The twins arrived late on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon.

After they settled in, Bea surprised me with a big, friendly smile. She invited me to read with her, a book titled Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I had been over the moon and couldn't wait to share a book of my own with her. I made a mental note to pick something ghostly or supernatural. She seemed to enjoy those genres of stories.

The next day, however, Bea snuck up behind me and poured a large pot of ice water over my head. She ordered Trick, who was bigger and stronger than both of us, to drag me into the basement and locked the door. The basement was windowless, and I couldn't find the light switch. Chilled to the bone and scared out of my mind, I shivered and sobbed in darkness for what felt like hours until Mrs. Watson finally found me. Our housekeeper didn't believe me when I told her the truth about what the twins had done. She called me a "nasty, little liar" and sent me to my room without dinner.

When my dad found out about the incident, he did nothing, said nothing, and I soon realized that no one was going to look out for me in Wellesley. I was unwanted and unwelcome in my own family.

I spent the next six years fighting for the right to exist under my own fucking roof. If I was lucky, my dad came home maybe once or twice a month. He worked for the government and frequently traveled to Washington DC for weeks on end. When he wasn't with us, Bea and Trick lorded over the place like Regina George and her loyal henchman. Mrs. Watson did everything in her power to please them, which often meant undermining and humiliating me whenever the twins threw a fit.

Bea was the human incarnate of Snow White's apple. Sweetness and light dipped in poison. I learned to tread carefully around her. There was nothing that delighted my half-sister more than to one-up me or put me down.

Trick, on the other hand, was a natural-born bully. Bumps and bruises became a normal part of my life during the first two years we lived together. But he was nowhere near as bad as Bea. As we grew older, conflicts with my brother became manageable once I learned to read his mood swings.

On occasion, I even managed to convince Trick to go head on with our sister, especially when Bea took things too far. Like the time she tried to shove my book of Emily Dickinson poems into a toilet bowl. I cherished this book above all others because Mamma had written, by hand, a special note for me on the inside cover: Mamma ti ama, Caterina. Mother loves you, Caterina. Trick recognized its sentimental value. It was one of the last gifts Mamma had ever given me. Using his superior size and strength, he had pried the book out of Bea's clenched fingers and returned it to me with a grunt.

The twins and I were approximately four months apart in age, but the three of us couldn't be more different. Trick had small beady eyes and a large meaty head. It seemed Bea had absorbed all the good looks from their mother in the womb. They were both fair-haired to my dark. Blue-eyed to my hazel. I was proud of my hazel eyes. Mamma used to say that the color was mercuriale, ever-changing, often appearing greenish beneath sunlight and browner in the shadows.

My half-siblings and I were enrolled at Ashton Wellesley Academy. Founded in the early 1900s, our school had been serving New England's wealthiest and most elite families for generations. Students typically started in sixth grade and finished during their senior year in high school. Nearly half of our graduates went on to attend one of the Ivies, Stanford, or MIT.

The campus was stock full of Georgian-stye buildings with red bricks, white columns, and rich Gothic Revival interiors in dark mahogany woods set against moody burgundy walls and muted green and navy blue textiles. The twelve academic buildings, four athletic facilities, and two dormitories—for the boarders—were interspersed across a sprawling green lawn and multiple concrete walkways.

Ashton Wellesley became my refuge. I poured my heart and soul into pleasing teachers, excelling at schoolwork, and making a name for myself not just as a top student but the top student. Bea and Trick might have reigned supreme in our dad's house, but at school I bowed to no one. My half-siblings knew exactly who wore the crown in the hallowed halls of Ashton Wellesley.

Class valedictorian? Me.

Speech and debate captain? Still me.

Model UN president? Yours truly.

First chair violinist in concert orchestra? Do, re, ME, bitch.

It wasn't easy for me to stay on top. Private boarding schools were known to be cutthroat and competitive, but it was especially true at a school like Ashton Wellesley. The balance of power was murky as hell on our campus. Nothing was as it should be.

At first glance, the majority of the student body—dressed in sharp navy blue blazers, white dress shirts, and gray trousers for boys and pleated skirts for girls—presented the very image of well-behaved, preppy kids from good families.

The Ashton Wellesley faculty was an even more commendable lot, each of them a nationally-recognized scholar or expert in their respective fields of study. But their accolades and achievements were merely facades. Smoke and mirrors to sedate the masses. They didn't really command any respect from the student body. Save for an exceptional few, teachers and admin typically inhabited the bottom of Ashton Wellesley food chain when push came to shove.

The real power was hidden behind each student's last name.

Was Frankie's dad a governor?

Or the CEO of a large pharmaceutical?

Did his grandparents donate a sizable sum to the school last year?

Not even our principal, Dr. Arthur Pratt, wielded full authority over his own school. Like everyone else, he, too, answered to our parents.

Only the scholarship students worked their asses off. They were the true scholars, the unseen backbone, upholding Ashton Wellesley's sterling academic reputation.

The rest of our student body wasn't lazy or dumb by any stretch of the imagination, but those with real money and connections simply had no qualms about relying on their family's laurels whenever they hit a roadblock.

I liked to think that I was better than my peers, not by much, but enough to make a difference. My dad's background was impressive enough that I didn't have to kill myself over schoolwork, but I did it, anyway, because I wanted to be the best.

I was constantly trying to outshine the likes of Natalia Turgenev, who scored 1580 on the SAT's as a sophomore, and Amari Kleinschmidt-Shah, whose parents donated our new state-of-the-art gym. They made it difficult for me to maintain my standing as queen bee. The competitive tension between Nat, Amari, and me was always lurking in the background, but, believe it or not, those two bitches had been my closest friends since middle school. Friendship bracelets and sleepovers had nothing on our years of shared physical, emotional, and mental trauma for the sake of academic excellence.

My dad's position in the government agency was certainly noteworthy, but it wasn't enough to grant me immunity from all the ambitious, power-hungry sharklings at Ashton Wellesley. It took more than hard work and good grades to maintain my rightful place as valedictorian. Call me cold and calculating, but I had my reasons for being such good friends with Nat and Amari.

Between the combined wealth of the Kleinschmidt's and the Shah's, Amari was in line to inherit a multimillion dollar empire. Her family oversaw thousands of businesses that spanned halfway across the globe. Amari's clout with admin was unparalleled, and my close ties with her often afforded me extra leeway to sidestep bothersome school rules and restrictions.

Nat, on the other hand, was a scholarship student from a middle-class family, recruited for her crazy high IQ. Shy by nature and a bit self-conscious about her pudge, she came to Ashton Wellesley as pure and defenseless as a baby fawn, but her naivete quickly faded once she started hanging out with Amari and me. She was a lot more fun now thanks to us.

Nat was also generous. I wouldn't be as giving if I had her brains. My friend never withheld her genius-like intellect from Amari or me, even if it meant we might score higher than her on important exams or projects. Our late night study sessions together contributed to a huge part of my academic success.

Nat and Amari were among the few decent humans at Ashton Wellesley, and they were probably the only two with a good enough temperament to put up with me. Everyone on campus knew Nat, Amari, and I were inseparable. Ours was a truly symbiotic friendship.

I enjoyed preferential treatment from admin thanks to Amari.

Nat helped Amari and me with our schoolwork.

And I never hesitated to cut down anyone who tried to cut them down.

Nat's weight and scholarship status made her a frequent target of condescending remarks, and Amari got shit for simply being brown. She was actually British-Pakistani on her dad's side and German-Indian through her mom, but, naturally, the xenophobic shitheads at our school only chose to focus on the non-white branches of her family tree.

Nothing at Ashton Wellesley was ever as perfect or prestigious as it appeared, which, unfortunately, also included my friendship with Nat and Amari. As much as I loved those bitches, I only trusted them to an extent. Not even Nat knew why I was dreading my eighteenth birthday so much, and I told that bitch nearly all of my dirty secrets.

During my dad's very messy divorce from Trick and Bea's mother, she hired a team of extremely talented lawyers to ensure I'd never be able to squander away her precious babies' inheritance. If my dad had refused to agree to her terms, then she was prepared to take full custody of the twins and never let him see them again. This was how the following clause about my illegitimate ass made its way into their divorce agreement: Any sum over $1,000 a month—barring basic living expenses like food, water, shelter, and day-to-day necessities—used on me would need her approval. Deposits into financial accounts and portfolios under my name also required her signature, and once I turned eighteen my dad was obligated to cut me off financially.

To outsiders, my life probably looked pretty perfect. I was rich, beautiful, and smart. I was more than a princess. I was a goddamn queen. But the crown on my head was a gilded one, dipped in gold to hide the lies, and, because of it, my consciousness was trapped in a perpetual state of unease. I spent every minute of the day tackling academics and extracurriculars like a general strategizing for war.

Shakespeare probably said it best, "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."

Unlike the majority of my classmates, after graduation, I had no trust fund waiting for me, nor any other form of a cushy fall-back plan. This was why I needed to work a hundred times harder to get ahead.

That being said, I have dreamed about going back to California ever since Mamma died. I wasn't sure why I wanted it so badly. Being there physically wouldn't bring back the dead or revive the past, but, for some reason, I felt beyond determined to get into Stanford even if it meant taking out a lifetime of student loans. I had been eyeing their JD/MBA program, one of the nation's oldest and finest joint law and business degree programs, like a bitch in heat since eighth grade.

Upon completion of my undergrad degree, I planned to attend law school at either Stanford again. Or try my luck at Yale. Grind for a few more years, pass the bar, and then kickstart my long and illustrious career as a bona fide lawyer in the corporate world.

I didn't really give a shit where I ended up as long as I could make a fuckton of money. I wanted to be able to shove all my success and wealth down my dad's throat, through his ex-wife's eye sockets, and out of Trick and Bea's asses.

Then, I'd walk away from every one of those sons of bitches and never look back.

This year, my junior year, was absolutely critical for me. My profile needed to be fucking immaculate by Stanford's early application deadline next November. Every little detail mattered. GPA. SAT and ACT scores. Extracurriculars, awards, and competitions. Now, more than ever, I was constantly on the lookout for anything or anyone that might stand in my way, so I could remove the fuckers before they took me down.