by Leanne Davis
The Perfect Sister
by
Leanne Davis
The Sister Series, Book Seven
www.leannedavis.net
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Other Titles by Leanne Davis
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Dear Reader
My Other Titles
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Perfect Sister
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Leanne Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Publishing History First Edition, 2016 Digital
The Sister Series, Book Seven
Digital ISBN: 978-1-941522-34-9
Edited by Teri at The Editing Fairy ([email protected])
Copy Editor: [email protected]
Cover Design by Steven Novak ([email protected])
Dedication:
To my sister who is actually the perfect sister to me.
Other Titles by Leanne Davis
Diversions
River’s End Series
River’s End
River’s Escape
River’s Return
River Road
River on Fire
The Sister Series
The Other Sister
The Years Between
The Good Sister
The Best Friend
The Wrong Sister
The Years After
The Broken Sister
The Perfect Sister
The Daughters Series
Christina
Natalie
The Zenith Trilogy
Zenith Falling
Zenith Rising
Zenith Fulfilled
The Seaclusion Series
Poison
Notorious
Secrets
Seclusion
Prologue
SHE FAILED. SHE COMPLETELY, unequivocally failed. She could have done so much better. She was so much better than that. How could it happen? She kept rehashing the last test in her geology class, the one she got a B- on, which lowered her quarter grade to a B+. It was… good. Fine. Okay. Not great. Not the best. Ally didn’t need to be good, but great, and better than most. What she needed was perfection. B+! She got a B+. The words spun all around Ally’s brain as she leaned over the toilet and put her finger inside her throat. Out came dinner and the thousands of calories she had consumed on top of that. Out it all came in a putrid, disgusting heap that landed in the toilet bowl. She flushed and did it again, and again. Ally shut her eyes at the images. The imperfection she, herself, created. It left her stomach hollow, almost like a pit was deep inside it. Her esophagus and throat burned, and her mouth had a rancid aftertaste. Seeing what was before her made her cringe.
But a small, slight smile crossed her face.
Finally, she was empty. No more panicking, twisting thoughts. No more blinding pressure building in her temples: Do more! Be more! Don’t be such an epic failure! At last, the harsh thoughts stopped. At last, she could just be. Who knew throwing up could make all that happen inside her body and mind?
She ate whenever she was stressed, but there was no way she could let all that food stay inside her. Shuddering, she could not imagine what all those calories and fat would do to her figure. Barely managing to maintain the size she’d been for the last decade wasn’t easy. She wasn’t naturally that size. She wasn’t like Kylie, her sister, who barely ate and weighed almost nothing.
The irony was, of course, that everyone thought Kylie had the eating disorder. No. Not really. Kylie only flirted with anorexia. She ate. She didn’t care if she did. She got no pleasure from it. Sugar. Chocolate. Ice cream. It didn’t matter what the food was, because none of it attracted Kylie or tempted her to indulge. Kylie didn’t want any of it. She had no interest in food. But Ally did.
Ally tried hard to eat small, sensible, perfectly proportioned meals with nutritional balance and low calorie content and even succeeded… some days. Until the never-ending, ever-present, gnawing hunger eventually consumed her. It easily overtook all the executive functions of her brain until all she could think about was food. She had to eat. Now.
It was almost animalistic, that instinct for survival.
And sometimes, she surrendered to the overwhelming desire to eat herself sick. To indulge in every single craving and hankering she had. In a store far away from the hub of her life, she could freely splurge on everything she usually denied herself. Donuts, candy, chips, pies, cakes, hamburgers, fries, fried chicken, fettuccini, and the list went on. Sometimes, she would eat so much, her stomach would swell to three times its normal volume, making her look suddenly pregnant. She often locked herself in her room just to gorge on her favorite foods.
The next few days were spent purging it all out. Sometimes, she just threw it all up at once. Quick. Easy. Done. And on others, she had to take laxatives for days on end to expel her feast. Sometimes she had to do both. But this time, she wasn’t totally relieved. The grade was permanent. Forever. She now had a B+ on her permanent record. After three and a half years of a perfect 4.0 grade point average, she now had only a 3.9.
Leaning against the wall until she was off balance, she fell onto her butt. Burying her head in her hands, she rocked herself back and forth. All that work. All those long hours of studying. All that time she sacrificed when she could have been doing anything else, but she studied. Having maintained the 4.0 GPA for so long, how could she bear to lose it now? Tears rolled down her cheeks as the gravity of her failure ripped through her mind once more.
The test was angrily thrown onto the bathroom floor where she sat staring at it for five hours. During that time, she devoured a cake, a pie, five candy bars and a ten-piece bucket of fried chicken.
Now she was trying to empty all the food she had virtually inhaled. All the while, she kept staring and glaring and crying over the test. And the wrong answer. She missed the entire essay question. Everything else was right and she failed by one essay question; her reasoning was all wrong, earning her zero points on it. And just like that, it also managed to ruin her test grade, her class grade, and her permanent record.
Whom could she tell? Who could console her? No one would understand. They’d merely pat her on the shoulder and roll their eyes, praising her for how good it was. Good. She nearly spat that word to get if off her tongue. Good. What was good? It was fine. It was okay. Like winning the participation award. Good meant nothing. People, friends, relatives, her sister, even her mother would not hesitate to tell her how lucky she was to earn the kind of grades she did. No one would understand what she lost today. Having a 4.0 was something special. It was impressive, because it meant
perfection. The performance and maintenance of perfection. It proved that she possessed an extraordinary work ethic that she could sustain for long periods of time. A 4.0 meant she truly accomplished something. A 3.9 said that she almost accomplished perfection. She almost got there. What did it matter? She might as well have gotten a 3.5 or a 3.2, since those grades would’ve still put her on the honor roll. Those were “good grades,” but not perfection.
She worked so many hours to maintain and keep that GPA. People often patted her on the shoulder, nearly amused at how seriously she regarded her work and her grades. Other students mentioned how lucky she was to have such a high grade point average. Luck? Where did luck come into it? Luck couldn’t touch her GPA. There was no luck involved, it was all the result of her hard work. She accomplished it all. She had not only read every single word of text, but she had also memorized thousands of facts. She had authored every word of every paper she ever turned in and had solved all the math problems herself. She took Ritalin and Adderall sometimes and stayed up late at night studying, or reading and writing term papers. She even managed to maintain her 4.0 through her bouts with the flu and any family dramas. She worked herself ragged; and this… this one question on one test could derail all of that? The unfairness frustrated her no end. She was dying to stuff the Twinkies that were still in their packages right into her mouth. All of her hard work was about to be lost in the fall quarter of her senior year?
Anger flushed her skin. She grabbed the geology test and ripped it up into hundreds of small pieces. The rush she got in destroying it unleashed a hot sensation in her blood and her skin flushed with warmth. She grabbed the paper pieces and threw them into the toilet, watching them float. It was symbolic, of course. The same location where her bile and vomit just dropped now contained her imperfect work. She pressed the silver handle on the toilet tank and watched the tiny pieces swirling down the hole with the tank water.
She liked to watch whatever she left in the toilet as it disappeared after she flushed it. She often marveled at the amount she managed to get out of her belly. Even sicker still, she derived bright bursts of pride from the act. She had the same reaction when she received her tests or papers back with an A on them. That expulsion—what she could get out of her body—pleased her in a strange but very real way.
Her need to look at it made her ashamed of herself. Who got off on their body’s expulsions?
Luckily, no one knew. Not a soul. It was Ally’s private pastime. Her secret, her shame… and her fulfillment. It was how she relieved her daily stress and the pressure of not meeting her own goals and expectations. Her problem was, having performed at this level for so long, the aspiration that she originally created for herself was summarily adopted by everyone else.
However, she wasn’t the screw-up in the family. She wasn’t the troubled sister. She was the functioning, put-together, and totally fine sister. Her mom’s entire belief system was based on that. She couldn’t imagine her mother finding her doing this. Crying on her knees over the toilet, sticking her index finger down her throat to gag and take everything inside of her out. The thought of her mother witnessing Ally smiling with pleasure and relief at the amount that came out, was something Ally could not imagine…
Ally shuddered. No. Never. Her mom could not know. No one could. Fortunately, no one did or even suspected it. She was nearly perfect at everything she attempted, including the concealment of her… predilection. She was so unlike her sister, Kylie, who was a hot mess of scary problems, and had everyone around her worrying over her safety, her mindset, her emotional balance, and even her weight. But Ally? No. No way. Ally didn’t let anyone spend a single second of concern that there was anything to worry about with her.
So no one worried.
Ally managed it well. She understood her own problem and unlike Kylie, who didn’t seem to totally understand what was wrong with her or why she acted certain ways, Ally knew exactly what her problems were. Kylie was clueless in general for why she acted the way she did; Ally was not. Ally was in perfect control of what she did and why she did it. She knew when the urge to purge would strike her and how to satisfy her urge when she was ready. She didn’t just start stuffing her face before throwing up at random. No. Never. She always waited until she was sure she would be left alone overnight. Then she purchased her food from far away and devoured it only in the privacy of her locked bathroom. There were no windows in there. She shut her phone off too, and did not bring it into the bathroom with her. When she was all alone, she was free to indulge in her nasty habit with no one being the wiser. No one to catch her in the act. Ally insisted on being in control of the when, how, and where. Kylie, on the other hand, displayed her crazy behavior everywhere, even in public.
Ally knew about bulimia. She had a computer, and could research the subject herself. She knew what she was doing came under that heading. So what? It was only information. She didn’t think for a second she was actually bulimic. She wasn’t anorexic for absolutely sure. Unlike her skinny sister, Ally ate. And quite often. She binged and purged. Sure. She’d seen all the talk shows and heard the news stories and totally comprehended what that was. But her predisposition was under her control. She wasn’t at the mercy of her condition. It was merely a tool for her to deal with life when it didn’t go quite how she planned. It wasn’t, however, a habit that ruled her life.
Meanwhile, Kylie did not try to conceal her problems. People judged Kylie by what they saw from her. Not Ally. Ally always knew that and learned to keep her problems to herself. It was far preferable to letting other people know her personal issues.
No one expected Ally to have any problems, so no one looked for them. The entire family was concerned about Kylie’s mental and emotional health from the time she was a teenager and their dad first left. Everyone, but most especially their mom, feared what Kylie might do to herself. Everyone believed Ally was fully capable of handling any problems and far from being emotionally fragile.
Still, this… this thing she did was only hers to experience. It was her pastime and hers alone, so she was careful to keep it very quiet.
Why wasn’t she feeling better yet? The ache of her failure was dulled, but remained a stinging reminder that would permanently follow her for the rest of her life. It didn’t matter if everyone else just laughed at her for being so upset about her grades. After all, it was just one grade on one test, in one quarter of her college experience. It wasn’t like any real problem.
That was why it was so nice to have a way to be upset without anyone witnessing it.
Chapter One
“FINALLY FINISHED, SUNSHINE?”
Ally opened the door when she heard the disembodied voice. Startled, she glanced around to find Nate Stratton sitting on the bed. What the hell was he doing in there? She shut her eyes in frustration before turning back to flick off the bathroom light and enter the guest bedroom of her aunt’s house. She was sure she shut and locked the bedroom door. What the hell? How did Nate, the annoying prick, manage to get in? And what was he doing in there? Fear made her heart race. He couldn’t… No way. Could he have heard her? She began to sweat on her chest and the back of her neck. It would be so embarrassing and literally, make her wish she could sink into the floor if he heard her. But no. No, no way. The bathroom fan was on and she was quick and quiet. Just a little problem she discreetly took care of.
Nate was intently scrolling through something on his phone. He didn’t glance up as she entered the guest bedroom. His fingers flicked and moved with the speed of a peregrine falcon, diving for its prey. With his feet flatly planted on the floor, he didn’t even offer her a glance.
“Didn’t I lock that door?”
“All you have to do is pick it. Not too hard.”
“Did it occur to you that maybe I wanted privacy?”
“You had privacy. I didn’t touch the bathroom door. It’s a fact of life we all face, sunshine. You don’t have to be so shy about it.”
She bristled. He oft
en called her “sunshine” in a mocking voice. It wasn’t a sweet, affectionate nickname. It was actually an insult towards her because he found her “too serious and intense.” What was his exact word? Sour. Yes, he found her too sour and not all that enjoyable to be around. So he started calling her “sunshine” of late.
“I was just peeing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was so important that you had to follow me into here?’
“I am trying to nail down this hot little number I met last weekend for a date.” He still didn’t bother to glance up, but grunted and smiled, obviously pleased by whatever he saw on the screen of his phone. Ally glared at him, but the narrowed eyes and scowl were wasted because he was totally absorbed with his phone. Eventually, he clicked his phone off and stood up before slipping it into his pocket.
“Done. Next Friday night.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you think I could possibly care what you’re doing next Friday night or with whom?”
“Well, you should. You know you wish it was you.”
“Over my dead body.”
His smile was quick. “Dead body? A five-year-old could have answered with that. Oh, sunshine, that retort was so beneath you. Come on, don’t you have anything fresher or better? Or are you sick? Off your game perhaps?”
She shifted her weight on her feet, and kept her arms firmly folded across her chest. He must’ve heard her throwing up. It was a stupid, reckless, and impulsive move. Especially during Christmas Day dinner at her Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Tony’s house for chrissakes. Everyone was there. Her aunt and uncles, grandparents and cousins. Aunt Vickie and her husband, who was Nate’s dad, were the reason why Nate Stratton got invited to her family’s dinner for the holiday. It pissed Ally off immensely that Nate was even allowed to come. The dinner was good, and Ally ate way too much, way too fast. Doing so in front of anyone, even her family, was so out of character for her. She quietly snuck into the bathroom to simply cancel out some of the calories. Expel most of it. She locked the outer door. No one should have heard her. Damn Nate and his bold, annoying antics. He thought he was so funny. So charming.
