Will You?

"Well?" She stands before me, her face a cruel taunt. She shares my olive skin and soft jaw, the same curls that frame my eyes. I swallow the bile accumulating in the back of my throat, blink back the tears forming at the mere threat of what she will say.

It was a dark abyss that went on for ages, the only thing of color was the perfectly polished marble that echoed their footsteps and voices for miles. Toni begins to take carefully calculated steps, swaying her hips the same way I swayed mine every single day. They didn't do that naturally. It took constant dedication to make it seem so casual.

"You aren't answering me Peyton." She chuckled. Her eyes were dark, like my own, but not the same. For mine knew how to glow with glee, how to let people see the tears. Toni's eyes were something else entirely. You could see the brick and mortar of the walls she built in the lines of her irises. The pupil is no longer large and loving but small and cold against the dark brown. "And what do you want me to say?" I muttered, clenching my fits around the raggedy hem of my t-shirt. Toni smiled, "The truth. But you wouldn't know what that is, would you?" I opened my mouth to respond, but Toni cut me off, "Your life is filled with so many lies and defenses you don't know who you are any more. And the parts you do know are, how would you say it? Pathetic? Ridiculous? Annoying?" Toni laughed at the adjectives, "Take your pick of any of them. They are all right."

 I shoved my finger into her chest, "Who the fuck do you think you are?!" Toni got in my face, "I'm everything you wish you were, Peyton. I'm everything your lies have led to. People took and took from you, and I'm what remains." Toni shrugged, taking a casual step away from me, "Maybe you should just give up this part of yourself. I'm clearly better.""You're cruel. And defensive and proud. Not in the good way." "You wouldn't know about the good way even if you tried, Peyton. And at least I'm truly that. I'm defensive and don't crumble down upon myself. At least I'm cruel enough to scare away the crows." "You scare away the doves as well!" Toni's eye twitched, "I took the parts of you that were forming but still lackluster. Things that you couldn't create and everyone recognized that. Why do you think they sent you away?"My lip quivered, "It was for my own good." "And I thought you were supposed to be smart. You know that isn't true." Toni leaned forward, her smile vicious, "Lying to yourself any longer, Peyton, and you are going to dig yourself into a hole." I spun on my heel, stomping away from her like a child. I hated the fact that she was right, that her words were cutting me in such a way.

"You're wrong." I bit out through gritted teeth. I could feel Toni's smile cutting into my turned back like a whip, "Am I now?" "I'm going to be something great. Something untouchable." With clenched fists, I turned to her, my physical clone but a mental enemy. Toni was still smiling as I grabbed the labels of her finely pressed blazer. "I will be greater then you ever ever will be! Peyton will be better! Me!" I threw Toni to the marble floor, the white staining red with blood as I kicked her again. But Toni laughed and laughed and laughed. "Wake up! STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, PEYTON!" She cackled through the wheezing breaths. An onslaught of crunching bones and splattering blood as I swung again, and again, and again. "Wake up you fool!" Toni continued, even as her face, my face that she wore, began to change. A broken nose here, a torn cheek along her left, a gnarly bruise from her right eye to her mouth. Torn lips that made Toni's laughter that much more maniacal. I didn't even realize the aching knuckles and my hiccuping cries. With a final punch, I dropped Toni's shirt, stumbling away from her. My fists aches, my lungs shuttered, I couldn't tell which way was up or down with the horrible ringing in my head. My red teary eyes met Toni's, who leaned forward from her bloody mess on the floor to spit through her bloodied teeth. "Wake up, you fool. Will you listen to me or not?"

Peyton's eyes sprung open, the tears that were waiting behind her eyelids dripping past her lashes. Her fingers ached from how tightly they were clamped around her sheets. Wiping the tears from her cheek and the snot from her nose, she shakily got up from her limp pillows. Her mirror was direct across from her bed. She couldn't avoid looking into it every single morning. And Toni stared back at her, her cruel smile something familiar at that point.