ηɑϻЄ: Lizzy Fletcher
"Yea, we're identical twins... Remind my sister." - Lizzy
ɑɢЄ: 31
ɑρρЄɑяɑηʗЄ:
Lizzy's light blonde hair use to carries The Fletcher Girl's signature Peacock dye job on the left side of her face; distinguishing her and her sister apart. They both are petite, around 5' 6" tall with grey-blue eyes and that bubblegum happy smile, but that's where their physical similarities end. Lizzy is around 132 lbs - a little more thickness to her bones than her sister. Lizzy's body was built for damage and destruction, while Mendi's is more of a graceful swan. Hard to tell that these days - they still are mirror perfect.
ρЄяϩΦηɑɭɪʇЧ:
The Fletcher girls were not your typical identical twins. Each one tended to feed off the other when it came to their personality, looks, attitudes… you name it! If you had known them for a while, it would still be the same as meeting them for the first time. They were always changing, flip-flopping everything about themselves, which made it almost impossible to tell them apart.
Lizzy was the rebel; the skateboard-towing, cross-country runner (turned interior designer guru of corporate America) was always the first to get into trouble and capable of dragging Mendi into the mix so she could get them out of it. But Mendi - volleyball extraordinaire and all around dolphin in the water (Two - time Olympic gold metallist, swim coach and Computer Programming instructor for a local college), wasn't a halo-wearer either. Her brilliant plans to save their hides from trouble, nine times out of ten created new problems for them to fall into - which called for Lizzy's daredevil, Magyver-Tinkering to clear them from it all.
Regardless of their sweet smiles and tender-hearted passions for their friends and family, they both were a mess to manage – especially when they were together. And no matter how hard you try, both of them were masters at manipulating their way with others – pathological liars, their parents,
Eric & Tracie Fletcher, would say. Their bluffs were far too hard to read – they were just far too honest and sweet looking to not believe in what they said. Their mom was possibly the only person who could read behind their angelic faces for what really hid underneath. But even still, it was a rare occurrence.
ɭΦϩʇ ʜɪϩʇΦяЧ:
There are a few people, besides family, who were capable of cutting through their thick layer of twin-camo to decipher who's who… From out of all of their friends,
Alex Tellamar and Zackary Hines knew them better than they knew themselves. They were what the girls like to call "Diaper Pals", the type of friends you grew up with since the diaper days, rode the bus together, teased and fought with every day like they were siblings, and possibly even considered worthy enough to be more than just a friend. Well, that definitely was true for Lizzy and Alex. They just, ya know, grown on each other. And that was well and good for them.
Mendi wasn't falling for that game… She wanted more out of a relationship than just 'growing into her old friend'. Besides, Zack,
"Mr. I'm Better Than You Are At Everything", drove her insane on a daily basis, competing against her at everything he could just to piss her off. There was no way she could see anything remotely interesting in him to consider him as nothing more than a brother… No matter. Mendi was into finishing school with a fat volleyball or swimming scholarship to her favorite college. Boys were just in the way, she would say.
Lizzy drilled that into her well.
Ever since the day Lizzy and her family learned of her future fate, she's been pushing her 'Eight Minutes Older Sister Card' on Mendi's face, pressing her sister to work hard at everything she's attempts, to strive for the best things in life, and to not let anything get in her way of achieving greatness. She wanted Mendi to have the life she knew she would never had, making sure her sister will stand strong and successful when she's gone. Lizzy had even gone so far as to make absolutely sure Mendi will also had the only guy in her life was better than all others combined.
Lizzy knew Alex liked her sister more. And even though she actually had a closer relationship with Zach, she started dating Alex to keep the BadLoverboy away from all the girls at school that kept eying him on a daily basis. Then, with the whole Mendi brainwashing, she guaranteed her sister would never consider another guy in her life but Alex.
Why go to such extremes? Because, after talking to Alex on the night she learned that two years of Chemo was only killing her more, she knew they will need each other when she's gone, or else die from the pain of losing her. She understood both of their hearts and didn't want anything to come between them or her death to weaken them so much that they lose sight of each other.
In the hopes of saving them for each other, Lizzy kept a lifelong charade going on with them, going through an almost 10 year relationship with Alex that never went beyond first base, watching Zach live a lost and lonely life without her, and cheering Mendi on in her accomplishments as she focused on her Olympic career. On her death bed, she finally expressed to Alex her true feelings and begged for him to never leave Mendi alone, to keep her safe and happy, because he's the only person in the world that could take her place in her life. It was her dying wish.
яЄɢяЄʇϩ:
She regrets not living her life to the extreme, lying all her life to her friends and family with all good intentions, and not loving who she wished to love with all the passion she held inside.
Lying - she wants to apologize and ask for their forgiveness for deceiving them for so long. But, regardless, she wants to explain herself - she didn't want the people she loved to be alone when she was gone. It just wasn't natural.
Zach held the worse hand in all of this. Regardless of her intentions, he was still left alone. He knew how she felt about him, but she pushed him away to be with Alex when she should of been leaning on him more for the support he was offering. When she broke their budding friendship/relationship off at the most critical moment of her dwindling life, it tore him apart and broke all confidence he held as a guy - to be bested by the Gorgeous Bad Boy can hurt anyone pride. She definitely regrets breaking his heart before she ever held it. But what's worse - even though she blessed Alex to be with Mendi, after being with him for so long, she's somewhat sorry for not giving into him, loving him the way he deserved... the way she wished to love Zach. It made her last few years very difficult emotionally for her, but she believed it was for a very good cause.
She also wished to actually lived to see the results of her hard work; to see Alex and Mendi living happily together, and to see if Zach made it through the heartache she'd put him through. What she's seen thus far: Mendi taking on the world without someone to share it with, Zach alone, loosing ground and falling into the wasteland of drugs, alcohol, and decay; and Alex watching her fade away, loyally holding onto her with a love that was never received nor returned. It wasn't what she'd envisioned. Her hope lied in her final words to Alex, praying that they sparked and made their lives better in the end.
vɪϩɪΦηϩ:
She sees flashes of the old theater and speakeasy her and her friends use to sneak in and camp out during the weekends. Sometimes, she catches images of a glowing cave, clear pools of water steaming within them, or panning for gold in an old creek near an old farm. They were places her and Zach would share together, little get aways when Mendi was at swim practice and Alex was at work. It was their time to hide away and be the couple they wanted to be. But, that didn't last long.
Moments that only twins will have, thoughts and emotions that they'd shared - even the ones that they tried to hide from the other; these things will become a visual slideshow for Lizzy...which will be rather confusing. I believe in her reincarnation she doesn't recall being...a twin. Therefore, to see all these visions of Mendi, Alex, and Zach in various mixes might be confusing to her. She'll probably wonder if she was dating two guys at the same time... But she won't decipher the fact that the person she sees in her visions that looks like her, is actually Mendi.
Arguments she's had on countless occasions with Alex:
Why don't you want to marry me? Why don't you want kids? What am I doing wrong...what do you want from me? Arguments she's had with Zach...almost the same thing, just a different tune.
dЄɑʇʜ:
Lizzy passed at the age of 31, losing her battle to a rare kidney cancer she developed when she was ten; one her family felt Mendi might also develop. Her death causes Zach to turn against Mendi, taking his anger about Lizzy out on her mirror image. And then, with guilt, taking his anger out on himself. Alex left town on the day of her funeral; not able to look at Mendi's face in fear of losing his mind. He ended up in a really horrible street gang for an entire year, trying to rip Lizzy's memory from his mind. Fortunately, he beat himself enough times over the head about breaking Lizzy's dying wish that he'd returned home just in time to stop Mendi from overdosing on medication on the anniversary of her twin's death. He found her at Lizzy's grave site - preparing a comatose cocktail she would never had awaken from.
After a year of dealing with her paranoid parents and ignorant doctors who assumed Mendi would die of the same disease, Zach's lording over her in his good intentions to make sure she attends her meetings with her Shrink on a daily basis, and losing her chances to defend her Olympic titles that summer; Mendi had gone mad, cutting her face, running away, and attempting to kill herself to be with her sister. She couldn't live without her, nor could she live with looking at her sister's face on a daily basis. In Mendi's mind, if her sister couldn't be with her here, then she needed to be with her there....
