One : Happily Ever After
“The prince charming married the poor girl and they lived happily ever after.”
I say as I shut the book and adore the sight of my petite cousin sleeping innocently. I smile in adoration and switch the light off before muttering softly, “Goodnight Sam.”
Samantha ‘Sam’ Thomas was an adorable baby cousin. She was five years old and unlike the annoying kids, she was sweet and fairly responsible for her age. At the age of five, though, she was very good at using her crying technique to get exactly what she wanted.
She mutters in a sleepy daze, “I love you, Ashie.”
“I love you too.”
Richard ‘Ricky’ Thomas is my older cousin brother at twenty-four years old, currently studying law. The worst thing about him? He claims that Brazil is the worst team out of all the teams in the world cup participants. It was a horrible idea watching the match together considering we’d be yelling at each other continuously.
As the match proceeded, Oscar continues to dribble like his life depended on it but to no avail. The Netherlands gloriously won the match, claiming the third position in 2014′s world cup. As all our stupid bets go, my awfully rare ice cream flavour now belonged to a twenty-four-year-old child.
I make sure to add a little garlic into the ice cream. I couldn’t stop the ridiculous grin that crawled into my face every time I churned the chopped garlic into the mixture. I set it back into the freezer, and make my way to bed before waking Ricky up.
.
It was bad enough that I woke up feeling my spine digging into my ass, but to feel tired on every other muscle in my body was completely uncalled for. Two seconds into being awake and I already wanted someone dead. It’s the beauty of sleep, being the only time I don’t want to continually punch someone. My bed mildly begins to vibrate. Needless to say, I had to fight the urge to throw it across the room because let’s face it, I’m too broke to buy a new one.
“What do you want?”
“I want a lot of things,” A soft, sing-song voice claims with a cheery attitude. “Strawberry dipped in chocolate, roasted marshmallows, oh, and I’d love a new eyeliner.”
“Zoe,”
Zoe Hastings is the person I usually do ridiculously idiotic things with varying from bunking classes to get food from a store close by to standing outside a clothing store and saying greetings in different languages to multiple different people.
I hiss, “Get to the point.” The phone call takes about twenty minutes at which point I’m completely wide awake. I pull open my laptop and play the game of thrones indulging in the beautiful theme song as no one was home. Checking my phone a few minutes later, I receive a message from Jake.
Jake Fields has, for some unknown reason, never left my ass for about four to five years. He’s one of those guys whose incredibly unpredictable, sharing a common feature of a short temper with me. I don’t really know what I’d do without his annoying little humour and incessant confusion about life. If it wasn’t for the game of thrones music blaring next to me, I probably would’ve thrown my phone from my hand from the number of short messages I was getting from him.
“Ash, you there?”
“I lost my monkey.”
“but I don’t really have a monkey.”
“what if I did though?”
“I’d be like Ross from friends.”
“but I have way more game.”
“should I apologise for being confident?”
“nah.”
“oh, btw, I’m coming over, let’s get coffee.”
After repeatedly sending him a reply that negated his idea of going out because my mood was the shits, he suddenly stops replying. I roll my eyes to the back of my head before taking a shower knowing full well that he was on his way over. I throw on a brown hoodie with jet black jeans, yanking a beanie on my hair for utmost comfort.
The doorbell rings and the moment I open it, Jake comes strolling in singing an awfully outdated song. ”Whenever we go back, this is the moment, tonight is the night." I walk away from the door leaving him be in his state of absolute joy, leaving my horrible morning on its own.
Our conversation revolves around basketball, football, music, people who despise from school, and finally onto his unrelenting theory of how Hitler’s moustache was probably a fake to gain an icon in his propaganda. The beauty of coffee shops isn’t only how it easily opens people up like a lightly closed can, but also it’s an impeccable aura of comfort and a homely abode.
“Ashley, Jake!”
Our eyes dilate in synchronised horror. It’s as if someone wanted me to be stampeded by a herd of awfully angry elephants. I could hear the clanking of her heels as she walks to our chocolate sofas. Jake passes me a tight-lipped smile, and I sigh distastefully. Turning my head to the right, I see her.
I cannot be the only person in the world who has a person in their life who is both a friend and an enemy. It’s those complex relationships of hating a human so much that you no longer have any energy inside yourself to physically show it every time their being comes to be. It’s a whole new level of wanting to ram someone’s head in, but only in my imagination.
Her voice is squeaky, sharp, and gives us a headache the moment the first syllable corrupts into the atmosphere. I look up from my wondrous cold coffee. “Tracy,” I reply in blunt annoyance to her hyper state. “what are you doing here?”
“Getting coffee,” she grins falsely with her whitened teeth that radiates false politeness. “What about you two?” Her eyes proceed into an awful wink that could make my last meal bubble.
Jake turns his head to me slowly, “Anyway, we need to get going, we have a huge project due for Monday.” His crystal eyes suggest that we apparently do have this unknown lie, so I nod with a frown towards Tracy.
We grab our coffees and bid her a short goodbye before walking out the door. The wind howls and the cold sensation on my fingers from the drink is surprisingly comforting. “You’re a good friend, Fields.”
He nods, straightening up a non-existent collar, “I know, I know, Kendrick.”
After Jake left home to get ready for a party that we were invited to today, I lazily rummaged my wardrobe for an outfit equivalent to summer puking on it. The sight of a light blue sundress manages to brighten my mood, and with quick makeup, and strapping on some light auburn boots. I make a quick call to Diane making sure whether or not she would come today.
Diane Peterson and I go way back to the fifth grade. Back then, we used to be too shy and anxious to order our own meals at McDonald’s, but it’s safe to say that now we wouldn’t let each other do stupid things alone even if it includes bungee jumping off a cliff.
As I cut the phone and put on the dress for the day, I hear a blood-curdling scream from downstairs. By now, my family, who had gone out for breakfast without me because disturbing me in my sleep is basically torture for them, had come back. I descend down the staircase.
I cut the phone and rush to the shower, as I come out I heard a loud screech. I was half-naked and decided to put on some clothes before investigating. I bolt down the stairs and see my little cousin sister gripping onto my brother for dear life. It was actually pretty cute, the brother-sister moment until I found out why she decided to jump onto a six-foot guy.
Alan Kendrick, my actual biological elder brother. He was twenty years old and was currently studying an engineering course. Oh yeah, also the star of the family. But, even though we didn’t get along that much, we had our humorous moments, our fistfights and random jam sessions.
An icky black cockroach roamed our house and I jump, hiding behind Ricky. Thankfully, he was tall enough. Finding the situation funny, he began chuckling. To my utter astonishment, he picked up the cockroach with a tissue and started to waver it in front of me. I run from Ricky until I reached my room and slam the door shut before which I yell some rather incoherent words to Ricky alone.
I rummage my entire closet for a dress until I found a light blue floral dress which looked like summer puked on it. I put on some light makeup to make my skin more presentable and left my natural beach wavy hair as it was.
Alexie lived the closest and so I grabbed the car keys off the counter and scrambled to the car.
Alexie ‘Ally’ Jakubs was a new student two years ago, she was on the same bus as me and we think that’s the only reason we became such good friends. She basically acted as my second mom, she started her whole school life a bit late and was stuck in my grade. She was a good two years older than me but almost a foot shorter, which our crew never spared any jokes on.
When we arrive at the beach, we were slightly early and got the chance to cherish the beautiful scenery in front of us. As we go towards the sea, we spot our crew.
Our crew consisted of me, Alexie, Zoey, Diane, Jake, Lucas, Emily, Chase and Jack. I’ll get to their oh-so-wonderful personalities in a bit.
I look up to the scenery, observing how the sun shimmers over the clear crystal blue water which glimmer in excitement. The clouds floating effortlessly playing hide and seek with the sun. The weather was truly the definition of perfection.
Soon enough there was thirty of us on a beach, with bonfires, swimming, talking, yelling, some making out, a typical teenage party but without the sweaty random strangers. There came a point where we all were dancing Red Indian style around the magical fire, clearly drunk off our asses.
It was a great start to a new year. After everything we’ve had to deal with, we hoped for the best, in the upcoming year. When I say new year, I mean the middle of January when school is about to open the next day after winter break. It was new enough for me though, or maybe it was just the alcohol riding my system as it revives the hopes that I had of burying my crew’s terrifying past.
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