The Other Girl

Chapter III

My tenth birthday— I remember it vaguely, but I'll never forget the twisting discomfort when my mother spent the entire afternoon before dinner grilling me about never succumbing to laziness, never settling for anything less than the best—my best—and never growing up to become one of those people.

"If you can't be my daughter, then don't," My mother had told me with cold conviction. "I have a check here that'll save both of us a lot of time and heart. A check my mother should have handed my sister as soon as she slammed the door in both of our faces, but she was too soft."

Her words were a product of her anger towards her ever-disappointing, never-considerate sister, but no matter how many times I repeated in my head that it was just her way of venting anger, I couldn't help but feel like failure was my imminent future. I suppose such feelings were unfounded, but that gut-wrenching self-loathing sent me running to my room after greeting the guests that arrived at the door.

That was one of the lowest points of my childhood, however childish, but it was also the day Calum became my best friend—my confidant that I could spill my worries to.

"You have to come downstairs and eat cake or I won't give you my present!" he had teased me, trying to cheer me up. "I got you something really nice this time!"

It was a telescope, as I would find out— hand-purchased from a streetside store. Calum helped me put it together, teaching me about the night sky with his big "astro-nomy" book of wonders. Together, we outlined constellations from seemingly indifferent specks in the navy expanse of the night sky.

We spent that summer raving about the innumerable burning dots before our worlds shifted from "goofing around" to "learning about responsibilities" during the transition from elementary to middle school. During that transition, the stars went into the closet and my life became focused on the future.

Thinking about it now, it seems a bit childish that I escaped by distracting myself with the great unknowns. But then again, I was a child then.

---

Calum Remington.

Varsity quarterback and one of the hottest and most desirable males on campus.

My close friend since before we were old enough to fully understand our responsibilities. We had attended the same set of esteemed private schools since elementary and known each other since before we could tie shoelaces.

Friends was an understatement— we were much too intimate for that label, but lovers wasn't it either. We didn't do dating. Not then, not now. Love was a unfathomable label. We were much too drawn to each other by physical attraction and shared experiences than to try to classify our ties as 'love'.

But... Did I love him?

Our parents would definitely approve, no doubt about that. No one likes a weak link in the family, least of all my mother. Her sister had insisted upon marrying a man she had met at a party who was leagues away from her in wealth and status. My mother's family had pleaded multiple times for her to reconsider, but her sister would have none of it. She ran off with her lover to Vegas and ended up  married and pregnant. Four years after that, she had a beautiful little girl and piles and piles of debt that her husband had accumulated through his gambling addiction.

Luckily, my mother's family was able to help her pay off her debts after her husband died in a drunk driving incident where he was the one at fault. My mother helped pay most of her sister's loans, but their relationship was never quite the same. My mother was the epitome of perfectionism, and such a person would never quite forgive another for casting aside their advice before crawling back defeated. "Weak links," she would tell my father when he inquired my mother about inviting her sister over, "should be replaced." So Calum would please her very much.