What Comes After

c s 1

[ cs1 stands for Catie's Story 1 ]

Hey there. My name's Mike. I'm Catie's best friend, I guess, so I'm in charge of telling you guys her story. She said that I should do it, not her, because the story would be better from my point of view. I'll be telling the story in chapters, so look out for those. They'll be dotted around the book.

Okay then - let's get on with it.

Mike's POV

Most people know that Catie has - well, had - a sister. A twin, in fact. Her name was Laurel. The two never got on perfectly, but I guess that's normal between siblings.

The thing is, Laurel and Catie's relationship wasn't like normal twins'. They practically hated each other - so much, in fact, that when they were five they demanded to have separate rooms. But the thing that they hated the most was when people treated them like one person.

I remember Catie coming out of class one day totally FUMING at Laurel. She later told me that the teacher had referred to them as "the twins". I recall thinking that putting them in the same math class was one of the worst ideas our teachers ever had.

We were eight at the time, and it was one of Laurel's last days in England. That year, Catie's parents had decided to divorce. Catie phoned me up and told me, the day that her mum broke the news to her. The worrying thing was, Catie wasn't sad. She was actually almost happy about it.

You see, Catie had never been on good terms with her dad. He had clearly preferred Laurel for as long as she could remember.

So when the sisters' parents finally divorced and Laurel ran off to LA with their dad, nobody really noticed. Life continued as normal without her. Her old friends recovered, made new friends. Of course, her empty seat still sat untouched at the back of the classroom, and her sudden absence did not go completely unnoticed, but overall, Laurel Moss was not missed.

Well, for a while.