For what had to be the hundredth time that week, Emberlynn felt like she was going to cry. Her eyes were totally unfocused as she stared at the screen in front of her, trying to figure out how the hell to write a second essay without making it sound identical to the first.

“And make sure MINE’S better,” Serenity had warned her. “You get a better grade than me and, well… You know what’ll happen.”

Emberlynn wasn’t even GOOD at Chemistry. And she was sure Serenity knew that too. All the more reason to make her suffer through it.

It had barely been three days, and already Serenity was taking a sick satisfaction in making Emberlynn’s life a living hell. Beyond making Emberlynn do her homework for most of her classes, Serenity was finding other, more subtle ways to manipulate her as well.

Serenity now forced Emberlynn to sit with her, Trent, and Natasha at lunch every day, despite how much she now loathed all three of them. And if Emberlynn didn’t smile or look happy enough in their presence, Serenity would pull out her phone and threaten to send the picture to everyone.

Serenity also seemed to enjoy making small, seemingly trivial requests of Emberlynn just for the fun of it. Just that morning, she’d woken up to a text insisting she wear pink to school. Emberlynn had nearly been out the door when she’d seen it, and her parents were rather irritated when she ran back up to her room to change without explanation. But she had to. Because Emberlynn knew exactly what would happen if she didn’t.

I hate her. Emberlynn thought miserably as she felt her tears threatening to fall at last. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. I —

The knocking on her bedroom door made her jump.

“Who is it?” She called out, hastily wiping away her tears.

“Uh… It’s me. Duh.” Tristan’s voice called from the other side of the door. “The only person in this house who knocks and actually means it?”

Emberlynn couldn’t hold back a small laugh at her brother’s words. Both her parents and grandparents were well known for their “knock but immediately open the door anyway” tactic. Ugh.

“Well, it’s open.” She called back to him, not even bothering to turn around and face him. “What do you want?”

It was very odd for Tristan to suddenly show up in her room like this. Minus meal times and the occasional brother-sister Galaxy Quest showdown, she and Tristan barely saw each other these days.

“Nothing… Just wanted to… say hi.” Her little brother smiled rather unconvincingly at her as he took a seat on the bench at the foot of her bed.

Emberlynn let out a heavy sigh. She didn’t have time for his crap right now. “Look, I’m kinda busy with this stupid essay…” BOTH stupid essays, she corrected herself mentally. “But if you need me to teach you how to clear the browser history again, come here and I’ll show you.” She offered, gesturing toward her computer screen.

“What? No!”

She turned back to the laptop with a shrug. “Then I don’t know why you’re bugging me.”

Tristan seemed to hesitate before replying. “Uh, well, I… I guess I wanted to ask you about something?” He confessed at last. “Or tell you, I guess. It’s, um… It’s pretty funny, actually. I think. Maybe.”

This was enough to give Emberlynn pause. It was almost painful to hear her brother awkwardly stumbling over his words like this, and it most definitely wasn’t like him. Something HAD to be up.

With one last glance at the half-finished essay on her computer screen, Emberlynn rose to her feet to join Tristan on the bench. “Alright, fine.” She said with a small sigh. “What’s up?”

Again, her brother hesitated. “So, Ben sent me this picture last night. He said his brother showed it to him. I think he’s in the same grade as you…”

“What kind of picture?” Emberlynn asked slowly, already terrified of his answer.

“It’s, um, it’s a picture of this girl? Like, without a shirt on? But somebody covered her face.”

Emberlynn’s stomach dropped through the floor at his words. She said nothing as he continued.

“And it took me a little while to notice, but uh… I thought it was really weird that the wallpaper in the bathroom looked just like ours. And there was this blue toothbrush on the counter, just like mine. And a green one that looked almost like Papa’s… Crazy right?”

“Yeah.” Emberlynn replied, her voice hollow. “Crazy.”

Tristan seemed to eye her expectantly for a moment, but when she remained silent, he pressed on. “And… And the girl in the picture was really skinny like you. And… her jeans reminded me of those ones you wear all the time?” He spoke the words as though they were a question. “She even had the same phone as you. That’s… that’s super funny right? Like, what are the odds?” He forced a very uncomfortable smile.

Beside him, his sister could not even bring herself to do the same. Several long moments of awkward silence passed before she found her voice. “Why don’t you just ask me what you wanna ask, Tristan?” Emberlynn whispered.

But it was clear to both of them that she’d already answered the unspoken question.

“Shit.” Tristan muttered, clearly disappointed that his fears had been confirmed. “Ember… This is bad.” His voice was very small.

“Yeah, no shit.” She replied. But instead of anger, she felt herself overcome with a wave of sadness and shame. How had she not prepared herself for this? Of COURSE her little brother would see it. It was only a matter of time. “Look, you CAN’T tell Mama and Papa about this, okay? I’m serious.”

“Yeah, but –”

“PROMISE you won’t tell!” She demanded, her shame finally giving way to anger. “Or I swear to God, I will show them every single nasty website you’ve ever been to!”

Her brother’s mouth fell open in horror. “You know about that?!” Clearly he was too stunned to even try to deny it.

“Duh. Why else do you think I taught you how to clear your history?” For a moment, she almost wanted to laugh at the look on Tristan’s face. “Look at it this way — We’re even now, okay? We both know each other’s gross, embarrassing secrets. Now we’ve gotta swear we’re gonna keep them from Mama and Papa.”

“Fine.” Tristan agreed almost reluctantly. “I promise I won’t tell.”

“Good.”

“But Ember, I… I just… I mean like…” Once more, Tristan was struggling to find the right words. “Are you okay?” He asked at last.

Emberlynn rolled her eyes at the absurdity of his question. “Yeah. Sure. Never been better.”

“Okay, that was stupid. I know you’re not.” He admitted softly. “But can you at least tell me who did this to you?”

“Trent and Serenity.” She muttered bitterly.

“Who?”

Emberlynn couldn’t help but feel slightly amused — she’d never realized until now just how disconnected her brother’s world was from hers. All his classes were in a different part of the school building, he ate lunch at a different time, and of course, at home the two of them shared very little with one another about their personal lives.

“This guy I… I dated.” Emberlynn tried to explain. “And his sister.”

Tristan nodded in understanding. “Okay, but like, WHY? I just can’t believe someone would do this to you.”

Emberlynn’s laugh was devoid of any humor. “It’s kind of a long story. And a pretty messed up one too, I guess.”

“Uh oh. What do you mean?”

It was Emberlynn’s turn to hesitate this time. How much did she really want her little brother to know about what had happened? In the end, however, her desire to be able to open up to someone — anyone — won out.

With a deep breath, Emberlynn told her brother a slightly abridged version of everything that had happened, leaving out a few details that she felt he didn’t really need to know, but painting what she hoped was a clear enough picture of just how messy and terrible everything had become.

When she’d finished, Tristan seemed almost at a loss for words. “Jesus. I hate to say it, Em, but… I really think you’ve gotta tell Mama and Papa.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said before?! No.”

“I know, but… This is SUPER fucked up and illegal and…” Tristan shrugged helplessly.

“Look, I’m gonna find a way to handle it, alright?” Emberlynn’s expression softened slightly. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Yeah, but… you’re my sister. How can I not?”

She smiled as a surge of affection for the little twerp sitting beside her swelled in her chest. Sure, he was a total pain in the ass, but it was nice knowing that he had her back.

“Thanks, Tristan… And I guess if you really want, you can help me and Zelda figure out a plan?”

His eyes lit up. “What kind of plan?”

Emberlynn smiled at him. “Revenge, duh… Though I’m not sure how successful we’re gonna be.” She admitted. “Z’s working on going through like, every single post on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram that either of them ever made. She figures there’s gotta be SOMETHING we can use. Some clue to help us…”

Tristan nodded in understanding. “It’s like trying to win a boss battle… You’ve just gotta figure out their weakness.”

“Exactly… Though from what Zelda says, it’s looking like they don’t even have any.” Emberlynn replied with a shrug. “She hasn’t found anything yet. Guess it’d probably be easier if we actually knew them.” She hadn’t realized until now just how little she truly knew about either of the Ziegler twins. Not much beyond what terrible, scummy assholes they were, anyway.

Tristan’s brow furrowed for a moment. “What about that guy… Jace, right? I bet he’d know something. Why doesn’t Zelda ask him?”

Emberlynn rolled her eyes. “Weren’t you listening, twerp? Serenity leaks the picture if I say even ONE word to Jace. And she knows Z’s my cousin. There’s no way she’d let that slide — she’d trace it right back to me.” Emberlynn was fairly certain that even talking to Jace by proxy would still count, in Serenity’s eyes.

She watched with interest as a wide smile suddenly spread across her brother’s lips.

“What?” Emberlynn asked, eyeing him warily.

“I think I just figured out how I can help you.” He replied happily.

She eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. “Does it involve doing something totally stupid?”

Tristan shook his head. “Nah… It does involve trusting me though.”

For a moment, Emberlynn glanced over her shoulder, back at the half-finished essay she’d been forced to write for Serenity. There was no way she could continue going on like this. She had to do something. And she knew that whatever that ‘something’ was, she couldn’t do it alone.

“Alright, I’ll trust you.” She replied at last. “Long as it gets me out of this stupid mess.”

“Well, I can’t make any promises or anything, but… that’s the plan!”

“Thanks. It means a lot that you wanna help…” Emberlynn paused for a moment. “Don’t ever tell anybody I said this, but… I guess you’re really not that bad, as far as little brothers go.”

“Wow, Em… That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

“Okay, okay, enough sappy stuff… I’ve gotta get back to work!”

Emberlynn released her brother from her embrace and quickly went back to her computer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tristan head for the door, leaving her alone again at last. Their conversation had given her a fleeting glimmer of hope, and she desperately wanted to believe that between herself, Zelda, and Tristan they’d be able to figure something out.

But until then…

Ugh. Thought Emberlynn bitterly as she got back to work on the essay. I hate her. I really, REALLY hate her…

————————————-

Note: Just wanted to let you guys know I’m trying out a new semi-official schedule, which is kind of a weird one. Instead of officially designated update days, I’m going to try out a “chapter every five days” schedule 🙂 Slightly more frequent than one a week, but not quite two a week either.

This means the next chapter will be Thursday the 14th, the one after will be Tuesday the 19th, etc 🙂 Roughly the same pace I’ve had for a while, but making it a bit more regular/predictable for you guys!

We’ll try this out for a while, and as always I will let you know if this plan changes! Thanks!