The Spawns

The Spawns | Chapter II -- You Hug Me, I Punch You

            When our mothers had finally called for us—for me to get back home—we had the time to finish the book, and I had the time to fall in love with her. And that day I knew I would marry her.

            It was stupid, I mean, I was eight, she was four—that was a big age difference for a kid—but somehow, Beth wasn’t the average four year old, as creepy as this sounds. She was always surrounded by people older than her, so it had rubbed on her. And she was a pretty four-year-old with the freckles on her cheek, her deep dark blue eyes that seemed to know everything and her brown curly hair filled with tiny braids that smelled like strawberry and heck, I loved strawberries, it was all her fault. She smelled like my favourite fruit! She looked for it!

            Her hair smelled like strawberry and her skin like lilac. The latter I had found out about later. I wasn’t going around smelling her—I’m not that much of a creep—but once, about four years ago, we were out at the Creek her parents and my Mum loved and I had taken her in my arms to throw her in the lake and the twenty seconds of holding her against my body had been enough to notice the lilac smell.

            But, of course, I had never told her my feelings. Because for one thing, well, we had four years of age difference and it wouldn’t matter when she would be twenty, but for now it did. And also well… this was Jay’s little sister, Jayden, overprotective brother of the year. He’d kill me, literally kill me, if he even knew some of the fantasies I had about his sister.

            Fugging hell, I’m a creep!

            I grabbed my bags on the group, trying not to choke with the straps around my neck and walked towards the building that was my home.

            I opened the front door and walked towards the stairs. Dad had repainted, I could see it, and I knew it was him because he had made patterns with a color barely one shade lighter. You had to concentrate to see it, but since he always did that everywhere and I knew his work so well I could spot it right away.

            I walked all the way up and then stopped in front of the metal bars, did the combo on the lock, and after stepping on the other side, re-locked it. And then I opened the big metal doors that would have been more fitting in a warehouse, finally home.

            I heard it before I saw it.

            Right in the middle of the fugging place.

            “OH FOR FUDGE CAKE! Again? Really?!” I yelled, dropped all my bags to the ground, turned around and hit my head multiple times against the door frame. It was in metal. It hurt.

            “Cole, sweetie, weren’t you suppose to arrive in… twenty minutes,” I heard my Mum gasp. I closed my eyes very tightly.

            I’m going to puke, I’m going to puke, I’m going to puke…

            With my eyes still closed and my forehead still pressed against the door frame I answered her. “Oh, okay, so you thought ‘Well, as long as we still have twenty minutes let’s just do it in the middle of the apartment and fug, if our son arrives sooner, he can take the mental damage it will cause him, anyway hasn’t he been thoroughly traumatized already’, is that it?”

            “Cole, we’re sorry,” Mum said, her voice way too close.

            “I swear to god, you hug me, I punch you,” I groaned. I just knew she had been about to. And no way in hell was I going to allow that. There were fugging limits!