11
The first person that I notice is his mother - or who I'm hoping to be his mother. She had pretty green eyes and a pointy nose that stood out on her face. Her lips were bright pink and upturned into a smile aimed in my direction. She was shorter than I had anticipated, considering Elijah's galloping height.
The man stood next to her had dark hair and similar coloured eyes to Elijah, so I guessed that he was his father. He was very tall and was staring at me with curiosity. The last person, a girl around our age, was practically the carbon copy of him. I figured they must've been twins. She was also short, however, and her hair was a slightly darker shade of brown.
"Mommy West, Father West, insipid Ruth West, this is Diane Young, but call her Diane." He introduced.
"Hi, Diane!" His mother said. "Welcome to our house across the pond!"
"Did you just call me bland?" Ruth snapped.
His dad gave me a very bright smile and then left the room. I noticed he had a paintbrush in his hands. Elijah put his hands on my shoulders and started to steer me away, but then we were ambushed by his mother and sister.
"Is she staying for dinner?"
"Probably. Mommy, do we have any strawberry related things at home? Diane Young eats strawberries like no man's business."
"We do! We do!" His mother pumped her fists in the air and then rushed towards the direction of the kitchen.
"So she's the punny one, yeah?" Ruth asked, waggling her eyebrows. "Where are you taking her to then?"
"To see Dukerella, of course. Get out of my way, insipid Ruth West."
At the mention of Duke, my ears perked up and I peered around the apartment nosily looking for him.
"You're vapid, Elijah West."
He gasped loudly and then removed his hands from my shoulders, to place them on his hips. "How dare you call me something as horrendous as vapid?!"
They argued for a bit, their voice volume decreasing as they exchanged insults. I stood around not knowing what to do with myself before backing away into the living room.
The walls were half painted, and soft rock music was coming from a radio on the side. His dad was painting a big blue flower on one of the plain white walls. He saw me coming in and smiled once more.
"Hi, Diane, wasn't it?" He said, turning back to his flower. I recognised it as a pink Amaryllis flower. It was an amazing painting, really, he captured all the small highlights in what he had painted so far.
"Hello Mr West." He made a face.
"Call me Kurt. Mr West makes me sound like I'm Kanye."
Elijah West slid into the room via his socks. "There you are, Diane Young! I hope Father West over here wasn't telling you to call him Kurt. His name's Benjamin."
I saw Mr West start to frown. "And it could've worked so well.." He muttered.
Once again, he started to steer me away, this time into the kitchen where his mother was washing some strawberries. His sister was sitting down on the dining table in the corner, typing away on a laptop. Elijah and I sat with her.
"I didn't know you had a twin." I stated.
"You didn't ask me to tell you if I had a twin or not." He said.
"Why wouldn't you tell her you had a twin any way?" Ruth asked him, not looking up from the laptop.
"Just because. I don't go around disclosing information about myself all winny ninny." He grabbed at his hair as if he were looking for Duke, and once he remembered he wasn't in his hair, he stood up and ran to get him.
I sat with his sister, wringing my hands for a bit.
"So how do you know Elijah?"
"Er, we met each other at a funeral... about a month ago."
She finally looked up from what she was typing. "You mean Ellie Winters funeral?"
"You knew Ellie?"
"She hated me."
"Oh. I was her really good friend... Why did she hate you?"
"My friend was her like, girlfriend, I don't know? And some misunderstandings led her to thinking I was the devil's spawn." She chuckled. "I always thought she was kinda cool, though. Too bad she died. Anyway, how did you meet?"
Girlfriend? I was guessing she meant that is in good friend, and secretly hoped that she wasn't describing Tiffany.
"I was kinda depressed when I was younger, and so was she." I shrugged and she brushed a loose part of her hair behind her ear. "We did this thing in a support group and just clicked?"
"That's cute." Her eyes lit up like fireworks. "Did you read the ray of sunlight eulogy?! Oh my GOD, do you know what my vapid brother said about you? He said that you were poetically -"
"Diane Young, it's Dukey!"
Elijah skipped in with Duke in his hands and I was secretly delighted that I didn't have to hear what he said about me. He gave me Duke and I patted his head as he started to change to the same colour as the wooden table top.
"What were you guys talking about?"
"Ellie." His sister returned to her laptop. "Diane Young also told me she -"
Mrs West came and set a large bowl of strawberries in front of us. Elijah and Ruth dug in straight away and ceased to talk. I took one after they had devoured about three each, when Mrs West decided to join us with a cup of milk in front of her.
"Hi, Diane Young." She said, smiling at me.
"Hi, Mrs West."
"Call me Audry. It's spelled without an 'E'."
"Got it." She started to drink some more milk. Elijah nudged my shoulder.
"Mommy, Diane Young had depression." He said. "Like Uncle James."
"Oh? Are you feeling okay, Diane Young?"
"Yes, thank you. I think it's all the strawberries I'm eating."
They all laughed, even though it wasn't really that funny of a joke. Even Duke made some strange bleating - slash - croaking sounds that make it seem as if he was having a ball.
We sat down chatting for a very long while, until Mr West joined us. Elijah shoved me along into his room then, because his parents started kissing and he said that he didn't want to expose Duke to that kind of behaviour at his young age.
His room was a dark orange colour, which shocked me until I saw the cans of green paint stacked up on cardboard boxes in the corner. It was quite organised, everything was out and unpacked. There were books filling up the bookshelves, clothes in his open closet. It already smelled of 'boy', as in a mixture of soap, deodorant and even hairspray. You wouldn't think someone had just moved in here, or had spent ninety nine percent of their summer galavanting outside with me.
Elijah whistled as I checked his room out. Duke's cage of sorts was on his desk next to his computer, and since I had the honour of holding him in my hair, I put him in it, where he quite happily blended in with the orange walls. His dresses (three of them) were lined up on the side.
"What do you think?" He asked.
"It's not that cool." I said. He shoved me, and then stuck his tongue out.
"I meant of the people I share my genes with."
"Your family?"
"Well I wasn't talking about my chameleon, was I?" He rolled his eyes and sat down on his bed. I sat on the floor in front of his bookshelf, ignoring his comment and eye roll strategically.
"They're pretty cool. I think I know where you get your eccentricity from."
"Who?"
"Your mom?"
He shook his head. "I get it from my crazy cool aunt."
"Is she crazy or cool?"
"She's crazy and cool. Honestly."
"Oh?"
He went on to further explain how she was in a mental health home for about a year and half when she was a little older than we were. She did sound really nice, albeit stressed.
"She's the one who bought me Duke."
"How nice."
"Are you being sarcastic?" I shook my head. "I can never tell with you."
"Why not?"
"Because of your lack of emotion. You should smile more. You'd be prettier when you smile more."
I wondered if I could say anything that could make him feel uncomfortable. "So you're saying I'm not pretty?"
"I'm saying you'd be prettier."
I kept silent and instead looked at my nails. The night before, I had painted them a dark green colour (because I like dark green), but I had to do the dishes so they were already chipping. Elijah started to whistle again, but then he suddenly groaned.
"Diane Young, stop that!" He complained.
"Stop what?" I asked, quite surprised by his very sudden outbursts.
"You've made it all awkward now, and the" he looked around and lowered his voice. "the tension is back."
I rolled my eyes. "I feel no tension."
"Wait one moment." He out his finger in the air and then came to stand me up. Sure enough, there was a slight tension.
"Oh? Where did that come from?"
"Well I'm hoping it's not between you and my chameleon."
Yes I did make Elijah Canzara's nephew
You mad
You mad bro
everyone who didn't read lithium must be as confused as hell hahahahahhahahahahahha hah
Oh I'm such a dork .-.