Because We are the Kids in the Street [discontinued]

Prologue

The house still felt foreign.

We moved in exactly two weeks ago today, and it was still emotionally cold. My room was still half-empty, the only evidence that I lived there was my clothes and bedding. My books and old photo's weren't unpacked. My posters were still in the box shoved in the corner.

"Alexandria?" My little brother peeked around my bedroom door. I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window again.

"Yeah, Liam?" I look at him softly. He looked so much like our mother.

"Want to go to the beach with me?" He asked me, as if he was scared.

I really look at Liam for the first time in almost six months. He'd gotten skinnier, since my mom and I hadn't really kept up with meals lately. He had inherited mom's white skin, blonde hair and dad's chocolatey eyes. His figure was much like dad's, very muscular.

He had gotten taller in the past few months, almost as tall as me now. He had turned fourteen three months ago.

"Yeah, I'd like that." I smile at him. His eyes lit up in that childlike way I always use to admire about him.

*

*

*

The sun was shining brightly on the boardwalk. I enjoyed the warmth for a change. I hadn't seen the sun in so long.

"Look, Lexi, a seal!" he said grinning and pointing at the ocean like an idiot. Lexi. I hadn't heard that nickname in a while. Mom had grown distant. I had grown distant.

"Wanna get ice-cream?" I ask him, my stomach growling.

Liam lifted a single eyebrow at me, a trait we had luckily both gotten from mom. It was a great wordless question sometimes. "Duh," he laughed.

We head over to the ice-cream shop and I ordered. "One chocolate mint mix with a flake and one vanilla with caramel dip and chocolate cookie sprinkles." Huh, I wondered if Liam's favorite was still the same.

"You still remember?" He asked, surprized.

"Yeah, of course. You've loved it since you were five. Plus, it hasn't been that long since we've spent time together, has it?"

"Lexi, it's been six, almost seven months." My heart dropped into my shoes.

"Seven months?" I whispered.

Has it really been that long? I do the math in my head. 30th January... It was 23rd August now. Nearly seven months...

"Here's your order!" The overly cheerful waitress said, practically shoving two cones in my face. I take them and hand one to Liam.

"It's been almost seven months... It feels like yesterday." I say, looking at the cone. Liam was already biting into the dip.

"Yeah, I know," he said, smiling at me from behind his ice-cream.

We eat the rest of our ice-cream sitting on a bench looking at the ocean. It was beautiful here; the sand was the perfect cream-brown mix, the ocean was a clear, crystal like blue widening into a dark royal blue. The clouds were fluffy and white, and the sky was so bright it looked like it was painted.

"I can't believe school starts next week," Liam said, sighing at the ocean. Some surfers were out catching waves.

"Me either. It's too soon." I savor the kisses the sun left on my cheeks and arms.

We finish our ice-cream and walk toward the beach. I was just slipping off my sandles when--SLAM!

"Oof!" I fall on the sand with a loud thud. Something was licking my face, slobbering all over me. I could hear Liam laughing histerically. "What the hell?" I push the beast off me and sit upright. I wiped the saliva off my face with my arm and came face-to-face with a big golden retriever.