Breathe: Clarissa: The Pierson Twins Duet, #1

By Rose Silverstone

Clarissa Pierson thought she'd met the "perfect man" when she fell in love with the teenage boy, Theodore Corbin. The man he turned out to be once they reconnect in college isn't the one she believed she was marrying. Every day that she is with him, she secretly longs for another. A perfectly aligned opportunity gives her that option for three glorious weeks. Every good thing comes to an end. Clarissa is dragged back into the life she promised she'd never return to. She believes she's alone and has to be the one to save herself. What she doesn't know is there is something in store she never dreamed of having. 

Catch your breath as Clarissa learns to control hers. It’s the first thing she should learn to control then maybe she’ll get a handle on everything else in her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Silverstone Creations
• Release date: Nov 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536524123

Book preview

~Life is funny, especially when you’re a twin. ~

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Breathe - Clarissa

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons-living or dead-or places, events, or locales is purely accidental. The characters are reproductions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. This book contains content that is not suitable for readers 17 and under.

Cover design by The Graphics Shed

Please be aware that this book cannot be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the author, Rose Silverstone, at [e-mail], or within the sharing guidelines at a legitimate library or bookseller. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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Catch your breath as Clarissa learns to control hers. It’s the first thing she should learn to control then maybe she’ll get a handle on everything else in her life.

Life is funny. It sure has a funny way of showing an individual what type of person they truly are. Hmm, life shows a person all of the signs of their weaknesses and sometimes throws them up in their face while beating them down.

In my case, it wasn’t so much ... life. It was the guy in my world. It was the man that I’d chosen to give my body and heart to. At one time, I believed he was absolutely perfect and practically walked on water. I won’t dwell on that now. I’ll come back to it later. I want to share how I got to the point of fighting for every breath before learning how to breathe.

I’m Clarissa Pierson. I’m twenty-four years old, the good twin and this is my story.

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Introduction

He’s ... oh my ... no ... no ... NO! No, no, no, no. He ... he can’t be. You ... you ... wo ... you wouldn’t."

Tears flood my eyes. Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, breath strangling sobs are torn from my body as I take in this man’s truth. He is a monster. How could I not have seen this before? Maybe I choose to ignore it because of some subconscious thought pattern that I have to make things work with this man because he is my husband?

Be. Lieve. It. Bitch.

It isn’t the first time I’ve heard the word slip from his lips. It isn’t the first time he’s called me a name I hadn’t been gifted by my parents. It is the first time I’ve seen that much hostility accompany it. I think that scares me more than any words he could ever speak to me.

Suddenly, I fear for my life. Before that moment, I thought I should prepare for a fight. With the look that he’s giving me, my world shifts and my fight instincts kick in. This is one battle I have no choice but to win.

Is this truly what has come of my life and this thing we call a marriage?

In the next moment, his hands are wrapped around my throat and that question is no longer my only concern.

* * *

I am a twin. My life has been a walking, living, breathing duet for as long as I’ve been aware of my existence. There is a duality within it that has nothing to do with the woman I share my genes with. I have had a mirror image of myself sharing my space and my journey with me on a daily basis for most of my life. We are the picture perfect, prime examples of dual natures. For every positive quality that I embody, my sister, Alyssa, is the equal and total opposite.

Don’t mistake my description for me putting my sister down. Beneath it all, there is an amazingly caring woman, but she would sooner knock a person’s teeth out of their face before admitting she cares for them. The members of my family are the only individuals that know just how sensitive and loving my sister is. I don’t believe the guy that has been her steady on again-off again guy gets to see that side of her.

With that said, I feel it necessary to state the obvious.

This isn’t one of those stories where there is a good twin and a bad twin or your typical romance. I am not here to present myself as the good one or the bad one—even if that stigma and those titles have been placed at our feet, stamped on our foreheads, and branded on our chests in an idiotic moment with far too much alcohol added in.

There may have been a deep-rooted need to distinguish ourselves at the age of sixteen to go along with that alcohol. One of my closest friend’s mother lied for us in order for the underage versions of ourselves to get the ink on our skin.

The tattoo is an infinity symbol with sister twins forever. On one side, it says, I’m the good one (mine) and on the other side, it says, I’m the bad one (hers). Underneath it are the words Two become one – Duality of Human Nature.

My sister doesn’t truly understand the meaning of the words on opposite sides of our chests or so she claims. I love her to pieces, but she makes me wonder about her sometimes. I’m sure she feels the same way about me. Or maybe not. I don’t know. We’ve grown apart over the years.

I miss her and some of the insanity she got us involved in. What’s even more shocking are some of the things my name has been attached to or situations I’ve had to deal with because of the woman that is one of my always and forever closest friends.

My belief is that there is a little bit of both of those natures inside all of us. I’ll admit to giving in to that other side on a few occasions, hence the tattoo. I just so happen to have someone walking around to show me what I look like when I’m being the epitome of the negative side of that nature.

Ain’t life grand that way?

Life is funny. It sure has a funny way of showing an individual what type of person they truly are. It shows all of the signs of a person’s weaknesses and sometimes throws them up in their face while beating them down.

In my case, it isn’t so much ... life. It is the guy in it. The man that I’ve chosen to give my body and heart to is the central reason for my living in misery. At one time, I believed he was absolutely perfect and practically walked on water. I won’t dwell on that now. I’ll come back to it. I want to share how I got to the point of fighting for every breath before learning how to breathe.

I’m Clarissa Pierson. I’m twenty-four years old. I’m the good twin and this is my story.

1

Intake

Twenty-four years isn’t a long time to have lived by anyone’s standard. Any person that has lived a mere twenty-four years of life is just under a quarter of a century old. That boils down to one-fourth of a hopeful life expectancy. Interestingly enough, for a while seeing twenty-five wasn’t my wishful thought for my life. I didn’t believe he—the one that I’m going to get to later—would kill me. No, I figured I would take care of it myself. I’d felt I’d lived quite a few people’s lifetimes of misery in the few years I’ve been granted. It became too much and I didn’t think enough of myself to fight any longer. That was until the day that I did.

That was a miraculous day, indeed.

Understand. I was born a Pierson—not that I did much with the name, but that’s neither here nor there right now. The members of my family tend to do everything extraordinarily. We have genetically superior individuals in our bloodline. At least that’s another belief of mine. They are highly intelligent, successful, athletic, and driven people. The business mogul, the physicist, the lawyer, the doctor, the numbers cruncher, walking perfection, the golden boy, and me—the coaster are the characters who make up the members of my family.

I am fifth born to Evelyn (the physicist) and Walter (the business mogul) Pierson and younger sister to Jamison (golden boy), Eric (numbers cruncher), Ella (doctor), and Alexander (lawyer). My sister, Alyssa (walking perfection), was born five minutes after I was and rounds out our eight-member unit. Mom said she’d always wanted three kids. She was granted those and then some. Dad initially conceded to just the three even though he’d wanted more. They hadn’t expected the other two pregnancies.

Almost losing my mother on two separate occasions—the first time she’d been hospitalized due to an unknown allergy developed during her second pregnancy which reoccurred during her third—scared my father into the vasectomy seat. A phone call from his mother had him out of the chair and making his way to his dying mother’s bedside before he could have the procedure done. My grandfather had a heart attack that same day and the scare of possibly losing both of his parents at the same time led my mother to consoling my father the only way she knew how when he chose to shut her out for two days. It wasn’t until the positive pregnancy test that had Walter Pierson coming clean about the botched appointment.

My father missed his next appointment because my mother had to be rushed to the hospital again. My father not being able to share the bed with my mother nightly for a week led to the conception of the final pregnancy for my parents. That pregnancy would result in the birth of the final set of babies. My mother drove her husband to the appointment that would ensure she would not continue populating the world with any further Piersons the day after she was released from the hospital after having us.

My mother was and still is the center of his peace. He didn’t want to lose her trying to increase the family numbers and refused to fight her when she decided she would be his chauffeur.

The fact that they conceived even when they weren’t really trying is fitting. They had to be great at even creating a family. They couldn’t just stop at three. Nope. My mother and father had to double their hoped for number and do it in just five pregnancies.

I know. I sound crazy or weird or maybe even whiny. Probably all of the above. I know this. My parents didn’t truly have control over that. If they could, those two would definitely have found away.

In a nutshell, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in along with everyone else when it comes to my family. That’s one of the attributes I call up to let me know that I was a willing participant in my own misery. Had I not fed the aforementioned issue then maybe, just maybe I could’ve saved myself and my family a whole world of hurt.

Later. Later, I’ll share the other stuff.

My family is filled with some spectacular people. The Pierson name is globally known because of all of the financial institutions with the surname on their placards. Even with that title and association, my family settled down in Kissimmee, Florida. Eight hours, a full eight hours away from Huntersville, North Carolina—the place where I ended up.

My father is the brains behind that money wagon. My mother is the one who took charge and ran with his grand idea. The nuclear physicist stepped away from her career to stand by her husband’s side. The banks, loan centers, and accounting firms that fall under the umbrella of Pierson Industries could bring several countries to their knees.

My brother, Alexander—Alex—is the family lawyer. Don’t let the pretty face fool you. The man is ruthless in the courtroom and any of the boardrooms he sets foot in. That cutthroat nature is something that he inherited from our mother.

The Bad Boy of Law is what he is called. Suited, he is clean cut, suave, and just plain beautiful. I love him dearly and might just be bias because of our familial connection. The slew of females that willingly drop their panties or don’t wear any just to have the opportunity to say he looked their way might prove otherwise.

Pretty much all of my siblings share similar features. We all have blonde toned hair, slightly rounded eyes, oval shaped faces, a little dimple in our chins, and lean bodies. My brother, Jamison, is the only one in our family that pretty much snatched all of his features from our mother.

Jamison—Jamie to the family—is one of the two that is the dark to our light. The man has the Pierson nose and lips—forever kissable—but most of his features come from the Smythe side of our family. The hazel brown, sensual eyes (or so I’m told by every female that comes into contact with him), cocoa brown hair, sun-kissed-always-tan looking skin and megawatt smile are all her. He’s intelligent, observant, wonderful, and the best big brother I could ever ask for. He’s the one that most consider the dangerous one of our family.

Still, he couldn’t save me. None of them could. I had to save myself.

How can you save someone when you don’t know they need to be saved?

It’s a question that was asked several million times when the truth of my struggle came out. It’s the thing I had to atone for when helping my loved ones come to terms with the truth of my situation.

There’s no way to rally the troops to save someone when you don’t know their location.

I couldn’t send out an S.O.S. because I didn’t know where I fit in when it came to my own skin. Breaking the chains that barred me meant having a purpose and reason to want out of the torment I was living day in and day out.

I wasn’t ready to be rescued. I see that now. My acceptance of my role kept me there. Offering me help back then would’ve been like offering water to a drowning man. I was drowning in a self-created abyss.

When it is an abyss of your own creation, it becomes a box. It is a tight-knit, suffocating box for which no oxygen can be found. The suffocation didn’t come until much later. That’s when I physically learned that without oxygen, one cannot take a ...

2

Breath

There once was a time when I couldn’t help but be the center of attention; seen, but never truly wanting to be. As I stated, the Pierson name comes with a certain stigma. Line up the lot of us and see the greatness of the unit. There was no wiggle room or chance for limitation when it came to aspirations or goals. Honors students, captains of teams, award winning, attention garnering hotties each and every one of them. People gravitated to them and that meant I had that same gravitational pull.

I just tended to gravitate to the ones that were referred to as the nerds of the school, the ones that were the goody two shoes and noted boring of the school. I was the one that everyone depended on to do the right thing. Ainslie Lee Leighton, Cristen Crissy Foster, and Nathaniel Porter fit those profiles. Actually, Nathaniel Porter straddled the fence and straddled it far too well. They are the best things to come out of all of my years as a student before I finished college.

Ainslie was head of the science club. Crissy was captain of the math and home economics clubs. Nathaniel was head of the chess club, but also junior captain of the swim team. I was on the pep squad because my sister dared me to try out. Never in a million years did I believe that I would ever make the team.

I met Lee and Crissy during the first day of my first year of grade school. Crissy and I both wore our hair wavy that day—our mother’s choices, not ours. She wore a jumper with multiple colors but the prominent one was a pale green color. The bow that was in her hair was a bright yellow. Yellow is not a color that my light brown-skinned friend has ever cared for. It’s one she takes offense to since idiot kids at her old school called her high yellow because they were just plain mean-spirited ... idiots. To this day, Crissy’s mom has no clue why my friend broke a girl’s nose at the old school. I learned about the broken nose and Crissy’s hatred of all things yellow that first day.

Here, you can have mine. It’s pink. Yuck!

I kind of like pink. Yellow looks better on you than it does on me.

She was probable right. Wearing yellow has always brightened my spirits.

Huh! Come to think of it, I haven’t worn that color in quite some time. I might have to rectify that soon.

We exchanged hair bows and made sure we were together for the rest of the day. The two of us met Ainslie at lunch. She was seated all by herself and didn’t look as if she liked her lunch. Crissy and I were sitting together looking through the things we had packed. I’ve never been a bologna and salami lover. I would rather have turkey and cheese or peanut butter no jelly unless it’s with apple butter. My mom knew that. I figured I must’ve picked up my sister’s bag, but my name was written on the outside. My sister’s favorite sandwich is bologna, salami with American cheese in the middle sliced in two halves.

As I’d looked around, Ainslie had been looking at her peanut butter sandwich as if she was debating throwing it away. After getting her attention, I lifted my sandwich in offering. The smile that spread across her face let me know that I’d found my lunch swapping partner from that moment on. Suddenly, the fact that I was mistaken, yet again, for my sister didn’t bother me because I had someone that would enjoy the mistake and offer something better.

I kind of miss the days of my mother making the wrong lunch for me and swapping them out with Ainslie. We made a game of it. It started out with us guessing what was in the bag before we swapped things out. We had so much fun.

Nathaniel didn’t join our group until much later. We were in the fourth grade and riding our bikes to school the day we met Nathaniel Porter. We’d seen him around, but we didn’t have classes with him. Plus, he lived in a different area before he moved into the neighborhood we all lived in.

We met the day that I had the only physical fight of my young life—outside of my siblings. I’d been standing at a stop sign when I felt a hand connect with my back. I barely caught myself as I fell forward. My bike did crash to the ground. I turned to see who the culprit was.

James Hornsby, Violet Hornsby’s older brother, stood right behind me. He stood a couple inches taller than me and his little snot of a sister was right behind him.

That’s her. That’s the one that said, ‘All people with ‘horn’ in their names go to the bad place where the devil lives.’ I told you she rides her bike home.

What? What was she talking about? I hadn’t even seen the little brat that day. My sister ... Alyssa was the one that had class with her.

"You’re wrong. I didn’t see you or talk to you today."

Liar! the little snit yelled and her brother moved forward.

That was all it took for me to begin to defend myself. I did mention that I’m the fifth child, didn’t I? Being number five means that person gets to do a lot of watching when their brothers are horsing around. My older sister, Ella, also wanted to make sure that I knew how to combat the idiocy of my brothers when they wanted to roughhouse so I know how to defend myself.

James came at me and I moved so I could twist to take him down. Once he was on the ground, I pummeled his face. His crazy sister grabbed my hair and pulled so I slipped a bit in my position above him. He took that opportunity and ran with it. I mean he literally ran. I was running after him when my eyes connected with Nathaniel’s. he was leaning against his family’s mailbox watching the exchange between James and me. As James ran by, Nathaniel stuck his foot out. Nothing will ever erase the sight of seeing James’ slightly rounded body stumbling as he fell face forward onto the ground. I halted for a moment as Nathaniel attempted, but failed to hide his laughter.

I made a move toward James, but was caught around the waist and pulled back.

Whoa there, Scare Bear. I think he’s had enough.

I was so fixated on the slight squeak of his voice and what he’d called me that I forgot all about James.

What did you call me?

"Oh.