Page 45 of Tangled with the Tight End

I trail behind her. “It’s like everyone else has their goals and their careers. They’ve even found the love of their life. I’m a single woman just now entering the last semester of nursing school at age twenty-eight and I’m doing odd jobs to make ends meet. People don’t take me seriously.” I pause. “I guess I can see why.”

“Winona.” Cass walks over to me, bracing my arms and looking me in the eye.

Sometimes the things I hear people say about twins sound like mumbo jumbo, but I have to admit there’s something to the connection I have with Cass. A simple look from her can calm me down like nothing else can.

“Hmmm?” I say.

“You’re amazing. If you use other people’s measuring sticks, you’ll always fall short.”

“I don’t think that’s how measuring sticks work.”

She laughs, dropping her hands from my arms and walking over to the cupboard to grab a pot for the spaghetti.

“Well, it is in this case,” she says. “You can’t hold up other people’s achievements and use them to measure your worth or competence.”

“I know. I know.”

I drop the subject, asking her how her day was. My premature midlife crisis isn’t brought up again all night.

Before we head to our separate bedrooms, Cass says, “Goodnight, amazing sister of mine.”

I pull her into a hug. “Goodnight.”

She truly means it. And in some ways, she has to feel that way. I’m her sister—her twin.

And her words do matter to me.

But even as I’m pulling the covers back to climb into bed, one question rattles around in my head: Am I good enough?

And, as I flop from one side to the other, trying to settle into my pillow to sleep, another question rises up: What will it take for people to actually take me seriously?

Chapter 8

Winona

It's good for a person to be terrorized by a goat.

~ Natasha Pulley

I’m babysitting a goat.

“Jenny!” I shout as she nips at the edge of my shirt, then dips her head and rams into me.

Her short horns hook on the hem. It snags when she rears back.

She shakes and shakes and my shirt tugs left and right.

“You’re a little menace!” I say.

Jenny squints at me with her beady eyes.

“... a cute, wonderful menace.” I put a lilt in my voice in an attempt to subdue her. Do I think she’s cute? When she’s sleeping. Right now, she’s the spawn of Satan with fur and two very solid horns aimed in my direction.

She rams me again.

Jenny: 7, Me: 0.

She knows I don’t love her. And she’s making me pay.