*scratches neck awkwardly* Hiii, wait, it ISN'T Saturday? Are you suuuure? Oupsie, daisie. Sorry. Hope this chapter makes up for it.
SKYE IS THE OLDER SISTER.
btw: I changed Zoey's mom's name to Amanda because I absentmindedly named HER and Zoey's best friend: Diana. So, Diana is the best friend whom Joel has a crush on. Also, Diana is on the side.
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"Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me.And after all, you're my wonderwall." Oasis
Zoey Willow Hunter
TWISTING the door knob, I entered my house, sighing as I threw the keys on the key holder behind the door. I took off my Converse and started humming Best Day of My Life by American Authors.
Today was by far the best day of my summer.
Nico’s change of attitude was slight, but very noticeable. He was lighter, he smiled more. I felt like the chunk of ice between us had completely melted, leaving only a puddle of water. He was hilarious, when his jokes weren’t directed to me or about me. He was smart and witty; he answered my so-called insults within only a few seconds. Over all; he was way more handsome. Certain aspects of him reminded me of Oliver, but the latter was more of an idiotic, blind asshole.
Whom I still had feelings for.
Oliver was my first real crush, someone I had all of the romantic dreams about. I used to rely on him to make me smile and make my day better. His smile was the doorway to my happiness. I liked to hold onto him a little longer when I hugged him, because he smelled like fancy boy perfume.
His kiss was the most important one to me.
“You know, Z, I like-like you. In the love way,” were his words to me on the Niagara falls night.
Hearing exaggerated sucking noises coming from the living room, I immediately became alert. No one was supposed to be home. I emptied the coat racket from few jackets and such, and held it my hands as a way of defending myself. It was metal, so if I had to hit anyone, it would hurt like hell.
Tip toeing in my own house, I took in the state of the living room. Almost everything was in place, except two shirts on the ground.
“Skye?!” I cried out, watching as my sister and her boyfriend were having a full-on hardcore make out session.
Jack Morrison’s hands were way higher than accepted. He was on top of her, probably enjoying her running her hands through his toned chest. Skye’s top was off and she was wearing her special black bra.
“Skylar Marie Hunter!” I screamed, when no one heard me.
Jack looked up momentarily, seeming disoriented and mad at whoever interrupted him. Skye’s eyes widened, but she looked like she wanted to laugh.
“Zoey! Hi! I thought you said you’d go to Diana’s after mail?”
I growled. “Just wanted to change. Sorry, Skye, I wasn’t aware that Mom’s favorite couch would be the place where two people do the frick-frack.”
“Chill,” said Jack, not moving from my sister’s half-naked body.
“I will not chill,” I put the last word between air quotes. “Get off my sister.”
“She’s my girlfriend,” he said. “Skye, do something.”
Since I couldn’t grab him by his shirt, I twisted his ear in my hand. He was up in the matter of moments, whining. Skye was protesting but I was too concentrated on kicking her boyfriend out to notice.
“Did you know that in some countries, you should get killed now? Because you know, taking advantage of girls is illegal.”
“She’s my girl-freaking-friend! She wants me too! God, you’re psycho.”
“And you’re out.”
I slammed the door in his face. Noticing something on the floor, I took it and opened the door again. He was still there, his face lit up with hope.
I threw his shirt in his face and closed the door again.
“Zoey! What the hell?” exclaimed Skye, putting her shirt back on.
“Right back at you! What the hell were you thinking, effin’ about to do the boy on our couch? Do you realize how much Mom loves this couch?”
She pointed to the doorway. “You kicked my boyfriend out!”
“I did.”
“He’s my boyfriend! I can do whatever I want with him!”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “Skye,” I said, as if talking to a child. “You’ve been going out with him for two weeks.”
“So?”
I face palmed myself. “I thought you said you wanted to wait!”
“God, Zoey, just because we were making out doesn’t mean we were going to do IT.”
“Really? Because I could swear there was a teeny tiny wand standing in your boyfriend’s pants.”
Skye stood up and started to walk away. Her blonde hair was everywhere, making her look like a cavewoman who was trying to seduce her husband.
“Skye! I’m talking to you,” I grabbed her arm.
“Zoey!” she said in the same tone, “I’m done listening to you!”
“What has gotten to you? You’re never like this!”
Skye had once told me that she wanted to stay a virgin until marriage. She thought the idea of a boyfriend was just a lead-on to finding the guy of your dreams.
She shoved me away. “What has gotten to me is my sister being a freaking bitch!”
I couldn’t answer. Feeling glued to my place, I just looked at her. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Her mascara was smudged, either from the heat or from tears. Her cheeks were puffier than usual.
“Dad called,” she said quietly.
Oh. That explained everything; the excessive making out, the defensiveness and the snappiness.
“What did he say?”
She smoothed down her hair. “He wants to see you. And Julia.”
“And you?”
“He was specific, Zoey.”
Isaac Hunter was our biological father and one of our most hated human beings. He and my mom went too far at prom night and Skye was created. They got married because my grandparents viewed a child before getting wed was a horrible and disgraceful thing. Abortion wasn’t an option, because that choice meant to murder a human and stripe them from their life.
My parents loved each other at one point; they really did. It was a movie-worthy kind of love, or so my grandma told me. They used to be happy, to the point of having Julia and I as well.
Nothing good lasted.
They started to fight more and more often. He would insult her and she would answer back, even worse. She cried herself to sleep and he smoked too many cigarettes. Skye and I were younger at the time, but we knew enough to realize that we had to protect Julia from growing up thinking her parents fought. We told her they were acting, it was all a game.
Until the night Dad came home completely drunk, he started shouting at Skye and calling her a mistake. He told her that without her, no one in this family would be unhappy. A one year old Julia was crawling towards him, hugging his leg. He pushed her away. When Mom got Skye & Julia away from him, she was trying to calm him down.
He then did something that no man should ever do to any woman, he slapped her.
That was the day his image of a father to me dissolved like salt in water. Now, he was just my dad. Someone who contributed to Skye, Julia and I. He tried to apologize after that, but Mom avoided him. The divorce papers were filed in a month later. The last time he called was to ask if he could see Julia and I. He didn’t mention Skye, just like today.
This affected Skye a lot, because she was the one who was the most attached to him, despite what he did. He used to be her best friend; she was closer to him than she was to Mom. I’d always thought that he blamed her for everything that happened between my parents.
“Come here,” I took Skye in my arms and hugged her tightly.
She started to cry and with every sob I felt like the veins in my heart were being stabbed by tiny, sharp knives.
“He isn’t worth it,” I said. “He isn’t, Skye.”
“Did I really ruin everything?” She said.
I pulled away from her and put my hands on her shoulders for the second time that day.
“Listen, Skye. You are my sister. You are Julia’s sister as well. Yes, maybe stuff got worse for Mom and Dad, but at one point, they were in love. You are proof of that. You are the most amazing person I know, the last thing I want is for you to feel like you’re a freaking mistake! With you, my world is a better place. So is Julia’s and Mom’s. And Jack Morrison’s.”
She smiled. “I love you, you violent freak.”
“Love you too,” I said.
“Can I get another hug?”
“Sure.”
What were sisters for, anyway?
---
Biking to Diana’s house took me longer than I thought. I had changed and washed off most of the syrup and chocolate, but there was an unbearable amount of pressure on my heart.
I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. It was like a desert in the middle of summer trying to force the sky to rain.
Ed Sheeran’s new album was blasting in my ears, but even that wasn’t able to soothe me. Diana was expecting all of us girls, except for Xandra because she was apparently getting the silent treatment from everyone but Oliver, half an hour ago and it was known that I was the most punctual one.
“Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes. But it's the only thing that I know,” sang Ed Sheeran’s voice in my ears. “When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes. It is the only thing that makes us feel alive.”
“But Ed, I don’t feel alive,” I thought.
I didn’t miss my father. Never have, never will. He hurt my family, therefore he wasn’t invited to have a place in my heart anymore. My only real father was the one who looked at my mom as if she was the most valuable diamond in the world.
“Hunter! Look out!”
I realized I was directly biking towards a big tree. I swerved the bike as fast as I could, but the effect made me fall on the ground. My butt hurt and I was almost completely certain there was going to be a bruise on there.
“Bloody hell, you just can’t stay clean, can you? Always messing yourself up,” said Nico, looking down at me with a small smile.
“Shut up,” I attempted, examining my right hand. There was dirt on the bandage I had just changed and my palm officially hurt.
Nico stood there, just mentally making fun of me.
“Are you going to help me up, or what?”
He stuck out his hand at me and helped me stand up. I took my hand away from him as soon as I was stable again.
Oh no.
Biting my lip, I tried to take steady breaths to calm down, but nothing was helping. I could feel a ball form in my throat and my hands shook. This was the calm before the storm, the sun before the rain. Getting on my bike, I was fumbling on some wire and had stayed there for too long, trying to detangle the damn wire.
“Hunter?”
Get on your bike and leave.
Instead of doing as the wiser part of my brain advised, I shifted my body to face him.
“We’re friends now, right?”
He grimaced. “Sure. I guess. Sort of.”
If you say no to what I’m about to ask, I will murder you.
“Can I get a hug? Please?”
Nico scratched the back of his neck and averted his eyes back at me. God, his eyes were beautiful. He said, “I—”
I was so close to losing any ounce of strength I had and he noticed that.
“Sure.”
Walking towards him, I just put my arms around his waist and put my head on his chest. He didn’t exactly hug me back, but it wasn’t as if I expected him to.
He smelled like spring, which was comforting. Opposite to what I thought, I didn’t let any emotions out while hugging him. A feeling of calmness and tranquility numbed any tears that were about to come out.
Just when I was about to let go, he lift his arms and put them around my shoulders.
There was no time to think about all of this. It was a moment of friendship. I could feel the wind on my hair, but I didn’t want to let go now. Nico hugging me back was a sign that we were officially friends.
One remark made me snap back to reality: he gave better hugs than Oliver.
Oliver basically just gave you a squeeze and let go. Nico, on the other hand, seemed to never be the first one to let you go. He was aware that I was far from okay and he respected that.
“Thanks,” I said, after I detached myself from him.
He nodded. “You’re welcome, Hunter. Just don’t cry again, yeah? I don’t like seeing girls cry.”
“What if you saw a guy cry, would you like that?”
His face scrunched up. “Guys crying are weird.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re barmy.”
“Barmy?”
He rolled his eyes, “it means crazy.”
“Alright,” I said, getting on my vehicle once again. Leaving without goodbye seemed wrong, so I shouted, “Cheerio!” in the best English accent I could master.
I got at Diana’s house a few minutes later and both girls were frowning at me. Lucy had her arms crossed, her long, black hair pulled back in a braid. Her Latin-American features showed then and her dark brown eyes were so angry that a million little knives were thrown at me.
Diana’s resemblance to her was as absent as the one between an apple and chocolate, both physically and healthily. She had wavy red hair that she dyed every few months or so. Her eyes were an interesting shade of blue, so pale that the sky would be jealous.
“Zoella Hunter, you are dead.”
Zoella was a nickname Diana invented a few years back, when she decided that she didn’t like how my name was so short. Lucy’s full name was Luciana, so she was accepted by Diana easily.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Lucy was beside me now. “What happened?”
“What?”
“Well, you’re having your low, sad voice. What happened? Is it because of that hunky boy of yours? I swear, he’s so hot I could roast marshmallows on him,” sighed Diana dreamily.
“No, it’s not because of him! But he made me feel better.”
“Oh?” exclaimed Lucy and Diana, eyebrows raised.
“No! Don’t think wrong, we just hugged.”
Lucy turned to Diana. “They hugged? Argh, teenagers these days.”
“You talk like you’re not one yourself,” I commented, fully knowing they won’t acknowledge my presence.
“I know, right? I mean, all the sexual tension, the good kind, must be suffocating,” said Diana twirling on her hair. “If I were him, I’d jump her and get this over with.”
“Jump me?”
Diana looked at me as if I was a moron. “Do the boom-diggity-diggity with you, stupid.”
Boom-diggity-diggity?
“You know, the heheheh,” added Lucy, making weird noises.
Heheheh?
I felt harassed. They were talking about inappropriate stuff related to me and they both knew I hated when they did that. I knew what I had to say for them to stop.
“My father called.”
“Oh,” they breathed.
“Can I please get a hug?”
“You got one from Hunky Yummy Brit,” winked Lucy.
“But eh, today’s your lucky day,” said Diana.
It was at the moment that my best friends attacked me in a monstrous hug. The moment was also the one when I realized just how grateful I was to have them.
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your guesses for his middle name are SO good! and some of you guessed his actual middle name...
GUESS WUT. To my spanish speaking amigos, a friend of mine is translating the story to spanish! Her username is @0urJustin, so, go check it out! woot woot! Hablo espanol un poco, porque mi mejor amiga es peruana y porque hay clases de espanol en mi escuela.
see ya on wednesday!
OH and I ALMOST FORGOT
GUESS WHAT
CMON GUESS
NO YOU'RE WRONG
I LOVE YOUUUU...and Nico.
cheerio! yas