Your Side and Mine

Chapter 1

I turned my head back down to the magazine. "Yeah, she really is," I replied.

Even if the pictures weren't photoshopped, Liv would have glowed that much. She looked stunning. Her long brown hair curled perfectly around her shoulders. Her eyes, a deep jade green, captured your gaze and held it there. Her makeup and clothing were a different color on each spread: pink, purple, green, blue. She had tiny, light freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks. They chose not to cover them up in the photo shoot, and they looked beautiful. I had the same freckles, but they didn't have the same effect on me. All of our similar features just worked on her.

Although I never felt like I belonged in that world, some of it could be fun—movie sets, awards shows, parties, trips. Traveling was the best (and in ways, the worst) part. I'd rather spend every cent I have on experiences than shoes. That feeling you get when you see a famous painting in person or reach the top of a mountain after a long hike always made me feel a little less small and a little more alive.

Despite our differences, Liv and I had always been close. Only being a year apart, we did everything together growing up. And we had to build up a front against our mom. At nineteen, I'd been working for Liv as her personal assistant for almost a year, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

As if she knew I was looking at her, my phone buzzed in my lap, and I saw her name across the screen.

"Marin!" Liv screamed when I answered. "I got the part!"

Relief flooded my body. "Ow. I'm deaf now but so happy for you."

I smiled into the phone, partly for selfish reasons. The movie was filming in Toronto—somewhere I'd surprisingly never been. Liv was excited because she'd been trying to land a leading role in a romantic comedy. She'd convinced herself she needed to take her career in a new direction ever since she turned eighteen, and she'd been obsessing about her audition for a while.

"You really are going to be great, and not to mention, you deserve it," I added.

What I didn't mention was the fact that she was dating one of the producers, James, even though it probably had nothing to do with it. He was a little older than Liv and new to the L.A. scene, but Liv seemed happier than I'd seen her in a long time, even in the few months they'd been dating. I wondered how she made the craziness work. If I had to guess, during the past three months she'd probably been traveling seventy-five percent of the time. That lifestyle was long days, traveling constantly, and busy schedules. I found it hard. How are you supposed to date someone you see once every few weeks or even less? Everyone was on a merry-go-round of relationships, getting thrown off again and again.

"Thanks," she exclaimed.

"Though I'll have to watch you in sex scenes now."

"Ew, Marin," she laughed. "Don't be gross. And besides, you know they will cast some hot guy."

"Probably still won't want to watch it, and it probably wouldn't work if he was ugly—or maybe it would. You could both get the makeup department to make you look hideous. Show some real-life expectation."

"Ha ha," she fake laughed. "We have to fly out next week. I told James to fill you in on the details."

My phone beeped telling me someone else was calling. I briefly took my phone away from my ear to read the screen. "Ugh, Mom is calling me," I said back into the phone.

Yes, I ignored my mother way too often, but she brought it upon herself. The first words out of her mouth were never a hello. Instead, it was a what did you eat for breakfast? or a did you wear a dress today? Unfortunately, I let her words get into my head all the time. Her negative comments planted a tiny seed in my ear, and the vines grew slowly up to my brain, reality and fiction intertwining themselves together. It was better if I just didn't take her calls sometimes.