I stood behind my mom outside the front door while the noise of the key wriggling in the lock filled my eardrums. The wind blew past us, carrying speckles of dirt with it as it went on with its journey. It was dark outside, only silhouettes of the neighboring houses could be made out.

Suddenly, I'm snapped out of thought when then the door swings open slowly.

My mom walked in and her first stop was to the wine rack to pour herself a glass before going to the living room to watch her weekly dose of The Bachelorette.

"Wanna join me?", she asks me. She always watched the show every Sunday night with Kylie. It was sort of their thing.

"Sure", I said and sat next to her on the couch, putting my backpack down on the dining table.

I picked up the remote and put on the show while my mom poured me a glass. I'm underage but, my mom doesn't care for those kind of rules.

We watched the show for a while, gasping and commenting where necessary until finally, the episode was done.

"Ugh! That was so great! I can't wait for next weeks episode", she smiles and gulps her last sip of wine.

"Mom, can I talk to you?", I ask, "about Kylie"

I can see the reservation in her eyes. But she agrees and turns off the tv.

"What is it?", she asks me

"I know about the autopsy", I figured I should just come out and say it. Why beat around the bush right?

"Wh...what....what do you mean?", she stutters nervously

"I know that you asked Dr. Leon to forge Kylie's autopsy. I wanna know why"

She stayed quiet for a minute.

"How do you know that?", she asked me

"That doesn't matter. What matters is why", I say, "why did you ask him to forge the autopsy?"

I could tell that she was cooking up a lie in her mind so I had to think fast. "You need to tell me the truth. Or next time I'm in Echo Creek, I'll ask Mr. Keller"

Her face immediately went pale when she heard the name come out of my mouth.

"How do you know about....Kelsie what the hell have you been up to?", she asked me nervously

"I asked you first"

".....I had to"

"Why?"

"... I....she....well", she continued to stutter

"Are you gonna tell me? Or will I have to talk to Mr. Keller?", I stand up

"No! Okay...I'll tell you", she screams and I sit back down

"There's no easy way to say this", she says

"Mom!", I aggressively say

Tears start to fall onto her cheeks. "Kylie was a twin"

I almost choke on the breath I take in while I gasp.

"What do you mean?"

"Your dad and I started dating in our last year of high school. I was young and reckless. I was just...all over the place. Making the worst decisions", she cried, "before graduating. The night for prom, I slept with someone else and.... I found out a few weeks later that I was pregnant. With Kylie....and....and her twin sister"

At this point. I was speechless.

".....Your grandmother thought the best thing to do was to tell your dad that the babies were his but....that was after I already told Kylie's real father"

Those words stung. "Kylie's real father"

"....so we made a compromise. We decided that your grandmother was going to carry out my pregnancy and on the night I delivered, we would say one of the twins died but instead....."

"You got to keep Kylie and her twin sister went to her dad", I said

"Yeah", she continued. Trembling. "....I had to fake the autopsy so the dna would match your dad's. I couldn't risk him or anyone finding out after all these years"

I barely realized that I was now crying.

"So Kylie died....living a lie"

My mom was now sobbing.

"Who's her father?"

My mom paused for abit and wiped her tears. ".....Mr Keller"

Words had left me. I stared at her and my heart went silent. The realization of those words hit me like a hurricane. This completely changes our entire family dynamic. Kylie's my half sister and she didn't even know. She had a twin and she didn't even know. She has absolutely no relation to Kiara and she didn't even know. Her real father was living somewhere in Echo Creek...and she didn't even know.

"Wait. Does that mean....Ashley was the other twin?"

She nods her head. "Kelsie you need to promise me that you won't tell anyone about this. You can't"

I couldn't care less about what she had to say. I've been living with a stranger my whole life. A liar. Whose to say this is the only thing she lied about? For all I know, I could very well have been adopted.

"What did the real autopsy say?", I ask. Fighting back tears, "how did she die?"

"The cause of death was the same...she was intoxicated and she drowned. That's it. The only thing I wanted to change was the dna"

"You swear on Kylie's life?"

".... I swear on Kylie's life"

***

The next day, Ryder, Trip and I stood in the hallway by my locker, catching up on the weekend. When I told them what I found out last night, it was clear to see they were as surprised me.

"As crazy as all of this is, and I hate to say it but, you know this means we were wrong. Kylie wasn't murdered.", Ryder says

"Then why don't I feel like that's true", I say, "This whole thing is just really weird"

"You still think she was murdered?", Trip asks me

"I feel it guys."

"Look, your mom just straightened it out. Maybe you're in denial", Ryder tries, "It's time to stop playing investigator and get back to reality"

I stay with Trip and watch Ryder make her way to class.

"I gotta go to class",I groan

Trip gives me a kiss on my forehead and I go to class.

I know I should be happy that my sister wasn't mercilessly murdered and all but if I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm not sure I trust my mom after all the lies she's been keeping.

My sister was murdered....and I'm gonna find out who did it.

I got home after a gruesome 3 hours of soccer practice with sweat dripping pretty much all over my body. A piece of paper was stuck to the fridge. "I'm going to be home by 11, don't wait up. Money for pizza in the cabinet"

Looks like mom's back to her old habits

"Enjoy the one night stand mom", I mumble to myself before throwing away the paper and grabbing a bottle of water.

Wait a minute, this is my chance.

I run upstairs to my mom's room and scan the place. I rummage through the drawers and search through the cabinets to look for...well, I don't know really but, when I find it I will.

I look around for almost half an hour then I decide to look under the bed. There, I find a little brown box with a lock.

"Great", I groan

I pull out the hair pin from my hair and try to unlock the box. To my surprise, it actually works and what I find in the box is shockingly gruesome.

I drop the box and bring my palms to my mouth. "Oh my Gosh"

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