The snowy atmosphere mingled with my tiny spasming breaths as my lungs couldn't seem to gather in enough air to keep me sane.

I pulled away from Evan, just like I pulled away from everyone after I'd found out the truth, but in that moment it had more to do with self preservation than emotional detachment.

My gaze locked on Vera across the courtyard and I found my out. 

"I'm going to go talk to Vera.  We're good right?"

I desperately pleaded that his answer would be short and sweet, my resolve crumbling as the seconds ticked by.

"Yeah, absolutely.  I'll see you later tonight for the dorm advisory meeting?"

"Of course, I'll sit with you," I said in parting and barely made it a few feet from him before pulling my cellphone out of my pocket and checking my notifications. 

My knees almost collided with the hard earth below me as I exhaled a breath filled with relief and slow dissolving panic.  

A few of my classmates had liked some of my pictures from a few weeks ago.  Those were the notifications I had assumed were from the person I never wanted to hear from ever again.  I turned my phone to silent mode and turned my notifications to 'silent' as well so that I wasn't blindsided again.

The residual effects from the terror induced moment quickly ebbed into anger.  I was angry- angry that this man could strike such fear into my heart with just a single click on a cellphone.  It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair.  I would have to find a way to take my power back from him, if only I could figure out how. 

My feet moved of their own accord, marching towards Vera as my arms wrapped themselves around my body to ward off the crisp twenty degree weather, with even my eyelashes seeming to freeze together in alliance with the frigid air.

"Hey hon, how'd that go?"

I accepted Vera's outstretched arm when I reached her and placed one arm around her shoulders while she did the same with mine.  I was grateful to have her, all the more reason I couldn't tell her what I had discovered in California.  I was terrified that she would view me differently- like I was tainted, dirty...the same way that I viewed myself every time I gazed in a mirror.

I used to be able to enjoy looking at my reflection.  I used to like the person staring back at me.

God, how I wished that I could just go back to that naive girl that hadn't gone poking around in her dad's computer files.  I had been so desperate to find my birth parents, that I didn't take into account the ramifications of what would happen after I did so. 

"As well as can be expected.  I had to let him down easy, again, and apologize for how Lachlan basically humiliated him in front of everyone but even worse was that I started it!  I was so stupid, I fell right into his trap!"

We walked together, arms slung across each other's shoulders, legs matching perfect pace even with her shorter legs trying to keep up with mine. 

"You can't control someone else's actions, especially Lachlan's.  Blythe has been telling me some things about him and...well, you have to promise you can't say anything, to anyone."

"Do you know me?  Of course I'll keep it quiet.  Come on, spill the tea!"

She laughed as we began kicking our legs out to the side in synchronization, causing us to lose our balance quite a few times but we just laughed and kept on going. 

"Well," she began, lowering her voice dramatically.

"He's been acting out, more than usual.  Smoking pot in the pool house, cigarettes in his room, drinking hard liquor right in front of his parents, getting into yelling matches with them over nothing, even going so far as to yell at Blythe.  He told her, 'you have no idea who these people are.  Keep sticking your head in the sand and being a naive little bitch' or something to that effect.  It got so bad one night that she came over to my house to stay the night."

"Holy shit."

'He's almost more messed up than me', I wanted to add, but of course I couldn't.  Maybe we were both the same level of messed up, I was just easier at hiding it.

"Yeah, and he doesn't care what he says or who he hurts.  She said it started happening about a year and a half ago, right around the time he started bullying us, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," I replied dryly.  It was right after Holden cheated on me with Sloane.

We finally made it to our destination- the dorms. 

"Okay so I'm just going to go to my dorm to fix up some of my stuff, do you want to meet me back here for the meeting?"

"Yeah, I have to go meet my new roommate anyway.  Lucky you, getting to room with your actual girlfriend and I'll probably be stuck with someone who steals my sweaters."

"It won't be so bad."

"Ever the optimist.  Oh, and I told Evan I'd sit with him too for the meeting."

"Okay great, I can check him out and see if he's holding a grudge, or maybe even a torch for our little Katrina..."

I groaned at her insinuation. 

"Alright, alright, none of that.  See you in a few."

We bade each other our goodbyes and I steeled myself for a few minutes while I traipsed the halls of Bayfield Academy's dorms. 

The girls were located in Baron Hall slapped right in the heart of campus, closer to the main academic building but farther from the pond, auditorium and main gate.  

The boys were located in Brighton Hall, to the left of the auditorium and closer to the entrance of the school. 

Sloane always used to complain because it was easier for the boys to be able to sneak out than the girls, given the fact that they had less of the campus to traverse than the girls as she had always been one to sneak out, especially with Holden after they'd been found out. 

I shivered as I remembered the day I had caught them...

Jenna's voice interrupted the dark trail that my thoughts were going down and abruptly turned on my heel to watch as she brushed past me and into the door frame that I had been standing in front of, scared to enter to meet my new roommate. 

I'd already met Vera's step sister, a blonde bombshell similar to my not so-step-sister Sloane, though from her actions I was glad that we weren't linked by blood.

Vera was blonde, Sloane was blonde, my mother, Evan...what was up with all the blonde people surrounding me?  At least my best friend didn't share the pale hair color trait, though her girlfriend Blythe did as well.

"So, you're my roommate."

"Good observation skills, Kat."

My eyes hardened into narrowed slits. 

"I actually prefer Kate."

"Whatever you say.  I thought I'd be in a single for the whole year, but you showing up kind of ruined that for me.  I have a few guys over sometimes, so it would be nice if you could leave every weekend, and on the weeknights too, just until around midnight, otherwise you might see some things you don't want to see."

Old Kate would've bent over backwards to try and make my new roommate happy, but new Kate didn't give a rat's ass about what Jenna wanted. 

"I don't think so.  I don't need you policing what times I can and cannot stay in my own dorm room."

She huffed as she began looking over my things that I'd yet to unpack.  

"Fine, but don't come crying to me when you see Taylor's di-"

"Jenna!  You are not having sex in the same room as me.  End of story."

She rolled her eyes and picked at her nails while I was desperately trying to keep myself from bashing my head into the nearest wall. 

We settled into an uncomfortable silence while I slipped my glorious music into my ears and organized and categorized all of my school supplies, finding the process therapeutic as the haunting notes filled my brain from my playlist. 

Soon enough, I'd hung up all of my uniforms for the week, filled my drawers with my underwear and bras as well as lounge clothes, and furnished my bedside table with small mementos of my friendships with Vera and Evan, photos of our childhood and a group picture that had Lachlan in the center, young and childish, an innocuous and innocent version of the bully before he grew into someone unrecognizable. 

I found myself humming along to a sad girl ballad with a lofty chorus and picked up a lone book in the corner of my end table and placed it on the appropriate shelf when my head whipped up at a sudden flurry of movement that raced across my vision. 

I pulled an ear bud out of my ear as Jenna stood to answer the door. 

"What was that?"

"Someone was knocking and yelling your name so I threw your jacket at you," she said, opening the door to reveal a not-so-pleasant looking Sloane waiting for me behind it. 

"Sloane?  What are you doing here?"

I had never been on good terms with my sister, so her making a 'house call' so to speak was out of the norm behavior for her. 

"I need to talk to you.  Jen, can you give us a minute?"

She pouted and was about to concede until I finally realized that this might be my only chance to get a real and true conversation out of my sister, so I slipped my coat and shoes on at the door and followed Sloane outside into the arched corridor. 

We moved further along down the hallway until we reached the staircase and I sat on one of the angled steps while she remained standing, leaning back against the wrought iron railing. 

"Where to begin," I said aloud, blowing on my hands to keep them warm in the frigid dusk air. 

"What do you mean, I'm the one who asked to talk to you?"

My eyes raked over her appearance; striking blue eyes dulled by the weather, blonde hair windswept and unkempt, pale skin almost translucent yet pretty.  Her expression was troubled, though, and I had a feeling that it had something to do with my my ex and her current boyfriend.

"I just figured we could get it all out in the open, you know, since we never talk to each other about anything.  I assumed that we could be frank with each other, say what we need to say."

She turned her nose up a bit at my words but didn't disagree, so I continued. 

"I didn't say a word when my 'boyfriend' cheated on me with my sister.  I didn't even say anything to you when our friends turned on me afterwards, or when mom and dad split and I chose to live with dad, we still didn't speak.  I come back, and you hardly say two words to me.  I just want to know what I did to make you hate me so much."

"Excuse me, what I did?  Do you seriously not know?"

"Apparently not.  Enlighten me, Sloane, what did I do to you?"

"You- You were the golden child!  I was the random accident that came along and derailed all of mom and dad's plans, then to make sure you didn't feel like some charity case adopted child, they went out of their way to do everything for you and make you feel loved, but the whole time they threw me to the side like trash!"

It was as if she'd slapped me in the face with her words.  I'd known all along that our parents had over compensated for my being adopted, but I had no idea that it had affected Sloane so deeply.  I knew she had been jealous of me, but not to this extent. 

"So you decided to go out and steal my boyfriend and turn my friends against me?  I'm confused here."

"Yes, I went after Holden, because I wanted a little piece of what you had.  Is that wrong, maybe, but it shows more that you couldn't keep him and I can.  But now you're back and trying to steal him away from ME this time, and I won't let you."

My eyebrows pulled up in confusion and I stared at her in amusement. 

"Wait.  Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?  You think I still want Holden?"

"Of course you do, it's why you came back isn't it?  I saw the way you looked at him the other night in the pool house, you still want him and you hate me enough to steal him away from me just like I did to you!"

"Oh, god, this day just keeps getting better and better.  Sloane, read my lips.  I do not want your slimy, cheating boyfriend and my own sloppy seconds.  You both deserve each other.  Now if that is all, I'll be going now."

I stood up but before I could take a step I felt her hand on my arm turning me back around to face her once more. 

Her eyes had adopted a panicked and almost feral quality. 

"Sloane, what do you think you're doing?"

"You don't understand what it's like being the discarded child, Kate.  It hurts!"

All the pent up aggression and pain and straight up emotional distress exploded out of me like a dam breaking over a river, and I unloaded all of the weight onto my sister.

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE?!"

She flinched from my words that screeched out of my throat, rubbing my vocal cords raw from the intensity behind which I delivered them. 

"I lived every single day of my life knowing that I was the second choice.  They wanted a biological child but couldn't have one, so they settled.  That was me.  They actually WANTED you, Sloane.  They over compensated for me to make sure that I felt loved, but they didn't have to do that with you.  Why?  Because you were supposed to imply that they loved you, just because you were theirs.  I never had that."

"Yes but Kate, you-"

"No, let me finish. I let you go on your useless tirade, well now it's my turn.  Every Christmas, birthday, big event in my life, I would wonder about my birth parents.  I wondered if they missed me, if they regretted giving me up...I've been a second choice my entire life, and you stealing my first boyfriend out from under me just confirmed every fear I'd ever had.  We can't be sisters...family doesn't do this to each other.  To me, you're just some girl my adoptive mother gave birth to."

I pulled my arm out from underneath her hand roughly and detracted my gaze from her watering eyes, steeling myself to make sure that I didn't give a damn about her emotions anymore.  I had to detach myself from her, otherwise I'd go running back to make sure she was okay, and I had grown far too much to do that to myself. 

I ignored the curious stares and whispers of people who'd gathered to witness the great sister blowout but only one pair of eyes caught my full attention. 

Golden amber in the fading sunlight and curiously cruel, Lachlan's stare was more punishing than it was inquisitive.  I threw him an angry smirk as I realized he'd had to change his outfit after the whole water throwing incident from earlier in the cafeteria. 

I only paled when I realized that he'd just witnessed myself falling apart in one of the most emotional and vulnerable moments I'd ever shared, had just watched me unravel myself and pour my insides out on the ground for a girl who was never worth it to begin with...

and I had just given him the best ammunition to use against me.