When I was fourteen, I fell in love.  His name was Mackenzie James Darling, but everyone called him Darling for short.  Only I said his full name, because that was how he said it, rolling it off his tongue in that southern drawl of his.  Mackenzie James Darling had himself a reputation.  Sex.  Even though he was only a year older than me, he had done it with everyone from college girls to barely tweens.  He coordinated his ladies with his outfits, so the rumors said.  To me, he was a celebrity of the hallways, he'd pass me and I would stand star struck as if I'd just felt an angel feather by.  To my high-school world, I was just another girl with glasses that kept sliding down my nose and a mother who insisted on braiding my hair.  But in my imagination, I was someone beautiful, someone worthy of being Mackenzie James Darling's favorite thing.

When I was fifteen, that all changed.  There was a party across the street from my house, and it was told everybody who was anybody would show.  My mother would never let me go, but that night I snuck out the window and crept into the shadows.  The house was loud, vibrating with sound.  I thought I would get thrown out, but all the people there seemed so happy to see me.  They were all smiling and laughing and drinking fizzy sweet things.  I floated from room to room, searching, hoping, and then, success.  There sat my heart throb, closer than I'd ever seen him, all alone on a couch, vacant in a darkened room.  I slipped in, sat down on the couch beside him, knowing full well that now was my chance.  If I kissed him, he would either say yes because he was drunk or I could recover from a rejection by saying I was. But I didn't even get a chance to collect my thoughts before he turned, his eyes burned straight through me.

"Hello," he said. I just stared at him. "I know you," he continued, oblivious to the fact I was choking like a fish out of water. "I know you," he repeated, and then "I think you're my sister."

And the whole room went very bright, then dark and spun around like a disco ball.

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