Only Once

Chapter Twenty-One: Thunder

But then Erika thought of the bullying he had to endure at school and a frown grew on her face. After all, it was hardly fair that the other kids, that Jesse guy in particularly, were so rude to him. Luka was a brilliant boy who was going to end up rich, famous and with a hot girl by his side. Erika was sure of it.

“I like it better this way.” He replied in a matter of fact voice. “Besides, it’s scientifically proven that seeing candlelight before falling asleep helps you sleep better.”

“Oh really?” Erika raised an eyebrow, not sure if he was making this up or not. “Is this true?”

Luka’s lip twitched but he instead asked, “What are you doing here?”

Sighing, Erika walked towards him and gingerly took a seat on the edge of his bed.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She replied, shrugging. “I couldn’t fall asleep.”

Luka was quiet for a moment before asking the inevitable.

“Is it because of Mom and Dad?”

“Pfft, no,” she answered quickly and stoutly. “I…I couldn’t care less about them. Actually, I just want to hurry up and split up already and just do everyone a favour.”

“Well I care about them.” Luka replied. “And I definitely don’t want them to divorce.”

He sighed and reached up to rub his temples as Mrs. Russo’s shrieks got louder.

“And you care for them too,” he added. “You know you do.”

Now it was Erika’s turn to sigh as she brought up her knees and hugged them to her chest.

“It’s not fair.” She said in a small voice. “Why couldn’t they just wait until we moved out or something and then go through this stupid midlife crisis? Then we wouldn’t have to deal with it and be sucked into it.”

Luka rolled his eyes.

“Typical Erika,” he mused, “always caring about only herself.”

She shot him a glare. “That’s not true!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “I’m actually an extremely selfless person, you know. Heck, I’m a saint! More people should strive to be like me!”

Luka snickered and gave a look that indicated he didn’t believe her. “I’m scared to even think of a world like that.”

“Screw you, Luka.” Erika retorted and stuck her tongue out at him.

“And shame on you, Erika.” Luka replied.

After staring at each other for a moment, both siblings burst into a loud and raucous laughter. They went on like that for a minute or so and both of them had to admit that it felt good. Erika herself felt as if it had been ages since she’d last truly laughed at something.

“What’s going on here?”

The laughter came to halt and both siblings turned over to find Diana standing by the door. Her hair was all over the place, her eyes were rimmed in red and she was dressed in mismatched pajamas.

“Oh come here, Dee!” Luka told her. “Join the party!”

Smiling rather timidly, Diana shut the door and made her way to take a seat right beside Erika on Luka’s bed.

“Hey, guys.” She said sounding sour. “Gee, I’m so glad to see that you remembered to invite me to this party.”

“Oh no problem,” Erika responded breezily, well aware that her sister was being sarcastic, “it’s not like we couldn’t. You are, after all, the life of every party.”