AN: This idea has been floating around for a while. Obviously it's about Kaitlin, aged six years from season one. Or whenever Marissa was 16.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine!

No one has any idea how hard it is to be Marissa's sister.

These days Kaitlin is sixteen and Marissa has already graduated and fled from Orange County happily married with some guy named Zach. She knew her sister couldn't wait to get out of here because Marissa told her that when they were both younger. Kaitlin was around five and Marissa was already a teenager and Kaitlin looked up to Marissa so much because she was older. And cooler. And damnit, she was her sister. And Kaitlin was proud.

When Kaitlin was young her mother had already shipped her off to boarding school but don't think she didn't know what went on. At the age of thirteen Kaitlin was exposed to the world Marissa had, a world that literally worshipped her and she had heard of how Marissa completely took it for granted and ripped it apart.

Kaitlin doesn't look up to Marissa so much anymore.

Why? No, it's not because Marissa screwed up everything and did drugs and smoked and God knows what but rather because despite all this everyone still adored Marissa and now Kaitlin is burdened with the responisibility to fill Marissa's shoes. Be the next legendary Cooper girl. Have the entire Orange Country resting on her palm.

That's a lot to expect of one girl.

Things were so much harder on her. Her mother had been married twice since she was twelve. Divorced three times total. She was constantly switching homes and nothing was constant. Her father was gone. Her mother was a gold-digging whore.

Everyone gazes at Kaitlin, waiting to see a glimpse of Marissa. Waiting to see what Kaitlin will do that will make everyone fall all over her and yes, Kaitlin tries but her attempts are futile because no one is impressed.

Orange County was still the same. Ritzy. Dramatic. A fucking maze of gossip and scandal all while looking absoloutely glamorous and surronded by the county's own personal glitterati. It was unsteady. It was disturbing. It was the place she'd come to love and hate. More so love, really, until people came up to her with the slightest hint of recogniziation on their faces asking in hushed whispers among each other: is that Marissa Cooper's sister? Well, theoretically it was Marissa Cooper-Stevens now, but no one paid attention to the hyphenated part. To them, Marissa would forever be the golden girl in the glory days.

Kaitlin was sick of trying. Sick of screwing up.

She was a good girl. Honestly. Straight A's, played the flute, was approved by everyone. She just lacked the fizz that Marissa had. The knack for people. She wasn't the head debutante. She didn't organize all the events. She was not the star of the show.

Kaitlin promised herself that she would never, ever follow Marissa's footsteps, what with the drugs and overdosing, running away, drinking, fighting, lesbian relationships, moving out, moving in, lying, cheating, stealing. Kaitlin made a solem oath.

But yesterday she broke her oath because, hey, Marissa did it and Marissa was gorgeous and popular and all Kaitlin really wants is attention and to leave a mark that even her sister couldn't fill.