Twins who swapped personalities…

(Laura's POV)

My name is Laura fisher. I belong to an average family with six children. I have only one brother and he just so happen to be my twin. We have a younger sister and three older sisters. I'm the older twin so I'm left with two younger siblings. There's a huge gap between my elder sisters and the rest of us so I was typically raised by my sisters. My parents were quite busy, so I never really had the chance to see them. My sisters were quite a hassle. They left most of the work for me to do so I had to grow up quickly. My twin brother's name is Leonardo. He was pampered by everyone in the house except me. It was unfair to me that even though we were born almost the same time, he got everything while I got nothing. I decided to be the only one who could talk some sense into him. I had a tough personality growing up because of the way I was treated by not just my sisters, but my parents. Though I never really spent time with my parents, they always made time for my brother. Our younger sister, being the last girl, was also treated well because she was really adorable. Even I had a soft spot for her. Because of the pampering my brother received, he became really timid and relied on his sisters a lot. He was a guy but never acted that way. He was more like a girl than a boy and what made it worse was that he looked like a girl. I, on the other hand, looked like a guy. I also preferred shorts and trousers to skirts and gowns. I just found them too uncomfortable. When people got to know us, they would refer to us as the twins who swapped personalities. I hated it, but what could I do? I had to endure such statements. 

  My parents took my sisters and I to an all-girls school and my brother was taken to a mixed school not too far from our school. I would always have to pick him up from school because he couldn't do much by himself. He was quite annoying, but he was still my brother and I cared for him. Because of my brother's nature, he often got bullied at school and I always had to help him, so I got into a lot of fights just to protect him. I even got beaten up by girls from my school because I stopped them from flirting with my brother. It was so intense that I had to get help from two strangers. I was so ashamed that I didn't even tell them thank you. He always got me into trouble, and it happened way too frequently that I was beginning to think it was on purpose.

One thing that I loved to do when I didn't want to be bothered by my family was football. I was on the football team at my school. I had loved playing football since I found out the sport existed. I would spend most of my weekend's training at the school sports centre. My parents didn't even know that I could play, they were never interested in the first place, so I didn't expect much from them.

One faithful Saturday, I had an important football match to play but I had to babysit not just my kid sister, but my brother as well. It was an important match that would determine my future and I couldn't miss it. But my sisters wouldn't listen to me no matter how hard I tried to explain. So, I had to tell my brother to watch our sister. I told him to take her out to play if he didn't want to stay at home. He didn't want to do it so I had to force him, and he couldn't refuse because I would hit him if he didn't. I didn't trust him that much, so I ran to the playground immediately after the match to ensure that everything was alright. Just as I had expected, my little sister Lesley had vanished from the playground and my brother was conversing with a stranger. I was full of rage but finding my sister was important. I searched every alley before I found her in front of a food truck. I was so relieved and took her back to the playground. I remembered that I had a score to settle with Leo, so I stormed towards him and smacked him on the head in front of the guy he was talking to. He got angry that I had hit him, but I reprimanded him instead. I had to apologize to the person he was talking to because of the way I acted in front of him and to my surprise the guy he was talking to looked at me with so much intensity. It looked like he was shocked that a girl could act that way. I didn't want to feel bothered by his intense stare, so I dragged my brother away and we went home with Lesley. I told myself never to leave him in charge of her and no matter how important any event was, I would ensure that they were both safe.

Later on, my parents found out about the bullying issue from my brother, and I was scolded for not informing them. How was I supposed to tell them when they never had time for me? But I didn't say this because it would just seem like an excuse to them. Because I was treated differently from all my siblings, I found it hard to have any form of trust in anyone. I just felt that if my family could let me down, who out there wouldn't. My parents ended up having to transfer both me and my brother to a different school to start afresh in our second year of middle school, but I didn't think anything would change just because we changed schools. As long as my brother remained the way he was, the bullying was inevitable.