The other one

 fic. This is a character 'flow' of one of the characters from appointments & disappointments.

I was four. The weaker, smaller of the twins, who got ill frequently. I caught the flu. I was in the hospital for three weeks. All I remember are vivid swirls of patterns and colors, as if I was in a different world. Nothing made sense, but the sweet soothing sounds of the doctors who took care of me. I wanted to do what they did, my parents were ecstatic. That's when I decided to become a doctor.

I don't ride my bicycle much anymore. Those are the wounds that define me now. I couldn't walk for four days. The skin on my knee and shin was stripped out. I tilted my bicycle like they did on the motorcycle races in tv. I led a group of tiny friends like myself on a bicyle rally around the neighborhood.I was surprisingly courageous and brave for a sickly lean girl. I was seven.

I was ten. The smarter one of the twins. We took an important exam, one my parents said would determine our future and our destinies. It went really well. My twin said she didn't understand what it was all about. She got admitted to the exclusive school that everyone talks about, I didn't. I cried in my sleep for a week, and secretly wished for really bad things to happen to my sister.

The teachers learned better than to underestimate me. Our team came first in the nationwide debate championship and I won individual prizes for myself. Never before had I worked so hard in my life. The teachers thought I'd crash and burn, but at least they had someone who they could control under them. They made me the captain because i was not rowdy and they needed a girl. I had never done any debates before, the rest of the team was mad at me. I was the captain of the debate team. I was fourteen.

I was sixteen. I got very sick. The exams that would determine my fate, and they said this was the big one, most definitely the one, was two weeks away. Hallucinations, splitting headache, the feeling of being stabbed my a thousand knives at the same time. The preparation exam for the big exam I gave under heavy sedation. It felt like a big confusing dream the words flew by me, they sang stories and told sad tales. I barely squeaked by to give the real exams, and only because my teachers liked me so much they ignored my obvious hallucinatory ramblings. The recovery happened just in time for the exams. I didn't ace it, but I did fail. More importantly, I wasn't afraid of being average anymore. It was a privilege to have survived.

I never tell this story. It wasn't a big deal. I didn't get pregnant. We didn't use any protections. I had sex for the first time that afternoon, with my best friend, neighter of us particularly aroused. We weren't in love, we weren't horny for each other. I dared him to cup my boobs from the outside. His dares were stupid, he was a chicken. We were playing a rather slow version of truth and dare, just he and I. My best friend and I were hanging out in my room, both of us bored. I was seventeen and a half.

I was eighteen, about to graduate from high school. I wasn't very drunk. And neither was my twin. She started crying when it was just the two of us. She said she felt horrible being compared to be all her life, that she didn't deserve any of the things she had gotten, that I was the smart one, the hardworking twin, I deserved everything good she had gotten in her life. I smiled. I said if she did truly believe all of that, then it was fine because I will get those anyway regardless of luck, she was the one I cared for the most, and I was glad she had them. We cried, both of us. It was the closest I've been with my twin.