C A R E E R: Student/Paid News intern
N E I G H B O R H O O D: The art district
A E S T H E T I C ☆ Diaries under lock, worn in converse, far away dreams, the glow from your laptop, sleepless nights and early mornings, compassion in actions, not words, quick wit and sarcasm, tangled fates and coffee black☆
From the moment she was born, Annabel had been shoved into the spotlight her mother had once coveted. She and her twin sister, Sofie, did everything from modeling to commercials and finally landed a starring role as the toddler on the newest family sitcom. The two girls couldn’t have been more different, because where Sofie loved the spotlight shining on her, Annabel always withered away from it, choosing to hang back when she could and let her sister get the attention she so desired. She never wanted any of this but she never had a choice. She once overheard her mother complaining to a friend that Annabel and Sofie stole her beauty and her youth, so she was going to make sure that they had the opportunities she never got. Annabel used to think that it was her mother looking out for them, it was a good thing she wanted to make sure they had opportunities. But as she grew older, she realized it was her mother taking control of their lives, using them to live out her own fantasies.
Where Sofie was doted upon by their mother, Annabel often was ignored. If she wasn’t acting the way Trinity wanted, she wouldn’t get the attention she needed. It was like some sort of unfair trade. Sofie used to get praise for a job well done, but Annabel would find herself unallowed to play with any toys until she gave the type of performance Trinity demanded of her. She would spend hours facing the wall, stuck in time out for throwing a temper tantrum that she didn’t wanna take more pictures, she was tired! or that she wasn’t cooperating with what the directors wanted from her that day. The television crew never cared about the treatment of the girls, they had all seen overzealous stage mothers before in their life, why should Trinity be the one they cared about?
It was very obvious that Sofie was Trinity’s favorite. She took to the limelight in every way that Annabel did not. As a result, Annabel did not receive the same love that Sofie did. She wouldn’t quite call it love, it was more attention than love. Put simply, she was putting more eggs into Sofie’s basket than she did Annabel’s because she knew Sofie was the one who would get her rich and famous. When it became clear to their father that his wife was treating the girls horribly, he began to lean towards ending their careers as child actors and Trinity would not stand for it. She began to push the girls harder with meaner words, monitoring what they ate and if they needed to lose weight. It was a horrible thing to do to anyone, but even worse to their children. Most days Hank would come home to find Annabel curled up, hiding in the closet and crying because Trinity just wouldn’t ease up.
It was no surprise when the divorce came. Their parents had been arguing for months about the people taking pictures of their little girls on the street as they went to get their haircut or left a restaurant. They couldn’t be normal little kids, with paparazzi swarming them and invading their privacy despite the fact that they were only four years old. The divorce papers were signed shortly after they turned five and the girls were to be separated. The custody battle was a rough one and the judge ruled that each parent would get one of their children. It was no question who Trinity would get and so, Annabel left with her father. The entire time she was begging him to ignore the judge, crying and clinging to her sister like her life depended on it. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it was what the judge said had to happen.
Annabel absolutely did not want to go. She refused to let go of Sofie’s hand. They were twin sisters, two sides of the same coin. Soulmates. Friends were friends, but this was her sister. If Hank had his way, he would have brought Sofie with him, Trinity wasn’t good for either of their children and leaving her behind was hard on him but it was even harder on Annabel. She didn’t understand why they had to leave Sofie, she just understood that her sister wasn’t coming with them.
Their visits together were never frequent. Trinity worked Sofie hard and Hank could never get her to agree on a good time to meet. The times they did happen, Hank never let Annabel out of his sight. He kept watch on Sofie too but unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it. But at the very least, he would protect the child that he got in the settlement. He just didn’t seem to understand that Trinity got the starlet in training, she couldn’t care less about her other child. The times she looked at Annabel after the divorce were with scorn and disgust, as if completely ignoring that she had given birth to and raised two children, not just one.
Annabel thrived living without her mother. She started getting straight As and working herself to the bone to do it. It had been ingrained in her that she had to work hard and strain herself to make her parents proud, since that was the only way she would ever get Trinity’s attention on her for five minutes. Hank had never thought to tell her otherwise, but he loved her just the same, even if he hardly ever saw her given his job.
Sofie may have gotten the fame and fortune, but Annabel undoubtedly got the better end of the deal.
Eight years. It had been eight years since Annabel had last spoken to her sister. The girl who was once her best friend hadn’t reached out to her in eight years. They used to stay up late, way past their all too early bedtime (Trinity insisted they be bright eyed and bushy tailed come morning), sharing secrets and giggling about whatever stupid thing happened that day. After Hank remarried when the girls were eleven and Annabel became perfectly happy living with her stepmother, Annabel started seeing her sister less and less. Trinity was jealous about it, how dare her ex husband and their daughter be happy?
They were thirteen years old the last time they saw each other. The distance between them had grown larger and larger in recent years, since Annabel had an amazing stepmother and Sofie was still living with a stage mom who controlled every aspect of her life. If Annabel had known the last time she saw Sofie was going to be the last time, she would have done more. She would have kept them close. And now … Annabel thinks about her sister every day. She regrets that she didn’t do enough to keep them close. Of course, it’s hard not to. She sees an ad for her latest movie on YouTube, or passes a campaign Sofie modeled for on a billboard every time she leaves her much too small apartment and the memories flood back to her.
It’s nothing compared to the days people actually recognize her, though. Annabel can ignore the gaping hole in her heart, yearning with the desire to reconnect with Sofie when she sees her face on a poster or scrolling through Facebook. It’s when people mistake her for Sofie that she can’t handle it. The paparazzi are loud and people convene around her like she has the cure for cancer. They’re overwhelming and obnoxious and she can’t deal with it. Not her. Sofie, maybe, could. She always had lived for the spotlight and to have people calling her name. Those days, she can’t help but feel bad for her sister. Annabel gets this sometimes, but Sofie lives with it.
Annabel has all but faded into obscurity. She gets more recognition for being Sofie McClean’s twin sister than she did for any of her short lived stints as a childhood actor. Her Wikipedia page hasn’t been updated in years, not even the, “McClean currently resides in Los Angeles, California” type of update. It still wasn’t enough. She didn’t want to be known at all. She saw every last bit of Sofie’s life, not a single piece of it could be hidden away before it was exposed and pities her sister. She hadn’t gone into it knowing, neither of them had, but Sofie is the one who stuck with it. She was more than old enough know to make her own decisions and yet she still chooses to allow her dirty laundry to be aired out for all to see in exchange for money.
She’s uncertain about her future, there’s no doubt about that. Hank and Nora had gladly put her up in her own apartment in Los Angeles, as long as she finished her classes and got a bachelor’s degree. What are her plans for after? That’s entirely up in the air, she just knows that one day, she’s going to make something of herself. One day, she’ll be more than just “Sofie McClean’s sister”. Even if she’s hiding behind a computer screen while doing it.
Stressed out, overworked, and overtired are all words that could be used to describe Annabel. She takes on too much at once and ends up suffering because of it. She always had. She took on too many extracurriculars in high school, like peer tutoring, the GSA (vice president), the student newspaper, yearbook, soccer, and academic decathlon, on top of an internship at the local news station and a part time job at a coffee house. Her family was well off even without the money Sofie earned, but she was insistent on paving her own way. Unfortunately, she never learned from her mistake, even after working herself to the point of collapse, and continues to take on too much in terms of her classes. She takes on too much all at once and then mellows out the next semester. It gives her an excuse to not go out anywhere when invited.
She’s generally bitter about everything in her life, and then hates herself for it because she has so many wonderful things going for her. Her parents love her, she has a good education, a nice, if not small, apartment, friends who care. But then she thinks about her sister. About how Sofie never cared enough to reach out and Annabel herself being too afraid of strife to do so. She thinks about how people mistake her for Sofie and basically drive her back into her apartment and keep her there until the sun goes down. She thinks about how much she misses her sister even though Sofie probably doesn’t miss her.
Besides, it’s not like she’s allowed to be upset at how Trinity treated her. Annabel only had to deal with it for five short years, Sofie dealt with it all her life. She doesn’t have the right to get frustrated or angry or sad that she got saddled with a shitty mother when said shitty mother was hardly in her life past a certain point.
More than anything, Annabel is everything Sofie isn’t. Sofie’s famous, Annabel isn’t. Sofie is (almost) universally beloved, people don’t even know Annabel’s name. Sofie is outgoing, popular, and attention grabbing. Annabel lives in the shadow she casts, an invisible force in her life that turns her into a wallflower that shrinks at the first syllable of her sister’s name. She’s a little distrusting of any friends she may have, too afraid they’re just using her like others had to get to Sofie, but they actually stuck around knowing she isn’t in contact with her sister.
Mostly, she’s friendly, if not wary, around people. Nice to them until given reason not to be. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her moments of pettiness. She can be downright mean if she wants to be, she just doesn’t often see why she would be. None of these people hurt her intentionally, they just don’t know better. If she was stuck in a room with Trinity for three hours, the first two hours and fifty minutes would be spent hiding in the corner like the scared little girl she used to be, but the last ten minutes? She would use them to get back at Trinity in all of the ways she knows it would hurt her.
She doesn’t care for the whole game of secrets and scandals that everyone in Los Angeles seems to be playing. She’s simply there to get her career started and not to get dragged into it all. Everyone is about the gossip and backstabbing to get ahead, to make themselves famous. She doesn’t get the point, the whole “nice guys finish last” bullshit. If asked about it, she would lie and say she never considered playing dirty, but it wasn’t true. How else did a nobody make soccer captain when she wasn’t the best player on the team? (Blackmail.)
It may be the city of angels, but as far as Annabel was concerned, staying there too long was buying a one way ticket to hell.
SOFIE MCCLEAN (twin sister)
