The two give in

Blushing red, Vanessa and Lauren both uncovered themselves, giving all of the fifty-six guests attending the ball a full show of their assets or lack thereof. Vanessa, while was still more developed than Lauren, still felt embarrassed, but definitely didn’t have a choice as she didn’t want to lose out on the money or be kicked out naked.

Michelle smiled and dismissed everyone to return back to the ball, but that didn’t stop people from looking at Lauren and Vanessa as they walked around naked, attempting to socialize with the guests. At the first chance, Vanessa grabbed Lauren’s arm and yanked her over to where Megan was. They were still in public view, but had a moment to talk to each other.

“Did you know about the exception clause?!” Vanessa demanded, but whispered. “Is that why you were trying to sabotage me!”

“What? No!” Lauren hissed. “You think I knew about this? I just wanted to see you embarrassed like you’ve made me feel! Sure I wanted you to lose the inheritance too, but that doesn’t mean I knew about the deal that included mom in this.

“Goddammit Lauren, this is all your fault!” Vanessa hissed.

“My fault?!” Lauren yelled in a whisper. “You’ve been nothing but a bitch to me over the past few months! You’ve humiliated me! You’ve berated me! You’ve exposed me in front of EVERYone and you want to blame ME for this? You’re the one that got greedy over the inheritance.”

Vanessa sighed. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“What?” Lauren said, shocked.

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a bitch. Look, I meant what I said earlier. I realize I’ve treated you horribly. Part of that was because I was always jealous of you. You always had the perfect body and everyone adored you. You always left me out, and then I found out you were just fake. It pissed me off, so yeah, I wanted to bring you down. I wanted to bring you down because I wanted to make you feel what it was like to be me for the 19 years of my life. Always being the inferior child. Always being compared to you. Do you have ANY idea what I went through BEFORE your truth was revealed? Did you ever ASK how I was doing before you had your little secret revealed?! I was absolutely miserable, and then I finally got the chance to knock you down, and it spiraled into this nonsense. I’m sorry for how I treated you. I’m sorry for not being a good sister, or a sister at all,” Vanessa hissed. “Can we actually call a truce?”

Lauren stood there stunned. Now she finally understood. She realized why Vanessa had been acting the way she did. Lauren realized that she had put on this front for years to make herself feel confident, but she never realized in the process how she made Vanessa feel. It made sense. Was it okay? No, but it made sense. “Yes,” Lauren said. “We can call an official truce. I mean it this time.”

“But I wasn’t finished as well,” Vanessa said. “Part of what I did was because I was jealous. The other part was... because mom told me to. I think she’s been pinning us against each other on purpose. She must’ve known that that was part of the will, it honestly explains a lot.”

Lauren thought. “But what can we do? It’s not like we can do anything, right? She’s been given the inheritance.”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” Vanessa said. “We’ll have to put up with whatever mom has in store for us, for a bit, but we’ll also need to have a look at the actual will itself. We need to get a lawyer and find out exactly what the will says and figure out any plot holes we can use, and maybe, maybe there’s a way we can reverse this, all of it. Maybe there’s a way we all can have control over the inheritance or something at least the two of us.”

Lauren nodded. “Okay, yeah, that sounds good.”

Vanessa sighed. “For now, we have to put up with this humiliation. I do have a contact we can get to help us interpret the will.”

Lauren and Vanessa walked away and resumed talking to the other guests, but now they had a plan that might just save their literal asses.