The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen Page A

legs. But he was so much stronger than I was that he easily pinned my arms behind me and lifted me up and carried me toward the locker.
    Then a voice cut through the crowd.
    “What the hell are you doing, Ralph?”
    Ralph turned around, turning me with him, and I saw Alex. She was wearing her cheerleader’s outfit with some guy’s letterman jacket draped over it. People were moving aside to give her room, and staring at her, the way they always did. Even at age fourteen, Alex had that kind of power.
    “Hey, babe,” Ralph said, then he announced: “Now that’s the only freshman who’s allowed up here.”
    “Amen,” another guy said reverently.
    “Let go of her,” Alex ordered, and suddenly I was released. I collapsed on the floor and scrabbled away from Ralph like a crab.
    I could feel the energy of the crowd shift. The guys were focused on Alex now. Their alpha dog had been replaced.
    “Just having a little fun,” Ralph said, crossing his arms and putting his fists under his biceps so they looked bigger. “Why do you even care?”
    But the bluster was gone from his voice. He wanted Alex’s approval. He wanted her to like him.
    “She’s my twin sister,” Alex said. “C’mon, Lindsey.”
    I got up and hurried over to her, and as we walked away, I could hear the mutters:
    “Twin sister?”
    “No fucking way.”
    “Are they sure it’s really a sister and not the family dog?” one of the guys said, and the sounds of slapping hands and laughter reverberated in the hallway.
    Alex tensed up beside me and stopped walking. I could seeher wrestling with the instinct to tell the guys to fuck off. To defend me.
    I stood beside her, still shaking with fear and rage, my insides churning, hoping she’d do it. I wanted them to feel a little of my pain, to know what it was like to be humiliated in front of a crowd. Alex was good at quick comebacks; it would be so easy for her to lash out and make them wish they’d never messed with me. Then Ralph would be the one everyone would laugh at.
    But Alex kept walking. She kept walking.
    In that awful moment, I knew she’d done the math and decided risking her own popularity wasn’t worth sticking up for me. The cost was too high. She’d defend me to a certain point, but that was as far as she’d go.
    I hated her for not defending me.
    But not as much as I despised myself for needing her to.
    “Are you okay?” Alex asked when we were out of earshot.
    “Fine,” I said angrily, wrapping my arms tightly around my body.
    “Those guys can be jerks,” she said. “Especially Ralph.”
    How did she know their names? How did they all know
her
? I was still getting lost in our school’s endless hallways, while Alex had half the senior class wrapped around her pinkie. The male half. High school was going to be just like junior high, and elementary school, and summers at the swimming pool, and every camp and dentist appointment and birthday party we’d ever attended: Alex was the star, and I wasn’t even in her orbit. How could I have been stupid enough to think it would be any different? How could I have hoped that at a school this big I’d find my own niche, my own friends, my own place to shine?
    This was Alex’s fault;
everything
was Alex’s fault. It was only by comparison to her that I looked ugly. I knew in my heart that I wasn’t what anyone would call beautiful, but I wasn’t homely, either. I was just . . . unremarkable. Maybe I could lose tenpounds, but even so, I was closer to pretty than ugly. But next to Alex, I was nothing but a huge disappointment. A terrible surprise. A genetic punch line.
    “I’m fine,” I said, swiping my nose again. “Leave me alone.”
    “Leave you alone?” Alex said. “I just saved your ass.”
    “Thanks for all the help,” I said sarcastically and stormed away, leaving her staring after me.
    It was fifteen years ago, and I still remember the way Ralph’s upper lip curled into a sneer just before he grabbed me, the