Chapter 1

Polishing one of her oldest trophies and admiring her blurred and distorted reflection on its dull plastic surface, Jennifer placed it amongst its kin and took a step back to bask in the glory of all her achievements. At 8 ft feet tall, it dwarfed the 5’ ft 4, 23 year old and most everything in her room. And with dusting and shining her trophies from beauty pageants and cheerleading becoming an almost ritualistic pastime for the young woman, it started to consume at least a few hours of her week.

Looking at her first Youth Cheer trophy, she took it in her hands to appreciate the one that started it all.
“God, I remember the whole day when I got this!” she thought as she looked longingly down at her prize. She remembered how big it once felt in her little hands, how excited she was when her name was called… and how none of the other girls, parents or even her twin sister clapped when her name was called for it, at the exception of her father, ever the encourager. It was a massive blow to her self esteem from a young age, and this simple event would taint the idea of friendship in the young girl's head for years to come, leading to the narcissistic personality which was Jennifer.

The only person who was ever proud of her was her father, it seemed. He'd take her out to get ice cream after getting her trophy, setting a precedent of “victory ice cream”.

The memory made Jen pause a moment, she was never the touchy feely type, but she felt herself getting the urge to cry and quickly pushed down the thought. It had been around 3 months since her father passed away, leaving Jennifer and Kennedy alone in a big empty house with a massive inheritance.

Kennedy made the mistake of passing her sister's room while searching for a laptop charger, and was now being called upon by Jen who wanted to flaunt her achievements. Being Jennifer's identical twin, the resemblance was apparent, at the exception of Kennedy's clear weight difference. At 155lbs, she had over 50 lbs of weight on her perfect petite sister, who made sure she’d never forget it. Constant prodding and taunting was now becoming a normalcy for the poor girl as Jennifer could only seemingly cope by trashing her sister. Opening the door and coming in to see Jens shit eating grin, Kennedy sighed and prepared for some story about an old trophy.

Kennedy saw Jens mouth move as she went on and on about her awards, but she didn't hear any of it. She was distracted. Those trophies once had a shine like no other, sure it was cheap gold glossy paint and plastic, but the case and its lights always seemed to make them glimmer. ...However, her sister's ceaseless cleaning and polishing of the trophies left them pale and worn. Some portions completely lost all their paint, leaving strange pale shadows that looked like a spreading infection.

Truth be told, a part of Kennedy used to pity her sister. Her arrogance wasn't her own fault, not really. It was their fathers fault. If Jennifer had actually earned the trophies which decorated her case, maybe she would've been disciplined by its grandeur. Instead, she acted as if she were king midas, and who could blame her? Since she was a baby, her father had pulled the strings behind the scenes so that she was always perfect, everywhere. Paying coaches, school boards, anyone and everyone it took to make sure his baby girl was getting straight A’s and winning every award. This did the girl no favors socially, leading to her being bullied and isolated by her friends at an early age leading to her lone wolf personality and adopting the idea to hurt others before they could hurt her.

However, her pity only went so far, and Jennifer could and would be cruel if she wanted to. And she always wanted to.

Then it dawned on her. Jennifer just graduated college and was on break before working with their father. Kennedy realized without their fathers help, Jennifer would never be able to enter the workforce, not without “daddy pulling the strings”. She was a 23 year old with the mental capacity of a 14 year old, while Kennedy was much smarter then she Jen knew. While Jennifer was celebrating her false victories with her father, Kennedy was off doing very well for herself but due to their fathers influence, Jen would never know her sister was accomplished. Ironically, Jen believes the only reason Kennedy made it through college was due to her dad's help.

In reality, Jens resume to any business will look like the work of an 8th grader. Since Jen was so arrogant, all it’d take was some compliments and choice words. Kennedy began to lay a trap for her egotistical twin sister.
Waiting for a rare lull in Jennifer's story, Kennedy put her plan into action.
“Hey Jen? Since you got all these awards, it should only be a few more weeks until a company hires you! I'm sure they'd be lucky to have a worker like you.”

Flicking her head to face her sister, she hissed back “A few weeks?” glaring at her sister through scornful eyes. “It would only take a day for a company to get back to me after seeing what I'm capable of. And what kind of worker do you mean? A competent individual? I'm glad to see you could at least recognize that much.” She said looking back at her shelf with bright eyes as she grabbed a small trophy and began to polish it.

“Is that a fact?” Kennedy responded with a touch of surprise, in a successful attempt to stoke her sister's ego.

“Excuse me? You know I only tell the truth, so YES! It's a fact! Clearly or else why would I be so good at everything? You must not understand what it's like to actually be *good* at something or have any *real* accomplishments, so I could say it slower for you if you’d like.” Jennifer snapped back, unaware of how her critique of her sister was the reality she blindly lived.

“Obviously..” Kennedy responded flatly, trying to keep her annoyance hidden. “So you expect a reply from a company by the next day with an answer?”

“Kennedy. I know I'm going to get an answer tomorrow after I send out my resumes. Why are you so focused on this?” Jennifer responded, highlighting her own ignorance.

“Well what if you don't get an answer by the next day? What if you don't get an answer for a week?” Kennedy asked while feigning worry about her sister's job prospects.

“I know I will.” Jen snapped back slowly and offended at the statement

“Are you willing to bet on that?” Kennedy said with more fake concern than she thought she could stomach.

“Pfft, Please, why? Are you looking to lose?” Jen said snidely as she looked back at the trophies.

“Are you?” Kennedy said in a condescending tone.

Jennifer hated this. It was boiling her blood and felt a seizing urge to throw her sister out of her room. Finally she retorted. “ Well what if I do then huh? Then what do I get?”

Pausing a moment to seem deep in thought, Kennedy used the best bait she could imagine.

“If you get a response and a job within 3 months, I'll move out and give you half of my inheritance and you can have the house. It's in our name already so it wouldn't be hard.” Kennedy said.
Trying to keep back her smile, Jen turned away from Kennedy. She always wanted the house to herself, and this could be her opportunity, now all she had to do was capitalize it.

“DEAL!” Jen said, sticking her arm out in wait for a hand shake, but Kennedy held her hand back.

“Lets get this in writing first.” she said before going to her room to type up the agreement, Jen eagerly followed.
Typing out the deal, Kennedy asked “But what about if you don't get a response by tomorrow?”

“Whatever you want, because its not going to happen~” Jen said doing a little dance behind her.

Soon Jennifer left the room and began going around the house loudly commenting about the changes she'll be making to the home. Kennedy went about writing up a document for the next 3 months, outlining a contract for her sister to sign, and going through an insane amount of work to make sure it was nigh illegible and complicated to follow. The best thing about Jen was, she was too arrogant to admit there was something which she clearly didn't know about, which meant Kennedy could expect no questions forthcoming about the complex document she was about to hand her sister.


Thumbing through the densely packed document with haste, Jennifer went about signing and filling in the necessary initials and signature locations, smugly smiling at her sister as she returned the papers.
​​The papers which Jennifer didn't even bother to skim would have let her know what was in store.

“For every day Jennifer did not get any form of reply, Kennedy’s rules would be in place for up until 3 months*, where if she gets a job offer in 90 days, she gets the title to the home from Kennedy and the bet is over.

**- If Jennifer does not comply with the following rules, she forfeits the bet or is dealt a punishment.
Kennedy decides what Jennifer will be eating over the next 3 months
Kennedy decides when Jennifer will be eating over the next 3 months
Kennedy decides how Jennifer will be eating over the next 3 months
Jennifer is allowed only 500 steps a day
Jennifer cannot leave the house
If Jennifer lies about anything regarding employment, another month is added onto the deal
If Jennfier lies about anything regarding food, another month is added onto the deal
Jennifer cannot tell anyone about this deal

Happily accepting these damning documents, Kennedy took them and made duplicates immediately.

After some odd hours of silent struggling on the laptop, Jennifer was finally ready to send her resume out to a few different companies. Kennedy was over her shoulder, and set her timer for 24 hours telling her sister with a smile. “Now the waiting game” She thought to herself with a smile.