"Are you ready for some serious firework action?"
Sophie was a bit excited, after all, it wasn't every day that you saw fireworks fired off from an island. "I guess so,"
His face changed into something more understanding and warm, "You're worried that we'll get busted."
Sophie sighed, "It's just, I worked so hard to get into this school, I don't want to get kicked out of it." She had worked endlessly to get good enough grades and wasn't about to let some stupid idea that someone had ruined it.
"I get it"
"No, I don't think you've ever been nervous to pull a prank."
Something showed on his face, "Well, yeah, but I also have been pulling stunts like this for years—mainly to annoy my dad though."
Sophie chuckled, that did sound like Keefe, but, "What do you mean, to annoy your dad?"
He took a deep breath and quietly mumbled, "Because we don't have the greatest relationship."
Oh. "Why?"
She could have sworn she saw something flash in his eyes, but the second she noticed it, it was gone.
"Because I'm not an exact replica of him." He said through a breath.
Sophie's heart cracked at his words, "That's not bad though, and I think you're great just being you, because our family doesn't decide who we are, believe me, it drove my parents crazy."
Keefe
"That's not bad though, and I think you're great just being you, because our family doesn't decide who we are, believe me, it drove my parents crazy."
He didn't know how much he needed to hear those words until she said them, no one had ever said that to him. He hardly trusted his voice not to crack, "Thanks."
She smiled at him, "Anytime." She settled down onto the sand laying down resting her head on her hands which were tucked beneath her head.
Though there was something to her smile that made him sad. "What did you mean by, it drove my parents crazy?"
She looked down at her shoes, averting her gaze from his. "Grady and Edaline aren't my biological parents."
Grady and Edaline must be her guardians then.
"My real parents died in a car crash when I was twelve, they weren't the greatest to me." She murmured raising her head and looking him in the eye. "My dad often came home drunk and yelled at my mother." She said before continuing, "And my mother always had her face plastered with makeup and she ran her own makeup and fashion line, Maya Foster Fashion. She stuffed me into frilly dresses and forced me to attend parties with all fancy and snooty people—no matter how much I hated them."
Wow, and he thought he had a lot of life problems.
"When they died, I was sent to be fostered by Grady and Edaline, they eventually adopted me, and I've had my mom's best friend and advisor run the company for me ever since then."
She easily could have ten times the amount of life problems then he had. "How do you deal with it?" Was all he asked.
"I don't think I do, the only friend I've ever had since then is Biana, and I ignore pretty much anyone besides her, Grady and Edaline." She answered, the tone of her voice showing that what she spoke was the absolute truth.
"Well, now you have two friends." Keefe decided, and Sophie looked up to look into his eyes, her brown ones boring into his ice blue ones.
"Deal, and Keefe?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think he's all bad. No one is, that's what makes people like him so scary, they're not as different from us as we want them to be. I think he just wants to get along and doesn't know how to tell you."
"I don't know," He said breaking eye contact. "All he's ever said to me was about what I should be—not about who I am." There. He said it. The words he had been keeping in for almost his whole life—he just prayed she wouldn't mock him for them.
"Well, then he can go."
"Where?"
She smirked an awfully cruel smile, "I hear hell is particularly nice this time of year."
He laughed, "Y'know it's not very nice to say that."
She gave him a challenging look, "Well maybe I'm not nice."
"We all know that's not fully true."
***
"Ready?"
"No!"
Keefe had been trying to convince her to light one of the fireworks, she'd just told him that she preferred to not get her face melted off.
"Please? I'll do anything you want!" He begged, she honestly had no idea why he wanted her to light one so badly.
"Anything?" She demanded.
"Anything." He confirmed.
"Fine," Sho took the lighter from his outstretched hand and turned it on. The fire flickered ravenously seeming to be hungry to do something.
"Remember to back away as soon as you light it, you have about three seconds until it goes off." He instructed.
"Light 'em up!" Keefe yelled, and everyone else lighted theirs.
Holding the lighter under the fireworks, she squeezed her eyes shut until she heard a quiet barely audible hiss. She scrambled away not wanting it to fly up in her face.
There were many loud crack noises as they all flew up into the sky and then they all exploded.
Colourful lights shattered through the sky enveloping it in colour. The world seemed to pause as they exploded, more of them being sent up every moment by others franticly running to grab more to be set off.
All Sophie knew in the moment was that Keefe was laying right beside her on the sand of the beach, a steady comforting source of warmth. He tucked his arm around her. And all Sophie's thoughts halted—or zoomed by too fast to acknowledge them, she didn't know.
She resisted the pulling urge to tuck in close to him—to pull him close.
Sophie didn't know how long she lay there in the sand as light and colour shattered across the sky flaring in every colour and then some.
"No more left!" Someone shouted from a little way down the beach.
The moment he said it a final firework shot up into the sky and exploded, showering the night sky in colour. As it died out and the light fluttered out, Keefe stood up helping her up with him.
Sophie felt a little disappointed that it was over as she stood up, but then Keefe announced seeming to sense her disappointment, "It's not over."
She looked up at him with a brow raised.
"You'll see."
Can u spot the kotlc quotes—if so mind leaving a vote.