27th August

“Make sure your bag is all ready!"

“Oh, and your makeup should be on point too”.

“And don’t you dare skip any classes, young lady or else-“.

“Okay!” I cut her off.

“What Ok? You do know that achieving good grades in college is the most important thing required for your career right?“, She exaggerated.

“Yeah right?” I replied sarcastically.

Who knew video-calling your twin sister the morning before your first day at college would result in frustration, rather than the expected motivation.

“Okay, you caught me there, I know university is the most important, but come on you make best memories at college and good appearance is the key to good friends, and good friends automatically result in good memories”, She explained.

“Who said I needed new friends? I’ve my delinquents Elliot and Caleb with me, Bel” I jokingly saluted towards the camera.

“Oh, those two”, Bella nodded while continuing “You’re lucky to spend these two years with them, man”.

“It still, up to this day upsets me how I didn’t get to finish my college years with my friends back there”, She sighed sadly.

I frowned while looking at my sister with sympathy.

She suddenly looked up, a smile forming on her face, “Though, everything happens for a reason right?”

I gave out a grin and nodded while letting a ‘yeah’ escape my lips.

After about ten more minutes Bella decided to call it a day, reminding myself to get my needed stuff together too.

I stretched my arms for about the thousandth time the day, and placed my phone on my side table.

I was always the troublemaker, noisy twin. Whereas Bella happened to be the intelligent, more responsible one. These attributes of her along with her...mind it.. nerdy qualities, got her into her dream college in London a year ago. Meaning she’s currently in her senior year, while I’m starting the first semester of my junior today.

We two are not the only children though. We had a year younger brother as well; Addison. He died last year, due to God knows what; No matter how many post-mortems we got him through, no cause of death came forward. Everyone is still confused about it.

He was much goofier than me but that doesn’t mean I hated him. In fact, I was the one who shed the most tears in his funeral as he was much closer to me than my own twin. But unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him much, since he too was living in another city, with our mother.

Despite being a family of five, we don’t live in the same house.. scratch that, same city. And as opposed to many guesses, it isn’t due to any family or relationship problems. Few years back my mother got a promising job offer over the country in San Francisco. And since Addison had always been fond of travelling and settling in different regions; he went along with her. Though, as my dad’s career was already cherishing in the city we’re currently living in, he decided to stay. And I due to my attachment with Los Angeles and the people living here, chose to stay with dad.

Even though we all may be living in different cities, we still never fail to contact each other once in a while.

“Allison are you ready!? We’ve to go now!” I was broken out of my trance as I heard my dad calling from downstairs.

“Yeah, Just a sec!” I yelled back while grabbing my bag and putting my sneakers on.

As I reached downstairs, I went to the kitchen to prepare my ‘Ultimate Breakfast’, which consisted of a granola bar and how do I prepare it you ask. Well, you can just say that opening a wrapper is what I call hard work.

I started my stride outside and towards my dad’s car “And..I’m ready” I stated as I buckled my seatbelt.

“You do know that you should start eating more healthy, Right?” My dad stated while eyeing my granola bar.

I rolled my eyes, “Dad, don’t you know I hate dieting, fitness and all that shi-.... shizz”.

“If Bella was here she would have been eating boiled eggs,” He said while pushing the car’s gear.

I once again rolled my eyes while taking a bite off the chewy food.

“Because she doesn’t know the meaning of ‘yolo’” I shrugged with a mischievous grin.

“What does that mean?” Dad asked with creased eyebrows clearly elucidating his confusion.

And there goes your plan to fire your sassy dad with a remarkable comeback, Allison.

“Nothing” I sighed then sunk into my seat, waiting for the school to arrive.

“And.... we are here” dad stated as he curved around the corner and stopped the car in front of the dreadful building.

“Thanks”, I spoke while fetching my bookbag from the backseat.

“Remember honey, eat a healthy lunch”, he lectured just as I closed the car door.

“Because sometimes you can even live twice” He shouted with a smirk.

“What! You knew-” The silver car had already left the view.

“Nevermind” I shrugged

“Ali!” I heard an ear piercing squeal coming from my back. Which as I can guess would belong to Elliot.

“Hey, best friend!” I jokingly greeted as I came to know that my guess was right indeed.

“Girl you don’t know how much excited I am for this year” She stated with an excitement filled voice after hugging me.

I laughed and turned to her with an amused expression “And what makes you feel this way? Are you sure you’re alright?“, I snickered while putting the back of my hands on her forehead.

“She will get to see more F grades on her tests. That’s what she’s looking forward to” We heard an additional voice.

“Oh, Shut up”, She mockingly squinted her eyes.

I playfully rolled my eyes while addressing my second best friend.

“Well it’s hard to decide which greeting to answer first, but I guess Ally’s one was nicer so I’ll just go with that” Caleb said, standing between both of us.

“Hello, senurita. How’re ya?” He jokingly questioned, completely ignoring Elliot’s presence beside me.

“I’m fine what about you, how’d you spend your vacations?” I replied with a smile while briefly glancing at my wristwatch.

“Nothing much actually; Just wasted my time on YouTube, learned skateboarding, and remember how I told you I was going to take ethical hacking courses? Well, I got em as well and-”

“You know what, just keep talking”, Elliot huffed, “I’m clearly not needed here”.

“Then go. Stop interrupting me” Caleb replied with raised eyebrows.

After showing her clear exasperation even more, Elliot made her way towards the main entry doors of the school building.

“Hmm so where was I?” Caleb tapped his chin, pretending to think after turning back to me.

“Oh yeah, as I was saying I took hacking classe-”

“Which I told you to not take, since you can get in trouble for that” I cut him off.

“Why do you two never let me complete my sentences?” He spoke in an annoyed tone.

I shifted on my toes while releasing a sigh indicating defeat, “Okay, I’m sorry”, “Continue” I motioned with my hands.

“I might or might not have hacked into something,” He spoke in an intriguing tone

My eyes went wide for a millisecond before relaxing again. Considering how reckless Caleb was, this was probably nothing huge.

“Which I maybe shouldn’t have hacked into” He stated with the same expression

“Okay” I replied with my gradually increasing curiosity.

“But it’s kinda awesome,” He said, trying to sound convincing

“Uh huh”

“And impressive”

“K”

“And brilliant”

“Okay moving on”, I stated, feeling my anger meter reading a bit high.

“It actually has a hint of wonderfulness in it too-”

“Caleb!” I shouted, losing my temper.

“Ok ok, calm down,” He chuckled while raising his arms in surrender.

“The thing I hacked into..” He looked at me guiltily, to which I rose my eyebrows, “..was some kind of conversation between two people, and it sounded quite serious.. Okay now stop glaring at me and let me finish?” I shook my head in ‘pretend disappointment’ and nodded.

“Ok so apparently they were making some sort of machine that we never knew would exist in real life. At first, I thought this scheme would fail, but judging by their recent chats, it actually worked” He stated with an excited expression on his face.

“The flippin machine’s functioning, dude”

“And what machine would this happen to be?” I asked curiously, his excitement rubbing off on me.

“Its-...dramatic drum roll please?“, He spoke with an amused smile, finding it humorous to keep me waiting.

“Just say it, dumbass”, I grinned while slapping his arm.

“Time machine... It’s a time machine, fella”.