After my stepfather injured my twin sister and me, he brought us to the hospital. My mother calmly told the doctor, “They just fell down the stairs.” My stepfather smiled, thinking he had won. But as the nurse checked my vitals, I slipped a handwritten note into her pocket, and…

while he deliberated over which of us would endure his discipline first.

We were seventeen years old, identical to the point of frustrating our teachers and confounding our peers, but Arthur never confused us. He studied our micro-expressions. Chloe, possessing a heart too soft for the world we lived in, always begged. She would plead, her voice cracking,continue reading …