(#1) Roommates by Day, Enemies by Night

Chapter 14

"Hey, S-" Dylan started. I jabbed a finger in his direction. "No! You shut up too!"

"Alex." I started once again, seething. "I don't understand. I want a reason. I can't forgive you without one. I want to know. I need to." I pleaded.

"Siena, I'm sorry, but I can't tell you."

"Why not!" I shrieked. "I was your best friend. I still am, even if you left."

"I can't Siena." He said, looking downcast.

"Look, when you we said we'd be friends forever, you threw in the word promise. Promise. You know how much that word means to me, and why. You know what happened to me as a kid."

He looked ashamed. "I know. I keep telling you I'm sorry. I can't tell you!"

"Fine. Whatever. But don't expect sunshine from me until I get a solid reason why you left."

"Yeah, because you're the poster child for rainbows and unicorns, right?" Alex shot back.

"You're so annoying!" I grumbled, crossing my arms.

"You're acting like a little child," Dylan reprimanded me. I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry Dad. And don't pretend you don't know what's going on right now! I know you know."

"Whoa, S, calm down." His eyes widened at my tone.

I huffed in exasperation, and threw my hands up. "Just leave me alone. If you want to find me, I'll be in my room."

I stalked away. But let me explain why this thing pisses me off so much.

I know many of you may be thinking right now, she's stupid and childish! Get over it! You were 16! And we all know from Disney 16 years old don't always tend to make the best of decisions. But you don't understand why this means so much.

Let's take a trip to the past in a DeLorean. We'll need a flux capacitor.

When I was little, my parents were both busy people being high-end doctors and crap. Promises were made and broken every day in my family. The thing is, I always took the word promise, as a binding oath. Like an Unbreakable Vow, or swearing on the River Styx.

My parents didn't see it the same way. Day after day, I would be promised little things. Time to go to the park with my dad. To the library with my mom. Having a family day at an amusement park. And they broke them day after day. I wanted to spend time with my parents. I hardly got to see them anyways. I like them well enough and everything, but whenever I'd remind them about something, they'd come up with a lame excuse.

The only person who kept hers was Alessia. After seeing me get turned down by my parents all the time, she would make other promises to cheer me up. We'd have a Harry Potter movie marathon. We'd read together. We'd go shopping for fandom merch. Whenever I asked her, no matter she was doing at the time, she'd drop it and come with me.

One moment in particular stands out. I was only eight, but even then I wasn't one for dresses and frills.

I was standing in the doorway of my Alessia's room, fiddling with my fingers. On my head, I had a baseball hat, and I held a book under my arm.

She looked up and askeded me what was wrong. I responded telling her, she had promised last week we would begin reading one my favorites now, The Little Prince.

Her face fell, and she looked dejected. She looked down on her keyboard. I remembered her telling us she had a huge audition in a few days and she needed to spend a ton of time on her piece. I realized she was working on that now, and I was slightly sad. But I saw, she had kept her promise to me infinitely more times than my parents. However, this was her passion at the time. To play piano. She couldn't always. And she was truly feeling bad about it.