December, 1986
Lindsay leaned her head back against the headrest and watched the cars flash by out the window, sending up waves of rainwater in their wake. The night sky glowed purple with the lights of the city reflecting on the clouds. She glanced over at her brother in the driver's seat, then pinched the necklace in her fingers and pulled it up off her chest to look at it more closely. It really was very pretty. You're my twin sister, my best friend, and the most important person in my life. I hope you know that. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. And why would they? She was a complete mess. There wasn't anything loveable about her. But she and Michael had been together their whole lives, they knew each other better than anyone. She didn't wonder why he loved her, it just made sense. Everything about him made sense. She closed her eyes. She had to stop lying to herself, she knew that she was in love with him.
It felt less like a sudden revelation than an acknowledgement of the obvious, because really, she'd known it for a while. She'd just been too afraid to admit it to herself until now. She didn't want to be in love with him. It was weird and gross, he was her twin brother. But she'd tried and tried not to feel this way about him and it hadn't done any good. As long as she kept it to herself it was okay, wasn't it? She couldn't help it, he was everything she wanted in a guy, he was movie star gorgeous and he did romantic things for her and he was crazy about her. She was sure of that. And he loved her, despite all her flaws he loved her. She'd never really felt happy with any of the guys she dated, and some part of her had always known it was because she was comparing them to Michael. How had it taken so long for her to admit to herself that she felt this way about him?
Of course, she could never tell him. She didn't know how he would react, and she couldn't handle him rejecting her. And even if he didn't, they shouldn't be together. It wasn't healthy, it was disgusting and it could only end badly. She didn't even know if she wanted that. The idea of actually being his girlfriend or something still grossed her out. But she did want him to want that. She remembered what he'd said when she'd started dating Andrew: 'What is he thinking?' But that was almost two years ago, and when Andrew had broken up with her he'd said he was lucky to have her. Of course, he hadn't been very convincing when she'd asked him about it earlier. But if she wasn't his sister, why wouldn't he want her to be his girlfriend? She was pretty and popular and they had so much fun together. She knew she had her issues, but he didn't care about that. It was nothing compared to the connection between them. She knew it was weird to care so much about this, especially when she didn't even want to be with him, but she needed him to feel the same way about her, just so she wouldn't feel like there was something wrong with her, or at least not something he couldn't overlook.
But it didn't matter anyway, because he would never tell her if he had feelings for her. She would just have to try her best to keep this to herself and hopefully someday she would get over him. But she was glad she was done lying to herself. There was no point in continuing to pretend things hadn't changed between them, and that part of her was glad that they had.
