I open my eyes and rub them, yawning. I hug my teddy, saying good morning to him, and get up from my bed.

"Chris? Chris?" I wander through the house and I hear some voices. I start running and when I head downstairs I see my brother, sitting on the floor, at the end of the staircase.

"Chris? Where is mommy?", I ask my brother and every time I look at him, I see myself, like I'm looking at the mirror. It is so amazing that we look like the same person. We would love to play with our parents, but they are not happy with us. Or that is just what I think.

"Shh!", he scolds me, putting his finger on my lips and I frown. "They are there", he whispers, "daddy is yelling at mom."

I glance at him, starting to run to the room where our parents are, but he pushes me quickly before I can even move.

"What are you doing?", he hisses, still whispering though louder than before.

"We have to help mommy! She is hurting!"

"No, he is just showing her lovey", he says pronouncing the word love wrongly.

What is this? Why am I back at my home? Why am I looking at mom and dad fighting? Why is Chris so young? Why doesn't he want to help mom? We have to help her. I try to run, but my legs do not want to move.

"Chris, run, save her!", I yell, but he shakes his head.

"Dad will hurt me. He doesn't like when I show up there. He wants to be alone with mom." I shake my head and try to run, but again I am stuck. Goddamit!

I want to move, but I cannot. What is this? Is this r-real? I do not want to be here again. I hate seeing dad doing this to mom. I hate. Please let it not be real.

I can hear her sobs, her begging, but I cannot help her. "Mom!", I scream and I can see her face lighting up.

"Myles!", she cries, her face softening, happy to see someone that can help her. "Myles, please, baby help your mommy! Please!"

When I try to run again, I see him hitting her hard, so hard that she falls on the floor, unconscious.

"Moooooommm!!!!"

I open my eyes and frown when I see things around me so vividly, unlike beforehand. My bedroom. I am in my bedroom. My bedroom in the foster family. I sit up and take off my sweaty shirt, rubbing my eyes.

See, my dear diary, I usually do not have nightmares. They are not frequent, at least. I sometimes dream about my mom and it is only me and her, holding hands and her kissing me on my cheek and telling me to be a good boy. I maybe had two nightmares, one was when she left us, where Chris and I are crying and yelling to her to come back, I am running after her, yet she does not turn around as I fall and fail to keep up with her. And second, was.... when I found her... and she was not alive. That one was the worst. I shiver at memories of this and push the soaking wet blanket off me.

My eyes glance at my teddy bear. Mateo. He is looking at me sadly, asking me to come back to bed and not leave him alone. But, Myles toys cannot speak and feel, I remind myself. Yes, they can, the childish part of me says. He can talk and he is the only thing you have from your mother, you better not leave him. Ugh, I sigh and climb back to bed, sitting on the sheets.

"Mateo", I take him, studying his eyes and buttons on his black shirt which is ripped because I barely saved him from my dad. He wanted to throw him away. He thought that mom bought me that and he was angry because she spent money on that stupid silly toy and not on what he wanted her to spend- on alcohol.

But little did I know that she had found him in the garbage, with no eye. But, my lovely mom sew him another one and since then he is healthy.

"Aren't that right, Mateo?", I shake him, smiling and brushing my nose on his. I make him nod, with my arms wanting so bad to think that he did that on his own and not that my hands made that movement. I smile and fondle his ear. I put him under the sheets, covering his body neatly, and stop talking to the toy. How silly of you, Myles.

I go to the bathroom to change and brush my teeth, and fresh up a little. When I come back I see that it is 7:30. Scott is probably still asleep, so I have some time before the work.

Yes, I have to work my diary. I am a drug dealer. I sell stuff that can kill people. I know that is illegal and bad, but I swear to you, I swore to you that I do not do that because I want to, but because I am forced. And if I do not do what I am asked to do, I may feel consequences. Bad ones. Painful ones. And I do not want to be harm and unable to protect my brother. He is more beaten than me, since he is stubborn and always tries to disobey, Scott our keeper. I cannot really say a keeper since we are more like his slaves.

Chris is in charge of selling and hiring young people like us. He says that he can sense if those idiots are good enough to blow up the business. I, on the other hand, am only Scott's and Christopher's puppy. But, I do not really want any position. I would rather not do this at all, but here it is what it is. I am forced and I have to and that is the end of the story. I am not complaining, please do not think that. I am just confessing to you my thoughts and feeling.

I put sweatpants on and lay down on the floor to do some crunches. The moment my head is on the floor I see the image of my mom's body laying on it, unconscious. My vision gets blurred, but I know that I can calm down.

One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Three. Breathe in. Breathe out. Fou...

"Myles, get up! Get up, boy, now!", someone slaps the door and I already know who that someone is by his voice. Scott. "Oh, you're up. Good."

I may have not told you that when we are not working, he is nicer and maybe even the nicest person you have ever met. But, I have to mention that, unfortunately, we are almost always at work.

"You didn't forget that today that new girl is coming?" He cocks his eyebrow, leaning on the door frame, while I lift my body off the floor.

Oh, no. I actually did forget. How could I?

"No, absolutely, not", I lie, beaming.

"Good. Her social worker is going to bring her here at 8. Get ready. And don't forget, no matter how pretty she is... No kissing. No sex. Nothing." Why would I even do that? I cannot fall in love anymore. Not after her.

She was someone who I really was attracted to. She was the rock I did not know I needed. But know she is gone and as much as I want to mourn her, I cannot. I have to move on because she would love it if I did that. She would not like to see me depressed and lost, but I feel exactly like this without her. It is been two years after she... But I love to say after I left her. Because we moved out of there. And maybe that was a good decision. If I stayed there I could not forget all the good memories we had made. My first kiss.

A couple of tears threaten to fall. No! I cried enough. I love her and she loves me even though she is not here anymore. I have to believe in this otherwise I cannot live. And I have to live. For her. To live the life she could not live. To experience the things she would love to.

"Understood?", Scott's voice startles me and I shake my head, remembering his question. Oh, yeah no sex. And kissing.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I'll go to wake up your brother." And after a couple of seconds, I can hear the same words he told me after he punched the door the same way he did with mine, trying to wake me up, not knowing that I was already awoken. I close the door of my room and finish my workout.

☆☆☆

"We have to look good, okay?", Scott tells us and I can smell his fresh shave. "Why are you dressed up in all black?" Chris and I glance at each other and shrug at the same time. "It's not anyone's funeral. Go change!", he orders.

"I'm not changing cuz of some dumb girl", Chris mutters, rolling his brown eyes. Scott approaches him with that look and I realize what is going, so I quickly say:

"I am going to change."

"Quickly!", he pushes me and I run back to my room. "And you slut what did you put on yourself? They don't want to see your boobs, for fuck's sake, they are only for me!", I hear him say to his wife as I return dressed up in a white buttoned shirt and jeans.

I have not worn them in a long time. The black attire became our signature ones and I always wear what Christopher does, because I love when we match, even though we do not actually resemble that much. I remember my nightmare from a couple of hours ago, and how Chris and I did resemble much when we were kids. Now... Not so. Now my hair is shorter, and my face does not have that many freckles as his. My nose is bigger, and a crook one, while I am also skinnier and not that muscular as my brother. Let's put this in one word only- he is more handsome.

Yet, I was the one Emily chose and Christopher could not get over that so he... No, stop it. Stop it, Myles. Hate is not going to get you anywhere. I decided not to hate him, even when I thought I could not forgive him for what he did. He is my brother after all and they say brothers are forever. In evil, in good, in trouble, and even in crime. He committed a crime and I was with him. I didn't approve of what he did, but I could not abandon my own brother and put him in jail when I am the only one he has left in this world. And he is the only one I have. Maybe love for him was stronger.

Maybe she hates me up there, but in the end care for him, for my brother had won. I am not sure if I did the right thing. And I know that if I start overthinking it the old memories are going to come back. And no matter how much I want to daydream about her, her smile, her kisses all over my face, and her contiguous laugh I have to focus right now. To focus on the girl who is going to be our new family member. As if we were family at all. But what I did not know was that she was actually going to become my family. Or that I wanted her to become one.

And when we heard the knock and the social worker entered, I did not expect a shy girl with blonde hair to follow her behind. I do not know what I have expected, but certainly not this. Her timid face was glancing at us time after time, the fear written all over it, while her head was bowed most of the time.

"This is Stella", she announced while Scott tried to represent our family as a kind and normal one. Except no one was actually normal. Alexia was playing with her necklace and looking at her big red nails that I do not know how she does anything with them, while Chris was sighing and rolling his eyes, jigging his leg and waiting for this to be over once and for all. "Say hi Stella."

The girl she called Stella looked at us and I wonder why she is shaking, and mumbled, timidly: "H-h-hi." Then almost immediately as she stuttered the words she bowed her head again.

I had an urge to hug her, to comfort her, to whisper soothing words in her ears, while tugging her blonde hair behind them, and all that while her beautiful bright eyes which color I cannot see well because she does not keep her head up for more than five seconds, wet my shirt. But I quickly snapped from the reverie and focus on the present where I cannot do any of this, because Scott would kill me.

"Hi, Stella, I am Alexia", she says, after Scott nudged her in the ribs and his wife takes Stella's hand who shivers and quickly pulls away, going behind her social worker to hide.

"Don't be afraid, Stella, they are your family now." The worker smiles at her, but the timid girl slightly shakes her blonde hair that reminds me of hers.

"I want to go home", she whispers, trembling, "please." Her voice is on the edge of the tears and seeing her like that got me really emotional. Yeah, Myles, you are really an emotional and sensitive guy, we know that.

I try to ignore my subconsciousness and its mocking, while I wonder what had happened to this poor girl. Did she lose someone she loved? And little did I know that she did lose her mom, a person who gave birth to her, who spoiled her with life. We are both people without mothers- the most important figure in everyone's life. It does not matter if you are a boy or a girl, a woman or a man, a child or a teenager, an old or a mature person, it matters that we all need our moms. And sometimes they are the only ones who can comfort us and save the day that seemed to be miserable. The only one who can clean the mess we make. But without them, we are alone to clean up our and others' mess. And clean up pieces of our broken heart, too. But the heart of this timid girl took a longer time to heal before it got broken again.

"You can't sweety. Now meet with everyone." She hesitates, but approaches us with groggy legs, scared that someone is going to hurt her. The first one she greeted was me.

"W-what's y-your na-ame?", she stutters, barely meeting my eyes but once I smile gently to her she decides to keep hers on mine and I notice that they are dark green, with small dots of yellow.

"Myles", I say, smiling, "nice to meet you. I hope you will like it here." What a stupid sentence, Myles. She obviously does not and will not like it here, I scold myself. How dumb you are? I mentally face-palm myself but kept the smile the whole time so she does not realize that something is wrong.

She nods slowly, gazing at Chris. She bewilders, glancing back at me, her eyebrows knitting as she looks at him again and then back at me, confused.

"You a-are..."

"Twins", I finish for her. "Yeah, we are twins." I nudge Chris, who keeps a death glare on her, observing her up and down just as he does with all the girls. I want to nudge him more, but Stella will probably notice and be scared more and that is the last thing I want.

I lean to him, whispering to be nicer, that the girl is scared, but he just shrugs, not moving his glance from her confused face that is trying to understand what is going on. I straighten again and smile at her.

"Christopher", he says his name, taking her hand and leaning to kiss it, to impress her just how he does with all the girls he wants to sleep with. Little did I know that he was going to sleep with her as well. And that was against her will.

Stella pulls aways her hand and steps back, fear all across her face. My brother frowns and Scott jumps in trying to change the topic and make us look better in her eyes, but I do not really think he cares for Stella that much, but for the social worker more.

"I'm Scott. Welcome. You met my wife, Alexia", he smiles showing his bright teeth. He just did his teeth a couple of days ago, which were yellow and black and not really healthy. Now he is trying to show his gorgeous smile to everyone.

"See? Everyone is nice." The social worker taps her shoulder and she shivers, again, trying to move so she cannot touch her. There is something that triggers her each time someone touches her. "I have to go now. Here are your bags." She looks at her, surprised, while her face says don't leave me with them, please.

But her social worker says bye to us and shakes hands with Scott, walking away. Stella stays looking at her, while she closes the door just in front of her face, her back turned to us. I hear a sob escaping her mouth. Poor girl. I really wanted to hug her then, my dear diary. I was really sad for her.

And I did not think that one day I would be praying for her life. That I would fall in love with her and my brother would repeat the crime he once committed. And that this time I would really send him to jail. My own brother. And that my own foster sister would be the owner of my heart, that never forgot Emily, but slightly healed with the magic powers this once blonde girl held. That I would be scared that I would not lose the love of my life again. Not again, please, no.

"Well, that went good, thank God!" Scott claps his hands, satisfied. "Myles, show her room! I have to change! Ugh, this stupid attire!", he groans, unbuttoning his shirt and taking it off leaving him only in the white tank top.

"Me, too!", Alexia leaves, too.

Chris and I stay and she slowly turns to us, with her bowed head and entwined hands while she plays with her pink shirt, nervously.

"Be quick!", we hear Scott yelling and I, who did not move my eyes from Stella's back see her shiver again at his loud voice. "We have job to do!"

"Come on", I say more gently and her eyes move to mine, "it is upstairs. Come." I do not move until I see her moving, and when she does I start going upstairs. She hesitates but follows me, and I notice her small fists clenching her shirt, letting it wrinkle. She stops and looks at me and then around her, unsure whether to believe us or not. I would say no, but I did not want to scare her more than she already was.

"Chris, take her bags!", I say to my brother while going upstairs and I can see him rolling his eyes, even without looking at him.

"It is here." I open the door once we are upstairs and she peeks through the door. Chris puts her bags on the ground, but more like throws.

"You didn't take too many clothes, did you?", he says as he looks at me and shakes her head. Indeed her bags were really small and you can say that she thought that she was not going to stay look. Hoped, hoped that she would not stay long.

"You speak or what?" I nudge my brother, while Stella mumbles something.

"I-I d-do."

"Do not worry, Stella. You are going to get used to this. I know the feeling. If you want someone to talk to I am here. I know it sounds stupid now and you probably do not believe me, but..."

"Go change that stupid clothes and move your ass", Christopher cuts me off. "We have job to do." I smile at her and go to my room.

"You h-have jobs?", she coos and I turn around, coming back to her.

"Yes, um we do", I scratch the back of my neck, not sure of whether to tell her that we do something illegal against our will.

"We are drug dealers", Chris yells and I send him a death glare. Well, guess that is the way to tell her.

"Christopher", I scold him and notice how Stella's eyes widen in horror and fear is once again evident on her beautiful face. Well, my dear diary, it is not a secret that she is beautiful. Like really, really beautiful.

"No, no, no... Not like that", I rush to explain, but now Scott's voice cuts me off. Who is next to cut me off? Alexia?

"We are going! Come on, boys, time to sell and make money!" He claps his hands and Stella quickly enters her bedroom and locks the door, leaving her bags outside. Great. Just great.

When we came back later that night, we had a chance to explain everything to her, even though I was mostly the one who was talking and Chris was rolling his eyes but kept observing Stella's body that made her extremely uncomfortable. And I noticed one thing, her fear got stronger the moment she saw us covered in blood and beaten. She gasped and tried to touch us and help, but I saw tears in her eyes as she struggled so much to breathe. I tried to calm her down, but Chris of course had to add some silly comment.

"What? Scared off a little blood?" He pointed at his swollen eye and laughs, showing his red teeth and busted lip. Yeah, he was way more beaten because of course, he had to be stubborn as always and hire someone who Scott precisely said he did not want.

"Never watched The Vampire Diaries? Not fan of vampires, huh?"

But she could not understand anything he was talking about, teasing her, while she was focused on her heavy breathing and the lack of air she felt in her little and faint lungs.

Now when I look at her, I am happy that she is breathing, but I want to see her eyes opened and her lips curled in a smile. How I calmed her down back then? I did not. She scurried to the room and then the third night when we came back beaten again, she tried to clear our wounds. Christopher was mainly complaining, while she was trying to stay calm and not start panicking again, losing her breath.

"Ouch, be careful, girl! That hurts!"

"S-sorry I never did this", she admitted.

"It is okay. Chris be nice. We never have a chance to be treated like this, so be kind", I scolded my brother. "Thank you, Stella. Really."

"It-it's okay. I-I'm sorry if I'm hurting you. A-are you bad?"

And that is how we explained to her that we are not bad, just forced. That we are not doing this because we want to and she seemed to understand and be satisfied with that answer.

And day by day she become more comfortable with us. Day by day she started to change. To hide her scared self that Chris and I had met. The peak was when my twin brother gave her weed and she decided to try it. I did not blame her back then because she took it. No, but now, now I blame her. But, I am just worried. I knew why she did that. She believes that it is the only way to forget the pain, to be numb and not mourn.

She is not strong enough to believe in herself, yet she has to believe in those toxic supplies- alcohol, drugs, pills. She is disappointed in life, in love, in herself. So that was the only thing she believed in. And it was not her fault. It was the fault of coincidence and destiny that took her to the family whose main man is a drug dealer and to a family where the rapist lived. And I was alone, between all of them, between all of them who hurt Stella, not being able to do anything to protect her from the pain she was feeling. And I still am alone, overpowered by her demons and she is so weak to fight them.

"But we can fight together, Stella", I sob next to her unconscious body, in the hospital bed, now the tables have turned from that time when I was the one laying here, while she was sobbing next to my body that was not unconscious, how she thought and still thinks because I have not told her yet that I know everything. I know where that fear comes from. The one I saw on her face when she arrived at our house, the one that she tried to bury. I know the reason why she is afraid of blood. Everything, I know everything.

I fondle her black hair, still sobbing quietly, scared to wake her, but the doctors said that she would be up just in the morning, due to everything she took. Oh, Stella, I shake my head, wanting to scold her so much, but the only one I am going to scold is myself because I did not stop her from going to that party when I knew perfectly what was going to happen. No, I did not know that it was going to be this serious. That she could have died. Died. She could have died just like Emily died. No. No. Do not think like that, I tell myself while focusing on her soft hair.

That was the second change. Her look. Her style. She asked Alexia to help her. To make her look like her. She thought that the look was going to make her forget what she was feeling, what was tightening her little chest. To erase the pain inside her soul, which threatened to tear her apart.

And it was the change that made Christopher like her. To fall in love with her. If that even was love, I am not sure. I remember how once I came angrily and asked them if I was going to be a third wheel, while they were making out. I thought that we were a trio that enjoyed watching stars together, yet the two of them were in a relationship and I was just someone who was an extra, while they were kissing and whispering something to each other. I was angry because once again he managed to get the girl with whom I fell in love. Again. Maybe, I was even jealous, okay I admit it...But, then she told me that she cared about both of us. Equally, she said. I doubt that she now cares equally about us. That must have changed after he...

And then she tried to hide the fear and showed her tough self, which she improved after one year of practicing.

For a whole year, she was learning how to be like those girls in our school who are pretending that they do not care for anything, the girls who are sleeping with everyone and look like a.... But I have never blamed her. Never thought bad of her. I knew the pain she was dealing with behind the layers of make-up she painted her naturally beautiful face with. I knew the fear which laid underneath that clothes and profanities she learned to speak.

I remember when I told her that I thought that she was different, I really did think that. She was angry and got out of the car, saying that I thought a lot of things. But, everything that I thought, turned out to be the truth, the truth that she tried to hide from others. And she managed to, yet she didn't manage to hide it from me.

I remember so vividly the first time she laid her head on my chest. When she told me how lonely she was. When I asked her if she was okay, I thought that she was going to lie again, but she surprised me and said that she was so lonely. Then, I told her the story about me and my brother, about our parents leaving us, only to show her that even I, and Chris are lonely, too. I remember how calm she was, on my chest, breathing slowly and how happy I was because I was able to touch her soft hair, to comfort her, then... Chris ruined the moment when he punched me and soon Stella was not breaking slowly, but heavily panicking because of the blood my brother caused my nose to seep.

In fact, I remember everything, every moment I spent with her, every word we exchanged. But does she remember everything the way I do?

I was always enjoying her company, and she never said anything bad about me. Never humiliated me for not wanting to be like them. Us three were watching stars together almost every night. She was the one who cleaned our wounds whenever we got beaten. And even though the three of us tried to cover the pain and escape the darkness which run after us, we were living almost fine. But that did not last so long. What happened to us? Where did that trio that used to watch the shiny little dots on the sky from our garden go?

One of us ended in jail, committing an unforgivable crime to one of us, the other one tried to kill themselves and the one is mourning after both of them. One of us is left to collect our pieces and try to put them back together. But will one of us have a chance to do it all by ourselves? I do not know the answer. We will have to wait to see that. Until I will pray for that one who stayed alive, while miserably fighting with the circumstances and destinies of their loved ones.

NOTE: Woah, the first chapter of the sequel is here!!!! Yay! A long one of course! How did you like it? I know you want to see what happened with Stella, but the most important thing is that our little Bratz is alive and Myles is going to take care of her.