I would have to be blind to not see the way girls glare at her in class or the way boys scowl when she struts past them with a flip of her hair. It bothers me, enflaming in the back of my mind, gnawing and gnawing until I finally ask.

We're 7 or so, it's only natural I would be curious. I don't what a b*tch my sister can be yet, I only know the girl who plays dolls with me and gives those coy smiles and sly winks to allude to mystery, I don't know that her tongue is a nightmare, sharp and harsh, when she's frustrated.

"Do you want something?" She asks from the fridge, pulling out a water bottle for herself.

"No thanks, Ali," I decline, shaking my head.

"Suit yourself," she scoffs, closing the fridge and swinging around the counter to sashay over to the couch. I don't yet recognize what "sashaying" is or why she does it. Unlike Alison, I'm still naïve to how much pretty matters.

"Hey, Ali?" I speak up, tentatively. She stops in her tracks, not turning to face me.

"Yeah, Court?" She asks, tilting her head, idly. She still doesn't look at me. In hindsight, this is probably her bottled up insecurities — she doesn't want to look at herself. We're identical after all.

"Why do so many people hate you?" Beating around the bush has never been something either of us were good at.

Carefully, she looks over her shoulder after setting the water bottle down on the coffee table, flashing a coy smile — the most infamous of her trademark smiles, the "I'm Ali and I'm fabulous" one, and says, "because I'm the best, sis," with a quick wink and this cute shoulder thing.

There are two, important things I don't take from this yet — one: it's narcissism to an astounding level and two: she's lying. About why people hate her. She knows. She knows exactly why, she's too smart not to. She knows what she is, she always knows these things.

She's the "it" girl already. Girls want to be her, boys want to be with her. But she smiles teasingly and struts past, sure to display what they want and sure to remind them they can't have it. And I don't know until curiosity gets the best of me.