Page 12 of My Twin Sister's Ex

“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.” I would do anything to avoid facing Jackilyn’s wrath.

Reese crossed her arms. “I think you should just tell her.”

“No way! Do you know how mad she’d get?”

“It’s not like it’s your fault. You could explain that to her. Tell her how hard you tried to change Mr. Brownley’s mind,” Reese said.

I shook my head. “She probably wouldn’t believe me.”

“Jackilyn knows you’re not a liar.”

“You don’t get it. Jackilyn lies all the time, so she assumes people are just as dishonest as she is. She’s going to think I want Bennett and that I orchestrated the entire thing somehow.”

Reese handed my script back to me. “So your solution is to be dishonest with her.”

I tucked the script back into my backpack. “Not revealing all the information isn’t the same thing as being dishonest. What Jackilyn doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“Don’t you think it’ll be worse if she finds out you’ve been trying to hide if from her? Then she’ll think you’re into Bennett for sure.”

“Not if she doesn’t find out. I just have to be careful.”

“You’ll need to have a lot of practices with Bennett. How are you planning to keep something like that a secret from her?” Reese asked.

“I can go to his place.”

“I thought you said Bennett never let her go to his place,” Reese pointed out.

That was true. But I wasn’t his girlfriend. He might make an exception for me. Especially if I convinced him that we needed to keep it quiet from Jackilyn. It shouldn’t be too hard to do that. I was sure he wanted to avoid her wrath as much as I did. “I might be able to convince him to let me go over there if it means Jacki doesn’t find out.”

Reese got quiet for a moment like she was thinking. “Maybe you’re overreacting.” She chewed on her thumbnail. “It’s possible that she won’t care at all that you’re in a scene with Bennett.”

“A kissing scene,” I reminded her.

“Yeah. But it’s just acting. Surely she’s mature enough to know that you wouldn’t let your feelings get involved in your work. You’ve been in enough kissing scenes to know how to keep your feelings separate from your acting.”

“Jacki? Mature?” I shot back. “Yeah, right. More like petty and jealous and always jumping to the worst conclusion.”

Reese made a face. “How are you and your sister so different? I really don’t get it.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m the last person who could explain it to you.”

“I mean, you’re so nice, and she’s just . . . well, not nice.”

“Jacki’s her own person,” I said softly. That was the nicest way to put it. I didn’t want to speak badly of my sister. But the truth was, I didn’t have many nice things to say. And that made me sad. I wished there was something I could do to help her somehow be nicer, to treat people better. I knew my parents tried, but Jacki wouldn’t listen to any of us. She always did what benefited her the most, regardless of whether it hurt others.

But I wasn’t going to give up on her. I still hoped that maybe one day I could get through to her. I knew my mom felt the same. We were a lot alike that way.

I just had to make sure she didn’t find out about my kissing scene with Bennett. Keeping it a secret would only simplify life.

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