Lucky This Isn't Real

They didn’t even look up at me. Clearly, they were in too much of a trance to care who saw them. Choking back a cry, I hurried up to leave.

I ran outside as fast as I could and stopped when I got to the front lawn. The grass was soft, and the sun was warm, giving me a moment to catch my breath.

Suddenly it made sense why Raquel was being cold, and Kenny was being distant.

I couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been going on.

Since she turned eighteen? Or even earlier?

I had noticed him looking at her as she started to mature but hadn’t thought anything of it, assuming he wasn’t a pervert and never thinking she would betray me like that.

I was still thinking about this when they both appeared.

“Maggie!” Kenny called.

“How could you?” I demanded.

“I—”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” I screamed at Kenny, then glared at Raquel, who was smiling in her victory.

“Because he’s really fuckin’ good,” Raquel gloated.

It was then that I realized they had known I was there, but they hadn’t cared. They had clearly been doing something so wrong– having sex in my room– that they had wanted me to catch them.

Apparently, my stepsister had turned into even more of an evil bitch than I’d thought.

“It’s over,” I said, as sternly as I could, glowering at Kenny.

Then I looked at Raquel and said, “And don’t ever call me your ‘sister’ again.”

They both just shrugged, and I told myself to be as done with this whole thing as I could be. They clearly didn’t care about my feelings, so I shouldn’t give any further thought to any of this.

I knew this would be easier said than done, but I was determined to try.

First things first, though: I had to find a new place to live ASAP.

Chapter Three – Maggie

Six Months Later

Traffic was hell, which was normal in L.A. on pretty much any day and at pretty much any time, let alone a Tuesday morning. They Might Be Giants spun in the CD player of my car. Old tech for an old band seemed fitting, really, as did the music.

“Birdhouse in Your Soul” was playing. The song was a mind-blindingly weird one that needed to be heard to be believed. It always cheered me up. Pushing past my sadness and inhibitions, I started singing along with the music.

I wouldn’t have gone to a therapist under most circumstances. I just needed to find out why I was still so depressed.

Granted, my life had gone to shit since I found out about Kenny and Raquel. I could only afford a small shoebox apartment, which I shared with my amazing and supportive new friend, Darcy.

We both worked together now, but we had first met when we were both looking for a new place. After bumping into each other at several viewings and losing them all, we decided it would be easier to share a two-bedroomed place rather than compete for a one-bedroom studio.

She’d helped me get an assistant’s job at the place where she worked, mostly by telling some well-placed and believable lies about my experience.

Meeting her was a silver lining in an otherwise dark and meaningless existence in which all of my creative inspiration had vanished.

I tried to write, particularly the story I had been working on the day I had found out about Kenny and Raquel, but none of it came out right. Blood from a stone was the expression that came to mind when I thought about it.

Everything I tried to write was just boring and angry. With my inheritance money dwindling and everything in L.A. being crazy expensive, I had to start get serious about it again and get some good, inspired words down on the page soon.

I still had the freelance writing gigs I did online, but that wasn’t the same. My spark was gone, snuffed under the dark cloud of hurt and betrayal.

I knew I should just get over it. For crying out loud, it had been six months, but I was no better off. I couldn’t climb over the hump, and I needed some professional help, no matter how embarrassed it made the self-sufficient part of me feel.

I’d spent way too much time worrying about Raquel and Kenny. Their duplicity made me afraid to trust anyone again.

I knew it was foolish to let one bad (okay… horrible) experience turn me off to love in general and that it couldn’t happen every time– it was statistically impossible, and I tried to tell myself that my odds for being cheated on had already been cashed in– but it hadn’t been the first time I had been burned, and I was starting to become really wary of people in general.

I must have been experiencing some kind of deep depression, and I just wanted, needed, to get out of this funk before the dark abyss pulled me in any deeper.