I didn’t ask Eleni why she’d betrayed me like that—not on Sunday at our grandparents’ house and not at school on Monday or Tuesday, either, because we’d just started back and there was too much going on. But on Tuesday after school, Eleni came to my house with one of her mom’s magazines, and I knew it was her whale song way of saying: You’re my almost-twin and nothing and no one can ever come between us.

So I smiled and grabbed her hand and we went up to my room.

I have to share a bedroom with Kat, but luckily she wasn’t there—she hates most of the games I play with Eleni, but especially the one we were going to play now. Eleni made me do a spider check of the blankets and bedspread, and once I gave the all clear, we lay on our stomachs and propped ourselves up with our elbows.

The magazine wasn’t one of those cheap ones with slippery pages and photos of cheesy weddings. It was thick with heavy pages, full of advertisements for designer clothes that only five people in the world can afford and no one wears in real life. At least no one we’ve ever seen. Just opening that magazine made us feel rich, stylish, and fancy. We were it.

The models pouted a lot (which Eleni and I practiced) and stood like bananas in gas stations or the desert (which we also practiced). Some of them were way too thin, though. Their bones stuck out, and that wasn’t the shape we were going to be, judging by the women in our family. We were going to have boobs and butts and hips. And that was better, because who wanted to starve and be a stick? Not anyone Greek, that’s for sure.

We checked the prices and howled, “Four thousand! For shoes! And look how UGLY they are! You could buy a mansion, a pool, and a million jars of Nutella for that money!”

But the real reason we were looking at the magazines was to play our game. We’d been doing it for as long as we could remember. It was called “I’m her.” We played it all the time—not just when we read magazines. When we watched TV or saw someone amazing and powerful and strong walking along the street, we’d whisper, “I’m her” to each other because those were the women we wanted to be.

Eleni squished closer to me and put her feet between mine. Lying like that with our ankles entangled, sometimes I didn’t know which feet belonged to me. Not that it mattered. She was me and I was her, and the details didn’t really bother us.

“Ready?” Eleni asked.

“Ready,” I replied.

She opened the front cover. The first photo was of a drop-dead gorgeous girl leading a drop-dead gorgeous life, trying to cross the road in New York in drop-dead gorgeous clothes.

“I’m her,” I said quick as a whip.

“I’m her,” Eleni said a split second after me.

“I said it first.”

Eleni squinted, pointed to the photo on the next page, and said, “So ‘I’m her.’”

“Fine. Be her. Why would I want to lie in a tree covered in leaves and tons of jewelry?”

She frowned and said, “Still her, though.”

We turned the page. The model in the next photo had long blonde hair, a bright silver jacket, and five dogs on a leash.

“I’m her!” Eleni snapped. “I said it first.”

“Fine.” I turned the page and slammed my finger down on the most stunning photo ever, making sure I got there before Eleni. “I’M HER!”

Eleni said it too, but I was quicker. Anyway, I was so her. She was dark haired and incredible, wearing this red feathery ball gown with a train that swept behind her for about a mile.

“Jinx,” Eleni said. “We’re both her.”

“I said it first.”

She stuck her lips out and folded her arms. She wasn’t taking that.

“I said it before you woke up this morning,” she said.

“I said it yesterday,” I replied.

“I said it last week.”

“I said it last year.”

“I said it when I was five.”

“I said it when I was one.”

“I said it before you were born.”

“You were born after me, Eleni!”

“So I said it before I was born.”

“You didn’t have a mouth before you were born.”

“Yeah but I said it in my head when I was in my mom’s belly.”

“I said it before I was in my mom’s belly.”

“I said it in my last life.”

“I said it at the big bang.”

“I said it before the big bang.”

“MOM!” Kat yelled, walking into our bedroom. “They’re playing ‘I’m her’ again!”

“Girls,” Mom said, coming in the bedroom holding plates of food. “Stop that and eat something.”

Just before she left to go home, Eleni said, “She’s nice, Lexie.”

I knew who she was talking about, but I pretended I didn’t. I picked up our plates to take them downstairs, turned to face Eleni with the most innocent face I could master, and said, “Who?”

“Anastasia. You’ll like her. I invited her to my house so I can help her learn her story.”

I frowned. Every semester we had to learn a poem or story in Greek that we barely understood a word of. Then we had to recite it at Greek school to a whole audience of photo-taking, video-filming parents and grandparents who posted it on Facebook to humiliate us for all eternity.

“What? When’s she coming?”

“After lunch on Sunday.”

I made a sorry, what? face. Sunday was our nail-polish-naming, food-sharing, notebook-writing, “I’m her”-playing, TV-watching, homework-doing day.

“OK, but now you’re lying, right?” I asked, feeling the need to check. “Because…I honestly can’t tell.”

Eleni laughed. “Not lying. I don’t lie ALL the time, you know. I’m only helping Stasi because she’s bad at Greek.”

Stasi?

“It’ll be fun. That’s fine with you, isn’t it?” Eleni asked.

All the things they’d told me were right and good since the day I was born, like God and the truth and heaven, flashed into my head, and I wanted to tell the truth. I really did. Because it wasn’t fine. Not even the tiniest bit fine. Not fine at all.

But I also remembered the keys in the sea and how everyone turned against me when I told the truth and how it led to Eleni betraying me.

So instead of saying, “No, actually. It’s not OK with me,” I shrugged and said, “Sure. Whatever.”

Because lying was totally normal. Everyone did it. Who even cared, right?