Page 2 of The Hellcat Barbies: Aubree

I had just begun to dose off when the doors of the ambulance opened.

It was hard as hell to peel my eyes open.

My lids were heavy, and the medication I was given had me higher than a kite and just wanting to drift into the darkness.

I was in and out of sleep as the nurses talked to me.

Most of the questions that I answered, my eyes were closed, and I was mumbling.

I wasn’t even sure if I was coherent enough for them to understand me, but that was all they could get for the moment.

By the time I came to fully, my mother was in the room. My tongue felt thick, and my mouth was super dry. The pounding in my head made me close my eyes again for a few moments to try and compose myself.

“Can I have some water?” I croaked. My mouth was so dry that talking was hard, and swallowing was uncomfortable.

Hurriedly, my mother stood up and grabbed the water pitcher and a cup from the table near my bed.

She passed me the cup of ice water, and I gulped it down so fast that a few dribbles rolled down my chin.

The cold water felt so good inside my mouth.

After downing all of the liquid, I handed her the cup.

“Thank you. Who called you?”

“I’m in your medical chart as your emergency contact. Who was the guy that was here with you?”

Wincing from the pain in my shoulder as I tried to sit up, I took a few moments to try and gather myself.

I hated how discombobulated I felt. “Um, Nice. I went out to eat with him, and we were about to leave. He paid the bill, and he had to go to the bathroom. Some guy came in, and he was staring at me. Then he walked up on me and asked me who I thought I was playing with. I’ve never seen that man a day in my life.

He had to be drunk, high, and tweaking. He was grabbing on me, and then he and Nice started fighting. He shot me. Why, I don’t know.”

With a weary expression on her face my mother shook her head. “The police got him. He was still unconscious when they arrived on the scene. They came up here about ten minutes ago. He thought you were Autumn.”

My jaw slacked before my brows dipped, and my face contorted into a frown. “How did he think I was Autumn?”

“Because you girls, are identical twins, Aubree. It seems they used to date, and she ghosted him. He said he spent a bunch of money on her, and he really liked her, and she played with him. He saw you out, thought you were her, and he shot you.”

I was stumped. I mean sure, we were identical twins.

We were exact replicas even down to the small gap between our front teeth.

Light skin, button nose, thick brows, plump lips that used to get us teased.

It was even possible that he didn’t know she was a twin, because Autumn and I hadn’t spoken in years.

Six to be exact. It pissed me off to no end when people acted like just because Autumn and I were twins, that meant I had to forgive her for doing me wrong.

If I heard, ‘But that’s your twin,’ one more time I was going to scream.

We were twins when she tried to backstab me too.

“Aubree, I know what Autumn did was wrong. I get it. But she was young, and she said she was drunk. It’s been six years. Don’t you think you should at least have a conversation with her?”

Never in life had I disrespected my mother, so a blank expression was the only response she was going to get from me.

I loved my mother. And I tried to see things from her perspective.

It couldn’t be easy to have children that were at odds, but she had me fucked up if she thought I was going to forgive Autumn.

She had always been a hot, trifling ass mess.

I was used to it, and I gave her passes because she was my twin.

But when she pretended to be me to try and trick the guy I was dealing with into sleeping with her, she crossed the line.

What I really wanted to do was beat her ass. But because she was my sister, I simply cut her off. I talked to my sister about Brasi for a whole year before I linked with him. I had the biggest crush on him and when I first revealed it to her, her exact words were, ‘Ew, you like him?’

She didn’t have to think he was cute because he was downright fine to me.

The only black Ginger that I knew. He wore his hair tapered on the sides and curly on top.

The reddish-brown hair went so well with his cinnamon brown skin and freckles.

I literally went to sleep most nights dreaming about that man.

When he finally asked for my number, I felt like I had manifested him into my life.

I was so geeked. I was twenty when I started dealing with Brasi.

I wasn’t a virgin, but he was the second guy that I slept with.

The sex was great, and having sex with him only intensified my feelings for him.

Autumn knew every intimate detail because silly me, she was my best friend, and I always told her everything.

One of Autumn’s problems was she thought she was smarter than everyone else.

Despite her knowing me like the back of her hand and looking just like me, Brasi still knew that she wasn’t me, and he wouldn’t sleep with her.

A nigga that wasn’t even my boyfriend at the time had more loyalty toward me than the person I had shared the womb with.

Brasi was long out of my life, but the fact remained that I didn’t want shit to do with Autumn.

The way she did the man that shot me was right on brand for her.

She probably used him for everything she could use him for and then disappeared on him.

The fact that I didn’t even deal with Autumn and had to take a bullet that was meant for her was nasty work. Thank God I hadn’t died.