I watched and waited, with bated breath, to see if Dad would wake up from his position, sprawled on the couch. When he didn't move and kept snoring, I gently pulled the door open all of the way, and stepped out into the cool, night air.

I pushed the door shut until it clicked. As I walked past my room, I made sure the window wasn't locked, so that I could return to my room that way if need be. I didn't know how long I planned to be out, but on nights like this, anything could happen.

I walked down my street, listening to the sounds of the city at night as I did. The moon peeked it's silver-gray face from behind a cloud. There were no stars that night. When there were stars, I liked to walk up to the old playground off the corner of Main Street, stretch out in the sandbox, and stare at them. They made me feel calm and safe.

I pushed the thoughts aside and hugged my black leather jacket tighter. I don't need to feel safe or calm. I'm a teenager. We live off of chaos. And safe? Ha! No one would care if I wasn't. Besides, I can take care of myself.

I stopped in front of a large, two-story house tucked into a small piece of land that was fairly secluded from the city. Music poured from speakers that were strategically arranged outside. Strings of fairy lights lit the entire house up like some version of a Christmas tree with dark, foreboding shadows. Catcalls and laughter rang through the air. Drunk teens stumbled from inside the house, collapsing blindly on the front lawn amid a mess of bottles and cups. The air smelled heavily of booze.

Boldly, I sauntered up to the door and strode right in, smiling to myself. This is exactly what I need tonight.

It was about five in the morning when I practically fell through my window at the house. I stumbled over to my bed and sat down, my head in my hands. My drunkenness from the night before had already worn off, and I was left with nothing but an incredibly intense and painful headache.

As it was, I almost screamed when a dark figure rose from its position on my desk chair. "Jesus, Car! Don't fucking do that!" I said to my twin sister, who shook her head at the way I had whispered the words so as not to hurt my head any more.

Carrie stepped into the light, took one look at my appearance, and sighed. I glanced down self-consciously, taking in my Green Day hoodie, the black leather jacket draped over my arm, my ripped jeans, and my old, worn-out Converse. My eyes caught onto my hands as I did so, and I started to notice how plain they were.

My fingers weren't long and slender and elegant. They were chunky, short, and small. My nails were chipped and without any polish whatsoever. So plain. My arms were oddly sized and too fat. I could catch a goddamn plate with my bulky-ass thighs, and my butt wasn't the right size. My boobs were too small and I had too much of a stomach. And then there was the monstrosity of my face. I had acne and pimple scars and my teeth were horrible due to alcohol usage. My eyes were a dull shade of hazel, and my hair was a tangled mess of wavy, shoulder-length brown locks. I was nothing in the way of appearances. Nothing to be proud of. Nothing to show. Nothing to display. Nothing to offer. Nothing special.

My sister, Carrie, on the other hand, was perfectly beautiful. She always wore stylish clothes. She knew what the trends were and what fashions were 'in'. She made herself a work of art each morning. Her skin was tanned from spending just the right amount of time outdoors, and her face was free of all imperfections. She had dazzling blue eyes and long, silky blonde hair. At school, boys flocked around her and her posse constantly. Boys never even gave me a second glance. Carrie was the picture of perfection. Next to her, I was nothing short of garbage.

Carrie snapped me from my thoughts by shaking my shoulders roughly. "Reese, what were you thinking? You know how dangerous those parties are! You can't keep doing this shit!"

I rolled my eyes, looking directly into her ice-blue ones. She stood towering over me, as she was standing and I was sitting. It was funny; I was the older one, though only by a minute or so, but Carrie had always treated me like her baby sister.

"Oh, yeah?" I sassed her. "And who's going to stop me? You? Ha!"

"Mom and Dad would," Carrie said quietly. My heart skipped a beat. There's no way Carrie would tell on me. Is there?

"Please," I replied. "They don't know, and even if they did, they wouldn't fucking care!"

"I think they would," Carrie said, even softer this time. Too tired and brain-dead to think up a sarcastic response to her comment, I rolled my eyes again and flipped her off. Carrie sighed in exasperation and looked up at the ceiling.

"Whatever," she huffed and strode out of my room with purpose. "Good luck with keeping your dirty little secret from Mom and Dad."

I sighed and laid down on my bed as Carrie slammed the door behind her. It had always been that way. From the moment that we were born, Carrie was Mom and Dad's star, and me? Well, I was just extra baggage.

We used to do things together as a family a lot. When Carrie and I were five, six, and seven, Mom and Dad paid attention to us. Now, they only pay attention to Carrie. It hurt me because Mom and I used to be really close. Every night, she'd tuck me into bed, and tell me the exact same bedtime story every time: How she met Dad.

Mom and Dad were highschool sweethearts. She told me about how guarded she was with Dad at first, and how he eventually broke through her walls. She told me about getting pregnant at eighteen, and how alone and hopeless she had felt.

During that part in her story, she would always trail off and lose herself in a sad circle of thoughts for a minute or so. It was only when I was twelve that I learned about what rape was, and knew the truth of how Carrie and I came to be. Mom had been raped by some guy at a party, and gotten pregnant. He'd never made any sort of fuss over custody or anything like that.

When she got back to her story, she told me about how helpful and amazing Tristan (my non-biological father) had been to her during her pregnancy. She said that it was the first thing that prompted her to fall in love with him. The way that she had painted it for me in my younger years was like something out a fairytale.

But, that was then. Now, I know better. I know that fairytales aren't real. Miracles don't exist. And nothing is without tragedy.

The parts that Mom always left out of her story were the death. The pain. The suffering. The tears. The loss. The tragedy. Being an overeager fifteen year-old, I wanted to know as much about my family as I could. I ran a background check on all of us, and found that Mom and Dad are connected to four deaths, two dangerous gangs, and one missing person's case.

The four deaths were of people they knew well. First, there was Reese; the girl I was named after. Dad's little sister. She died of lung cancer in an Alabama hospital around the time that he and Mom had started dating. Second, there was Lisa; Mom's best friend from Alabama. She killed herself, days after the third death Mom and Dad are connected to: Hannah Wilkins; Lisa's wife. Hannah was shot to death during a gang fight that she accidentally stumbled upon in the streets. And, lastly, there was Carrie; the girl my sister was named after. She was Dad's older sister. She committed suicide years before Reese died.

I checked the dates on the obituaries, and it seemed that Hannah and Lisa had died around the same time that Carrie and I started school. Around the same time that she became the obvious star of the show and I was pushed into the background. Around the same time Mom and Dad stopped caring as much.

The gangs surprised me. Apparently, my mother and Tristan had helped take down a large international drug trafficking gang. The gang was a ruthless one. Sex, money, drugs, and alcohol were all that it consisted of. Women and men were kidnapped every year and thrown into the gang. Before long, all of the kidnapped gave up their old lives for the gang life and stayed with the gang without being forced to.

The other gang was even more surprising. Dad had ties to one other drug trafficking gang, but in an unexpected way. The leader of that gang was his father. His father was also the leader of the gang he and my mom had helped to take down. His father must have given up his original gang for the new one.

The missing person's case was also a bit unexpected. Apparently, Dad's mother had went missing a while ago, supposedly kidnapped by her boyfriend, who was a gang member. Dad had told me before that his mother had abandoned him after his sister's death and ran off with a gang leader. I just hadn't thought about it that much.

After the background search, it was obvious to me that the family had been through a lot. It was so much easier to tell myself that I would only be burdening them if I told them my problems with them, knowing that. So, instead, I dealt with my feelings and problems a different way. The way that I always had.

I smiled in satisfaction at that ending thought and pulled the covers over myself. I closed my eyes gently and let sleep suck me into it's vortex.