“Lace, you promise you won’t get mad at me?”
“Why would I be? The only thing I might get mad about is…” Abigail gives me the yup-that’s-the-thing look.
I lock my jaw and shut my eyes. “You sure? That they are...back together?”
“I’m sorry Lace, it’s just word of mouth.”
“You’re absolutely sure? Ludio? Jesse Ludio?” She nods.
Jesse Ludio, is another topic altogether. Also known as ‘The Jester’, a rip off of his actual name Chester. He is my sisters on-again-off-again boyfriend. I despise his soul. Multiple times has he tried to put, the moves on my sister. Or grab her. Multiple times, he’s cheated or played her. Multiple times I’ve  punched him in his perfectly chiseled jaw, for doing all of the above. Mainly because he’s tried to cheat on my sister… with me!
He’s made his way around. Before he dated my sister he dated me. But I don’t count him as a first boyfriend. It started with inviting me to the seventh grade dance. When the music got slow, he asked me out. Of course I said yes. I thought having a boyfriend made you cool and popular, and it did. It also made me popular with the boys. I constantly had one flirting with me or meeting me at my locker.
At the time, I was more popular than my sister and she hated it. She would try to grasp anything embarrassing about me and tell it to the guys. In return I became even more popular. There were also rumors that Jesse wasn’t being very loyal to his girlfriend. That he’d made out with girls from other schools, and some in our own. I chose to not believe them, but I wish I had. We dated for a full year. When the beginning of eighth grade dance came around, I expected Jesse to ask me to go. He never did, but I had assumed that we would go together anyway, because we were boyfriend and girlfriend.
At the beginning of the dance, while we were playing musical chairs, he was the first to get out. Now that I think on it, I realize that he did it on purpose. There was a lot of kids in the room. It would take me awhile to get out. He told me he was meeting up with his friends and that I could find him in the gym, on the dance floor. It did take me awhile to get out of that room. Finally, I went to find him, but his friends told me he was busy, he was djing. They kept me from going in, until finally while getting food from the concession stand they were distracted.
I slipped away convinced I was going to dance the night away with my loyal, cute boyfriend. When I walked into the gym, the lights were out except for the crazy strobe light in the front corner.  I looked around, for Jesse, and in one of the flighty lights I saw him. A picture that will forever be burned into my memory. He was making out with Alexis. My sister. Against the wall in the corner.
I decided to get closer, this couldn’t possibly be my sister. But the closer I got, the more sick I got. I ran. Away, before she could see me. My heart was broken. My own sister. From then on, I decided to never tell my sister what I saw and isolate myself from her altogether. And I chose to stay as far away from boys as possible.
Naturally, I spent the rest of the dance having a meltdown in the bathroom. When we got home I thought my sister would fess up. Tell me she had cheated with my boyfriend. But no. She never said a single thing about that dance ever since. The next day, Jesse broke up with me. I was still popular with the boys, but gradually, wanting nothing to do with them took its toll. When I stopped instantly responding to their texts, or not flirting back, all the guys backed off. They all knew what had happened, they assumed I did too.
My sister became more and more popular once he asked her out. She’d finally succeeded at beating me. I felt like I was in a game of Beat Lacey Wheckter. Eventually her the game had been won. Except for height and intelligence. Ever since, my flirting skills are non-existent and I’m forced to remember that dance for every second of everyday. I settled on the conclusion that not even biological sisters can be trusted.