Same Words, Different Meanings

I love a girl. Her name is Jacqueline, but everyone calls her Jackie. Except for me. I call her Jack.

I love a girl. Most guys don't get to name the girl they love. But I did. I named her Jacqueline.

I love a girl. Most guys don't get to be the girl's best friend until they're actually dating. But I do. I've been her best friend for her entire life.

I love a girl. Most guys don't get to live with the girl they love. But I do. I've lived with her my whole life.

I love a girl. Most guys get to tell their friends who they love. But I don't. Because I love my sister.

I'm sure you think I'm messed up, I'm sure you think I have some sort of problem. But I don't. It's really not my fault that I happen to fall in love with a girl that poses as my sister, but really, we have no blood relation at all.

My parents adopted me when I was little. As in, I can't even remember when they did.

Two years later, they had a child. They didn't adopt her, though. She was full blood. They told me I got to name her. And I named her Jacqueline. It wasn't like I really thought about it. I just held up one of the magazines on the table in the hospital and pointed to a name. It was Jacqueline Kennedy.

Jack and I did everything together. We were best friends from the start. We loved each other, but not in the girlfriend-boyfriend way. In the brother-sister way.

When I got into middle school, I really started to notice girls. I had a few crushes, but Jack was the only girl I ever really wanted to see. That's when I realized I liked her in the other way. The boyfriend-girlfriend way. But she had no clue of this, because she had no clue that I wasn't her full blood brother.

Every night as we used to go to sleep, me on the top bunk and her on the lower, and used to ask her who she liked. And she always had the same answer for me: my best friend Michael.

It killed me knowing I would never even be in the running for the guy she liked because I was her brother.

Every night after she told me this, she would say to me, "Parker?" and I would reply, "Yes, Jack?". She would say, "I love you, Parker. Good night." And I in turn would say, "Good night, Jack. I love you, too." We were saying the same words, but meaning two entirely different things.