In Your Shadow

There was no doubt in Hazel's eyes that Sierra would make the band, and that with Sierra's help, the band would become famous one day.
But she had no idea the consequences that would come with Sierra's growing fame.

As Sierra and the rest of her band, VersaEmerge grew in popularity, Sierra's ego began to slowly inflate. Hazel was the one who felt it the most.

Her sister began to put her down, showing off her talents, making Hazel feel like a lone nerd.
While Sierra decided she didn't need school, Hazel stayed behind in Port St. Lucie, and completed high school, a valedvictorian with honors- which simply encouraged Sierra's taunts. Hazel's speech was nowhere near as creative and funny it could have been if Sierra would have helped, and without her sister's support, her voice sounded lost, and a little lonely.

At the end of her graduation ceremony, her mother told her that Sierra had left early to go to a show.

Hazel hadn't even met the rest of the band- and they were already on their second tour. Everytime they had come over, Sierra would find a way to get Hazel out of the house, or Hazel had to go work another double at work. The only member she knew was the tall, dark haired boy- whose name she could never remember.

When Sierra announced that two members of the band had left, Hazel acted as if she didn't care, even though she could feel how much it bothered her sister.
If Sierra didn't care about how she was making Hazel feel, she wasn't going to care about how Sierra felt.

But whenever Sierra asked Hazel for anything, help with her hair, her makeup, her outfit, anything, she would in a heartbeat, just to be a good sister. But if Hazel asked the same of Sierra, she was busy, or, she didn't feel like it.

When the band was finally signed, Hazel nearly cracked. Sierra snuck back into the house drunk and high, and had driven home by herself.
Hazel put her in a cold shower, fed her, and put her to bed, all without waking their parents.

When it came time for the band to tour, it was time for Hazel to go to college. She was destined to go to Yale- but with the tuition costs, and the amount of money the band had borrowed from the Kusterbeck family, Hazel's dreams costed too much finacially, and she had to settle for Tampa university.

After two months, Hazel came back home. When her parents asked why she quit, she told them that some frat boys had spread a video of a porn star- with her face edited onto the biggest slut in the video. The school had expelled her.

When Sierra came under fire for the video, the school finally punished the students, but Hazel still couldn't go back. She couldn't show her face to the students at Tampa, or the friends that she had made.

When Sierra came home from tour, she shared a room with Hazel like they used to when they were in high school.

Sierra did the same thing she used to, she just sat in bed, writing lyrics, or staring at the window at the waves hitting the sand.

"Hazel."

Hazel's eyes darted away from the pschology textbook she had been reading, and up to her sister.

She couldn't remember the last time she had heard her sister call her name.

Hazel remembered that she was supposed to give Sierra the cold shoulder, and looked back down at her book.

Sierra sighed.

"Hazel, I'm sorry." She sighed, her voice sounding strained, as if she was forcing herself to apologize to her sister. "I really am."

"Really?" Hazel snapped, sounding purely venomous. "What do you want this time? Help unpacking? Food? Money? Whatever you want dearest sister of mine, I'm you fucking slave."

Sierra cringed, and looked down at her hands. She still scribbled lines on her from time to time, a pen in her back pocket at all times.

She glanced up at her sister, then took the pen out of her pocket, and wrote something down. When she finished, she got up, and cautiously sat on the end of Hazel's bed.

Hazel glanced up at her sister, and then looked back down at her textbook.

"Hazel, you know that when I apologize, I mean it." Sierra said, reaching for her sister.
Hazel moved away from her, then looked up at Sierra, her golden eyes boring into her sister's.
That was the only difference between them physically. Hazel's eyes were much more notable than Sierra's. While Sierra's would change from greenish gold to a dark gold, Hazel's would remain an astonishing shade of gold, with specs of green near her pupil.

"You know, when you left, you didn't even say goodbye to me." Hazel said, her eyes brimming with tears at the memory. "I wished you luck, I waved to you. I helped pay for that goddamn van you all traveled in. What did you give me in return? Fucking nothing. Not even a simple 'thank you'." She snarled, the book now shut, lying on the nightstand next to her.

"Hazel-" Sierra began, but Hazel cut her short.

"We're twins Sierra, sisters, I've taken care of you when you needed help, but when I come to you, you won't give me the time of day anymore. We used to help each other. I drove you to those goddamn band practices every fucking weekend until you got your own damn car, even then, you needed my help to pay for gas when mom and dad couldn't pay for you. I was always there when you needed me to cover for you when you snuck out without me. I did everything I could to make sure you did well in school, and you gave up on yourself. You gave up on everything and everyone who tried to help you in school, you abandoned all of your friends that loved you, and you abandoned me."

By the time she was finished, Sierra had a look of despair on her face. Hazel had given up on her sister.

Hazel wiped her face.
"I don't know if I can forgive you, Sierra. You apparently have no idea how much it hurts to lose your twin. You don't care enough to show us how much you miss your family when you leave for tour. You're just too damn stubborn to listen to us." She said, now sounding weak.

Sierra turned away, not wanting her sister to see her cry.

"You know I gave up Yale so that Mom and Dad could help your band tour?" Hazel said, making Sierra feel even worse.

She knew how important Yale was to her sister. It had been her only dream in life.

"I let them help you, they said that they would pull their funding to pay for Yale." She said, making Sierra want to just jump off a cliff. "I told them not to. It was your dream to tour the country, to be a musician. I wanted you to be successful."

Sierra swallowed a sob, still looking at the hardwood floor. She hadn't noticed it before now.
So many things had changed since she had joined the band, she just hadn't taken the time to notice it.

"I wanted the best for you. I worked doubles for an entire three weeks once so that I could send you money for food, gas, whatever you all needed. To congradulate you all on your signing. We organized a surprise party for you, and you decided halfway home that you were going to go to Brittany's, so that you could get shitfaced, rather than see your own family, who took the time to organize an entire party for you, invite your family from across the state over, and you didn't even bother to tell us you weren't coming home."

Sierra finally looked up at Hazel, and nearly cringed. Her eyes were ablaze, furious with her sister's actions.

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

"Hazel, I'm sorry." She choked, feeling hopeless. Hazel's eyes softened a little. "I really am."

She looked back down at the ground.

"I was so focused on making it, I forgot to be your sister. Something so important to me, and I chose my fucking career over you. I feel like complete shit for doing that to you, and I'm sorry, from the bottom of my ice cold hear I am sorry for everything I did to you. All of the pain I caused you." She paused.

"I miss my sister. I miss my family. I miss everything I left behind. The whole time we were on the road, I missed sharing a room with you. I missed being with you. I missed everyone."

Hazel was close to tears, watching her stronger, stubborn sister cry crushed her.

Sierra looked Hazel in the eyes.

"I'm so sorry, and I have no idea how I'll ever make it up to you. You were a wonderful sister to me before I became who I am now. I'm trying to change. I've realized how much pain I've caused you, and everyone else I neglected when I left to tour. I just hope that one day you can forgive me." She finished, then closed her eyes, bowing her head.

Hazel didn't hesitate to grab her sister, and pull her into the biggest hug she had ever given her sister.

Sierra didn't hesitate to hug her sister back, holding on as tight as she could.

"I forgive you Sierra," She sighed, Sierra squeezing her tighter. "But I just can't trust you anymore."

"Not until I prove myself." Sierra muttered. Hazel nodded.

>>--------->

The day after Sierra's apology, Sierra dragged Hazel with her to finally meet the band.
She drove, and Hazel prayed the entire way to their destination.

"Oh come on Hazel, I passed my driving test!" Sierra scoffed as she cut off a Mac truck.
"Barely." Hazel muttered, blowing her blunt bangs out of her face. "You flirted with the officer."

Sierra was about to protest, then she shrugged, agreeing with Hazel.

"I still can't believe you've never met the rest of the band." Sierra sighed, sounding dissapointed. If she was, it was probably because of how ignorant she had been.

"Yeah, me too." Hazel said, not meaning to be offensive. Sierra made a face.
Hazel noticed, and said: "You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Sierra said, still sounding unconvinced as she exited, and headed towards the neighborhood Hazel had driven her to a thousand times before.

"Lost Tree Blvd..." Hazel muttered under her breath, barely audible to Sierra. She still remembered.

The house didn't look any different, except for a few lawn orniments here and there, maybe a few different flowers or bushes. But that had been in the past three years. What else had changed?

Sierra parked the car in front of the house, shut it off, and got out, Hazel exiting right behind her.
She strutted up the house like she had the first time they had been there for her audition, still looking confident and sure of herself. Hazel followed, wearing her confidence like a cheap costume.

She had lost that part of herself back in Tampa.

Sierra just let herself into the house, not even bothering to knock. Hazel watched her sister dissapear behind the corner, bewhildered at her actions.

"Sierra!" She scolded quietly, her voice a mere whisper.

She hesistently followed her sister, edging into the door way.
"She's here somewhere..."

Sierra appeared out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of Hazel.
"There you are, get in here!" Sierra said, grabbing her sister by the wrist, and dragging her to the back of the house.

Hazel noticed pictures of the same familiar face lining the walls of the house.

"Here she is! I found her standing at the front door." Sierra chuckled, pushing Hazel in front of her.

Three pairs of eyes were on Hazel and Sierra, darting between the two, searching for differences in the two.
Sierra's bangs had grown out, and were now less likely to hang in her face, while Hazel's were cut right above her eyes, simple blunt bangs to complement her never- dyed hair.

Hazel had a smiliar kind of style to Sierra's, but would choose oxfords over the boots that Sierra wore anyday of the year.

"Well, its nice to finally see you again Hazel." One of them said, Hazel's eyes averting from the floor, to the dark haired man who had spoken.

He was the boy she had met three years ago, when Hazel had first dropped Sierra off for her audition. She just couldn't remember his name.

"Um... Hi." She muttered. Sierra chuckled next to her.
"Hazel, this is Devin, Chris, and," She motioned to the boy she was examining. "Blake."

Blake and Hazel seemed to be engorged in each other, nearly mystified.

Hazel snapped out of it when Sierra nudged her.

"Oh, nice to meet you all." She said, reaching out to shake their hands. The one named Devin chuckled, stood, and to Hazel's surprise, pulled her into a hug.
It took her a moment to decide weather or not she wanted to hug him back.

"Well isn't this nice." He said, talking in a funny voice that made Hazel laugh. She knew right away that he would be the one to always provide a laugh.

When he released her, the other stood, and shook her hand politely, a sweet look in his eyes. He was quiet, only saying that it was nice to meet her.

Hazel smiled sweetly, sayin the same.

When she turned to Blake, he just shrugged, a smile on his face.
"We've met before, but if you want..?" He said, holding out his hand for a shake. Hazel chuckled, and took it, shaking it for a moment.

Blake smiled, and placed his hand back on his lap when she let go.

Hazel promised herself that she would never forget his name again.