Chapter 1

"Dior!" Chloe shouted as her daughter ran downstairs, making more noise on purpose. Dior quickly pulled her shoes on, Chloe already reaching her as well. "Where are you going? You can't be mad at me right now!"

Dior turned around madly, tears in her eyes, face red and covered in them. "You've been lying for me my whole life!" she screamed as loud as she could, ugly crying. "I have a fucking twin sister that I don't know about?!"

"Baby, I'll explain everything, just don't do anything stupid, please," Chloe cried.

DD slammed the door right in front of her mom's face and ran to her bike, feeling defeated and mad and unbelievably confused. She whipped her helmet on, pulled the glass part down, and turned the engine on, riding out of the sight of Chloe, only needing to get away now.

#

Lilly opened her eyes when the older woman in front of her had stopped talking and she finally understood there was silence and probably it was her turn to say something. She met the woman's waiting eyes, only making the 15-year-old raise her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, what?"

The woman sighed. "Look, honey. I know you're trying to block us all out and I know you have other things on your mind, but we really need to get this done with. Can you tell me the clubs you have ran and surfed for?"

Lilly gulped, trying to remember the names. Of course, she knew them, she had been in these sports teams ever since she was little. She knew all about running cross country and surfing, but at that particular moment, her brain remembered nothing. She was still thinking about them.

She had been told a few days ago about her mother and sister. She knew her mother had to exist somewhere, her dream had been to meet her, but that she had a sister? And not just a sister, it was a twin sister... That freaked her out. For the past days, she hadn't gotten her thoughts away from them.

The fact that all her things were in boxes, packed away, and a huge suitcase and a duffel bag with all her clothes were in the corner of the living room freaked her out as well. She didn't know a life where she couldn't surf. She didn't know a life without the ocean. And most of all, she didn't know a life without her brother and father. She had grown up in this house and now she was about to be moved to the other end of the country, to a small rainy town where her mother and twin sister had been hiding all her life. While she wanted to meet them, she never ever would've wanted to move away. It was all unfair.

Lilly missed her dad. He had died two weeks ago during his sleep to Sudden Cardiac Death. His heart had simply stopped functioning, nobody expecting it. Lilly and her older brother Daxton had found him in his bed, eyes opened in horror, his body cold and long dead. She still couldn't get the picture out of his head.

"Uh..." she said, blanking. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't..." she met the woman's eyes again, tears pricking in her own. As much as she desired to tell her she didn't know, she was a smart girl and told the truth. She told her the surf team under whose name she had been competing and the cross-country running team.

"Alright, we'll try to talk to your mother when we get there and ask her what she thinks about you sometimes maybe coming to compete," the woman nodded.

Lilly gulped. Talk to your mother were the words she had never heard being directed to her. She had grown up with a father and a half-brother. Her brother lived two weeks at their dad's, two weeks at his mom's. His mom had another husband with two annoying teenage kids, one a year older than Lilly and the other a year younger than her. Even Daxton hated them, hating the bratty and spoiled behavior. Most of the time he stayed with his dad and the sister he really loved.

Now it was all over. Their father was dead, Lilly was going to live in the other end of the country and he was going away to college. It seemed like their childhood was over now.

Lilly looked up again, noticing that the woman wasn't talking anymore. "I'm sorry, what?" she asked again, trying to remain polite and get her mind off of everything being said and every syllable being pronounced.

#

"Hey, you," Harry smiled sadly, going to sit next to Dior on a barstool at the bar that their biker gang, the Sapphire Tigers, owned. "You alright? I heard what happened..."

"What did you hear?" Dior sighed, looking at one of her best friends on her left.

"That your dad died. And that you have a sister," he said casually.

Dior breathed out sharply and looked back at the class of coke and ice in front of her. "A sister," she repeated quietly and turned back to Harry, tears creeping in her eyes now. "A twin sister. I have a twin sister and I didn't know about her."

Harry sighed, taking a sip from the brunette's coke and placing it back down, the back of his hand wiping his mouth clean. "You know... You can fool everybody with this tough act, but you can't fool me. You're hurt that Chlo lied to you, I get it, you're hurt that nobody understands what you're going through, but I know you want to see her."

"Damn right I want to see her," Dior said under her breath. "I've always dreamed of having a sister... Just I never thought I wouldn't know her since birth... It's hard. Her, or well, our dad died. She doesn't know us, she lives in fucking California."

"Whoa, she lives in California?" H asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes," Dior sighed. "What if she's bratty? Or what if she's like those damn Northsiders trying to control our lives?" she asked in horror, imagining meeting her sister and then starting to hate on her just a minute later.

"DD, you're a good person. You're mom's a good person."

"Don't know about that," she mutters, making H snigger quietly.

"I'm guessing your dad was a good person too from the small number of stories we've heard from the drunk Tigers," H said, all the young ones knowing nobody was allowed to talk about Dior's dad, Cooper. "She has to be a nice person. But she's probably really hurt right now. And this is going to be hard for her more than it's going to be for you... You won't get all the attention anymore, but it's going to be okay, really."

Dior sighed quietly, not knowing what to say. She knew he was right. Harry was always right. Her sister must've been scared and angry, maybe even depressed at the moment. This was not the time to make it about herself. "Should I let my mom explain, H?" she asked quietly and looked towards the boy destroying her coke.

H nodded, placing the empty glass on the counter, chewing on the ice. "You should. And you either record it or memorize it. We've all been dying to know from the day we were able to talk," he says.

"I love you, McQuoid," Dior sighed, getting up from the stool.

"Yet Basil is still your best friend," H joked, knowing he's telling the truth.

"I'm sorry," DD chuckled sadly.

"All good. No one can compete with the title of 'neighbors since birth'. And I love you too. Now go." Harry chuckled to himself, looking at the girl going out to the bar and then turned to the man behind the counter. "Could I get another coke, Hot Dog?" he called.

The older Tiger filled his glass and H smiled thankfully before the guy walked away to another Tigers trying to get drunk during the day. So the 16-year-old boy grabbed the glass with a small sigh and walked to his dad's office where he was working.

"What do you got there, boy?" HJ asked, narrowing his eyes a bit.

"Just a coke," H said, calming his father down. He sat down on the couch there, holding the glass and taking sips from it while thinking.

"Got something on your mind?" HJ asked, coming to sit next to his teenage son to get a sip from his drink and check if it contained any alcohol or not. It didn't.

"You heard about Dior?" H asked carefully.

HJ's face changed. "Yeah... Chloe was here yesterday night when she got the call. I think everyone knows by now."

"Did you know about her?" he asks with a painful look on his face. "I'm not gonna judge, but... If you did, didn't you think it was kind of harsh?"

"Look H," HJ sighed. "They had a huge fight right after the girls were born. So they settled on one getting one of them and the other the second one. I will never understand why Chlo didn't take the blonde one who looked more like her, but... It was a way to keep away from each other. To never have to see each other again."

"So their dad is black?" Harry asked in confusion, never having heard any of it.

"I think he was a mulatto... A bit darker than Dior for sure. And Lilly was full white like Chloe."

"Lilly?" Harry asked in shock. "You even know her name?"

"Boy, if you want to know something, ask Chloe," HJ sighed, getting back up and going behind his table to fake some papers to get a troublemaker Tiger, Strong Beast, out of jail.

"You think she'll tell us now?"

"I really hope so, if the other girl is coming here, we won't be able to hold it in for any longer, that's for sure.”

#

"Okay. Please, no lies, mom," Dior sighed, sitting behind the table in the kitchen, facing her mother.

"Alright," Chloe sighed. "Your father and I—"

"His name was Daniel, right?" Dior asked. Chloe sighed again and nodded.

"We had a fight right after you girls were born. It was here in Sweetside. I don't remember anything that we talked about or why we ended up divorcing, but we did it. At that moment, I hated him. I remember wanting to have nothing to do with him. But we were parents... Both of us wanted children so the judge suggested one of you girls staying with me and the other one with your dad. That's what we did. In order to never speak or see each other again, we separated. Your dad moved with Lilly back to California, his home, while I stayed here with you."

"Lilly?" Dior asked softly, tears pricking in her eyes. "How do you know her name is Lilly?"

"Well..." Chloe sighed. "We made a deal that in order to... know our other children at least briefly, we were going to send pictures of you girls on your every birthday. We added your names."

"So you know what she looks like?" Dior asked, her brown eyes big and glassy. "Oh my god, my dad knows what I look like?"

"Well, the last time we talked was in August, on your last birthday. You've changed a lot and I'm guessing so has Lilly." Chloe sniffled quietly, feeling guilty and horrible now, as she usually did every time she thought about the blonde little girl she could have known.

"And now? What's going to happen?"

"She's coming here in three days. I'll have all the rights over her as I do over you..."

"What, but...? Do we know anything about her? About her life, about her family?"

"She's a huge sports girl," Chloe explains. "I've seen pictures of her on the beach standing with trophies and everything, but I'm not sure what sport she does. I've seen a picture of her running, so I think it's something with that..."

"Sport?" Dior sighed. "Do you... Do you think she's a bitch?"

"Dior," Chloe said with a stern voice. "You will never call your sister a bitch. She is not. I am positive."

"I'm sorry..." she murmured. "Do you... Can you show me the pictures, please? I mean if you still have them."

"Alright, but DD, just remember... She's having a hard time. Her father is dead. We don't know what she must be feeling right now... So we have to be polite and gentle and—"

"Mom, believe me, there's nothing more I'd want to do right now than just to hug her and get to know her."

Chloe smiled softly. "I'll bring you the pictures." She returned exactly five minutes later with many envelopes. "Here. The numbers on them mark the years. If you want to see the latest ones, it's with number 15, just like your dad had of you."

Dior nodded and Chloe left her alone to look at the pictures and cry, knowing her daughter was ashamed to do it in front of anybody, having to be tough for the gang all the time.

Dior reached out for the envelope number one, her hands shaking while opening it. In the first picture, there was about a 3-year-old boy and then a blonde little girl, a pacifier in her mouth, both of them sleeping. She breathed out quietly, starting to look through the pictures.

Once she reached number 14, she was positive her sister wasn't a bitch like the ones on the Northside. She seemed shy, always smiling. And she noticed the similarities. Everything was the same except for the hair, eyes, and skin tone. She recognized some of her moles on Lilly, the way her hair curled itself up when it had probably dried naturally, her teeth were the same, both of them wearing braces from the age 12 to 14. She saw herself in Lilly's smile, in her eye shape, her lips, her curves, even the size of their boobs was the same.

So when she opened the number 15, she was ready. She was ready to greet her, to hug her, and to get to know each other. She needed this girl in her life now and didn't care about anything or anybody else. She couldn't wait till Wednesday.