Page 1 of Stormi & Sebastian (Shorts #1)

Stormi’s Pov

When you’re an identical twin, everyone seems to think that means you both do everything the same as each other.

Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

And physically, we were pretty much the same.

There were a few slight differences that you would notice if you looked hard enough.

Story and I were completely identical, except for our hair length, and the fact that she was taller by an inch and a half.

Our styles, personalities, and birthmarks were different, like complete opposites.

Mine was on my left shoulder, in the shape of a butterfly, while hers is on her right hip, looking like a blob.

Story was loud and very outgoing, the life of the party.

Meanwhile, I was always quieter and more reserved, choosing to get lost in a book or nature or whatever moment I was in, rather than trying to be the center of every moment.

I preferred to sit on the sidelines while she grabbed the spotlight.

She was also my mom’s favorite.

I had known it from a very young age.

The things I had done, that I had accomplished, had not been recognized anywhere as enthusiastically as Story’s achievements.

The older we got, the more obvious it became, especially when I could hear the things Mom would whisper to her friends when she didn’t think we were near.

So, I guess it should have come as no surprise that three fucking weeks after getting engaged to my college boyfriend, Jason, he was here breaking off the engagement.

And why, of all things, did he tell me? The thing that blew my mind and had me questioning if I’d accidentally taken any hallucinogens was when he said that it wasn’t his fault.

He just ‘fell for the wrong sister’.

I froze.

I was like a deer caught in headlights.

It felt like time stopped.

He wouldn’t look at me.

He was looking everywhere else, but at me and the wreckage he’d just caused.

That was the hardest blow I think I’d ever been delivered.

I had told him over and over, throughout my life, that Story had been sneaky, and always tried to steal everything I’d ever had, or that made me happy.

He knew what she was like and swore up and down that I was all he wanted, all he loved, all he needed.

We had been close and perfect until literally only a month ago! A month?! Was that how long it was? Was that all it took to tear apart our two-year relationship?

“You understand, right? I didn’t mean to hurt you, Storm. Honest.”

He was trying to look me in the eyes as I let him see the damage he caused to my heart, to my soul. The utter destruction he’d just caused and set on fire.

“Why? How long?”

I tried to ask as strongly and confidently as I could, but I knew I’d failed when my voice quivered, going up a few octaves at the end of my question.

These were both something I did and did not want to know simultaneously. How long had he hated me? How long since he’d stopped loving me?

How long since he’d been betraying me? How long had he been working towards shattering every piece of me?

“Does it matter?”

I scoffed at his question, my emotions going from heartbreak to anger, and I felt my face looking offended at the stranger standing before me. What a bullshit, dismissive fucking response. How dare he! Does. It. Matter? Yes, Jason. It fucking matters!

“How. Long.”

I ground out, letting the anger take over. The audacity of this cheating-sister-fucking-asshole! He didn’t want to answer? Why didn’t he want to say?

I could see he didn’t want to answer, that was plain as day on his face, but Story came up and wrapped around him. She chimed right in, never one to miss a chance to get a dig at me.

“Since last Christmas, when you brought him home to meet us. He got my number and we started texting as friends. But it moved to more fairly quickly. You understand, right?”

Her eyes, when she looked at me, were smug while she tried her best to look pitiful, pushing up on her toes, and her tits, to kiss his cheek.

The poor, pitiful sister who had accidentally crossed that line that you’re never supposed to cross with your sister’s husband.

But it wasn’t over.

No.

Not by a long shot.

The torture had just begun.

The smugness of her body language told me I didn’t know the depths she was willing to go.

I didn’t care, though.

The one person I thought would have by back, ran and abandoned me, straight to the person who made my whole life hell.

I let the light in my eyes die as I stared at the couple in front of me.

I was barely gripping that last thread of sanity so as not to lash out at them.

The happy couple.

I was fucking furious, livid, ready to kill if needed.

Him? Her? Both of them? Would I get a discount for both bodies? How did it work? I could feel my breath starting to get ragged, and I couldn’t handle it anymore.

I needed to get out of here.

I needed to get the fuck away from these two.

They deserved each other.

This was happening at a family fucking cookout, no less! With my family and his! Wow.

Could this be any more public and humiliating for me?! I nodded mindlessly, trying to keep my shoulders and spine straight and the tears at bay.

No way would I let this vicious viper and the weak-willed cock, see me break.

They would never see me cry.

Not knowing what else to do.

I just stood there, looking out over the rest of the party as my parents came over.

Fake smiles plastered to their faces.

“Well?”

My mom asked, looking at Story and Jason, her arm wrapped around his, looking like the picture-perfect couple.

Like they hadn’t been cheating for over a year.

Like they hadn’t just torn my fucking world apart.

“Did you tell her yet?”

What? My eyes zeroed in on my mother, then my father.

I looked between my parents, or the people who looked like my parents, but clearly weren’t.

There was no way they knew.

Why was she asking that? Why did her voice sound so clipped? My mother looked at me with annoyance that I was falling apart.

Oh…god! I was instantly flooded with disgust.

She knew.

I looked back at my dad.

There’s no…way…the steam evaporating from my sail as soon as I saw his face fall when my eyes landed on his.

He knew, too.

He knew and did nothing to protect me. No one did.

“Mom?”

I asked because I needed to be wrong. They couldn’t have known. Did they fucking know?.

“How long?!”

I could feel my breathing increasing, my heart rate elevating, my voice getting a little louder, and people starting to look.

“Oh, honey. Please. It was obvious.”

“Obvious?!”

I scoffed, “TO WHO?!”

I shouted, my top blowing. And it was like a Pringles can. Once she popped, the fun wasn’t about to stop.

“Keep your voice down!”

She hissed at me like I was the fucking embarrassment of the family and not my whore of a sister.

“How long have you known this hussy of a sister was fucking my fiancé and did nothing about it?!”

I am screaming, letting the hurt and anger pour, dripping, splashing from my every word like a slimy ooze coming out of me.

The music and chatter had all stopped, and I could feel eyes on us, and I knew everyone was probably looking at us.

I’d never met Jason’s parents; he met my family first. Was this why?!

“Ah. You must be Story,”

a couple came up to us, and I moved my gaze to the two traitors.

“Our son has talked about you non-stop for over a year!”

“Over a year?! You’ve been cheating on me for over a year?!”

The couple looked at me like I was some kind of wild animal or crazy person. I didn’t care.

“Well. Don’t worry, you don’t need the gift I got you. I was excited to tell you today that you were going to be a dad, as well as a husband. Looks like you don’t need to worry about this,”

Handing him back his ring, as I snatched back the gift I was going to give him.

“And you don’t need to ever see us again.”

With that, I turned and stormed out.

Once I was around the front of the house, I heard Jason screaming at me, trying to get me to stop, and my sister was screaming at him, and his parents were demanding answers from them both.

I hopped in my car, not slowing down and not looking back once, before I peeled out of the driveway, as my now ex-fiancé ran for my car until he disappeared from the rearview.

I rushed back to the apartment we shared, hoping that taking the car would slow him down just a little bit so I could pack.

Throwing the door open, and rushed to the guest room, pulling my luggage out from under the bed.

I grabbed my phone off my nightstand after hauling the suitcases into the master bedroom, throwing them both open on the bed, tossing my items in there in no kind of order.

I called my bestie, Raven.

“I need help,”

my voice wobbly, barely holding it together.

“I need to leave. Now.”

“What happened?”

“Story. She’s been fucking Jason for a fucking year the fucking cunt! I need to disappear. Like, yesterday!”

“Breathe. On my way.”

The line went dead as I stormed down the hall to the office.

I aimlessly grabbed all my important documents, putting them into my briefcase, along with my laptop, charging cords, and whatever else I could grab from my desk.

I was in a mad dash to get out of there before he could even get here.

I was packing all my tech into my case when I heard a shout from the front door.

“Storm? Where are you, babe?”

and breathed a sigh of relief once I knew that it was Raven who was there. And not Jason.

“Office!”

She came down the hall. I looked behind her to see if her son, Ryder, was with her. I was barely holding back tears, but that was not something I wanted her son to see. They still had a halfway decent home life. I didn’t want to traumatize him with my meltdown.

“Ryder’s at a friend’s house tonight. What do you need?”

She said, upon seeing my face and knowing what I was thinking, without having to say a thing.

“Pack my clothes? I’m almost done in here.”

She nodded and headed to our—his— bedroom.

It was no longer mine, and I wasn’t sure when that had changed in the last year.

I was still trying to understand how I had no fucking idea this had been going on, especially since it had been going on for so long and I was apparently the last fucking person to know.

I heard suitcases unzipping and hangers clattering while I finished putting the last of my stuff from the shared office into my bag.

Moving to the bedroom, I grabbed a smaller suitcase, and moving to the bathroom, I started tossing all my stuff from there into my suitcase.

As long as it wasn’t liquid. I don’t want it spilling. I had half a suitcase left when I started throwing in the towels I bought.

Suddenly, an idea hit me. It was petty. It was childish as. But I didn’t care!

“Rave! Pack every single fucking thing I ever bought! I want it all! Even if it doesn’t fit in the car, I’ll hire movers! You want the couch?”

“I’d leave the furniture, sis,”

she said, popping her head in the bathroom as I was zipping the suitcase shut. Mostly shut.

“Might be…dirty. If you…ya know. Catch my drift.”

A mental image flashed in my mind of them on the couch, our bed. No! A shiver ran through me, and I wanted to puke.

“Eww. Don’t make me puke.”

I said, grateful that the toilet was right next to me.

“So, how’d you manage to get away without everyone following you back here?”

She called the bedroom as I heard drawers being ripped open, the shuffle of feet, a soft thud, and then more shuffling and a drawer closing, another opening. Rinse and repeat until finished.

I chuckled bitterly at her question. I knew this was also cruel, but we hadn’t been using protection as the wedding got closer because we wanted to try for a honeymoon baby. Now though? I was happy that it hadn’t worked. As far as I knew, anyway.

“I took back the little box that had the watch he’d been eyeing for months. May or may not have told him it was a cute way for me to tell him I was pregnant. You know he had always wanted a big family, you know we weren’t being safe the last month.”

“So…you’re not?”

“No! Not that I know of. I still haven’t had my period this month. But that’s not due for another couple of weeks,”

I said, moving to the closet and taking a duffle from the back of my side, and started putting my shoes in it. I wasn’t leaving a single thing for him to try to remember me by. He had my twin. What did he need me for anymore?

“That’s low. But no lower than what he did to you,”

she was done with the dresser and zipped up the suitcases. Getting ready to move them to the living room to be taken to my car as soon as we were ready to leave.

“Exactly,”

my voice shaky, knowing the tears were trying to fall. I blinked them back rapidly, because I wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. Raven grabbed my shoulders, making me face her.

“No,”

she looked me dead in the eye.

“Not yet, Queen. Wait til we get to the hotel. You guys never merged your finances, right?”

I nodded, not trusting I wouldn’t cry if I had to try to use words again.

“Good. You run this out to the cars, and I’ll start in the kitchen. You want all those beautiful gadgets, right?”

She smirked.

“And the black and white kitchen set you just bought?”

“Duh! He doesn’t even know how to use them.”

I managed to laugh out. Thank God for putting this true sister in my path. She was the big sister I’d always wanted, the family who loved me. She nodded, grabbing another suitcase and a duffle, passing them to me before she turned to head to the kitchen. We tore through the rest of the apartment, making sure I left nothing that wouldn’t have been…used…by them. With the vehicles loaded down with as much as they would haul, we headed out for a hotel at least two towns over. No chance of running into them, or him.

Halfway through packing, though, I had to shut my phone off because it kept going off with either a text from someone or a call that I knew I wouldn’t be answering. I didn’t want to talk to any of them. I didn’t want them to know where I was or where I was going. Fuck them.

All. Of. Them.

They would never see or hear from me again. After checking in and bringing in a bag that had a few days’ worth of clothes in it, Raven took me to get a new phone. We just asked for a whole new one, wanting nothing off of the one I’d had with Jason for the last year. Now it felt dirty. Most of the pics I wanted were on social media. And, most of the ones in that phone were a lie anyway. The whole thing was a lie.

Thankfully, I got a little bit of credit from ‘trading in’ that phone for a new one. Raven’s number was added to my new phone and my boss, Emily’s, number. That was it. Just those two. I had no one else. No family that wouldn’t be on their side. Friends were very limited, and I hadn’t heard from a lot of them recently. Most likely due to the fact that I appeared to be the only blind fool in the room.

Back at the hotel, I needed a shower and a good cry.

“I’ll order room service. Then block everyone on your socials for you. You shower or take a bath, whichever will help you relax more, and if you need a bath bomb or whatever, let me know. I’ll get some from the front desk. We’ll do a spa day tomorrow if you want to.”

I almost laughed. I felt a smile trying to tug at my mouth.

“You need and deserve a chance to unwind.”

She reached forward, hugging me hard, and I let go; of absolutely fucking everything. My knees buckled, and she held me all the way down to the tile floor of the bathroom while I sobbed like a child in her arms. She held me as I asked ‘why me’ over and over.

Not just because she stole him, but because she stole everything. Story had always been the favorite, but I thought, even if my parents knew she was royally fucking me over, they’d have the moral compass to see how wrong that was and do something about it.

I didn’t understand why I wasn’t worthy of them doing that simple fucking thing. Why?! Why couldn’t they support me? Why couldn’t they see how badly she was hurting me? Why am I not worthy of my family’s love? Of Jason’s love and fidelity? I cried and wailed like I was grieving a lifetime of betrayal, disappointment, and neglect.

I think I might have.

Raven whispered in my ear.

“Gaining your new life is going to cost you your old. That’s why this hurts so bad, babe.”

She hugged me like she knew what I was going through. When I looked at her, she started crying too, and we both just sobbed with each other. When we started to calm down, she drew a warm bath and left to call room service. It was getting late and she didn’t want to piss them off as they try to close the kitchen.

Undressing, I slowly got into the bath. I just laid there in the warm water as I replayed the events from the day over and over again in my mind. I replayed moments of my relationship that now made more sense, and I saw the red flags waving at me.

Right in my face.

I knew I needed to leave. I knew I needed to start over. Holding my breath, I slipped under the water and screamed out all the pain, until I needed to come up for air. I felt a little better.

Angry.

And ready.

Let’s do this.