were.”
“It’s my life,” her sister snarled, placing her hands firmly on Ali’s shoulders. “You really think I’m going to have a hard time? I can even be friends with those stupid bitches, if that’s what it takes. I can do this with my eyes closed.”
“No, you can’t,” Ali said. “You don’t know anything.”
Courtney snorted. “Please. I read your diary—my diary. I know everything about them, about you. You put every secret in there, everything important.”
“Not everything,” Ali snapped, thinking of Nick. Thank God she’d left him out. She wished she could lord that over Courtney right now—he had, after all, been her unrequited crush. But now that they were over, her twin would just laugh at her.
“You certainly put in enough in your diary,” Courtney taunted. “That’s how I figured out that we’ve been calling the wrong guy Dad. Watch where you store your secrets, Ali. Anyone can open up a diary and find out all kinds of things.” She took Ali’s arm. “And now it’s time for you to say good-bye. Let’s go find Mom and our real father, shall we? We can tell them everything!”
She clamped down hard on Ali’s shoulders and tried to steer her toward the Hastingses’ house, but Ali folded her body in half and twisted away. Courtney grabbed her around the waist and yanked her across the grass, but Ali stumbled, pulling her sister down with her.
“Get up, bitch!” Courtney yelled.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Ali pulled hard on her twin’s hair and rolled over on top of Courtney, pinning her onto the prickly grass. The old feelings rushed back—she was that little nine-year-old girl again, fighting against a force so crazy, so manipulative, she didn’t know what else to do but hit her, punch her, lose her mind.
But then, suddenly, she snapped back into herself. This was crazy. She hated her sister, but she couldn’t fall back into that trap. She had to be the bigger person.
She rolled off Courtney, stood, and started toward the house. But just a few steps in, a hand snaked around her ankle, and she was sprawled on the grass once more. She felt her sister’s body press on top of her. The ends of her long hair tickled the back of Ali’s neck.