Chapter 4

Love Isn't Just an Expression

My sister and I always looked a lot alike. We were born less than a year apart, too, so a lot of times people even thought we were twins.

But it was rare that anyone ever actually mixed us up. Shanna was always more confident and outgoing, while I've always been shy and quiet. My sister had tons of friends, and she always drew attention from boys. It didn't matter that we had almost the same face. She just seemed prettier and more alluring.

I don't mean to say that she was stuck up about it, though. She wasn't. She always looked out for me.

As I leave the library with my sister on my mind, I see Damon Hughes leaning against a banister, texting.

I'd almost forgotten about him. But before I went missing and everything happened, I used to have a huge crush on Damon. He's in all the AP classes, and everyone knows he's probably going to go to Columbia. In other words, he wasn't my sister's type at all. But when I told Shanna one night that I liked him, she was really sweet about it. She encouraged me to talk to him, and she even went out of her way to introduce us the next day. "This is my sister Celeste," she said. "She's insanely smart." Which isn't true, but thinking back on it now, it reminds me of how my sister really did always want the best for me.

I can't catch Damon's eye. He's still absorbed in his phone. I raise my hand and wave timidly on my way down the school's front steps, but he doesn't see me.

Instead of walking toward the subway station, I do something that's kind of out of character. Maybe thinking about Shanna is encouraging me to be bolder. Or maybe I need a break from my strange mental obsessions and I just want to think about boys for once like a normal teenager. Whatever the reason, I turn down the street which I know Damon lives on. I walk deliberately slowly, hoping he'll catch up to me on his way home.