The Imperfect Plan | Wattys2023

Chapter One

My alarm pierced through my dreamscape and as hard as I tried to resist the noise and continue with my enticing dream, I knew it was no good.

Zac Efron and his undeniable abs would have to wait.

With a grunt, my hand fumbled on the bedside table for my phone, wanting nothing more than to end the relentless ringtone. Just as my fingers traced the phone's edge, it slipped from my reach and hit the floor with a thud.

I groaned again, this time louder as I knew I was going to have to move and finally open my eyes. I quickly reached for the floor, shutting the torture device off as soon as I had it in my hands. As I turned the noise off, the reality of the early morning sunlight that was streaming through my poorly closed blinds, hit me.

I threw my pillow over my face with a sigh and kicked my duvet in the air, like a child having a tantrum. As much as I was growing up and therefore should be used to mornings, I wasn't; especially not Monday mornings.

There was a knock at my door and before I even had chance to mumble a response, I heard the door open, the patter of feet and my bed dip as it took the weight of someone beside me.

"Ronnie," my sister's voice called out.

I groaned back in response and rolled to the side, so my back was facing towards her.

"Ronnie!" she said louder this time as she pulled the pillow swiftly from my grasp.

"Ah, Sabrina!" I whined back as the sunlight hit my eyes with full force.

She looked down at me, her eyebrows raised like mums did when she was either fed up or on her way to being fed up, "you have to get up and get ready with me, you promised and remember it's--"

"--tradition," I mumbled at the same time as her.

"Exactly!" she said, pleased with my reply. "Besides we're twin sisters, it's probably against some unspoken rule somewhere to break a twinition," she added.

"A twinition?" I asked, knowing immediately that I would regret asking.

"A tradition mixed with twin, makes twinition," she explained, putting her hands together as if they were cementing the fact her new name made any logical sense.

"Why are you so preppy in the morning?" I groaned, still not thrilled by the idea that in an hour I would be roaming the college halls instead of sleeping peacefully in my comfy bed.

"One of us has to be," she sighed and got off my bed and walked over to the window.

I watched as she tilted the blinds further open, allowing the sunlight to cast warm beams across my bedroom floor.

"Looks like the people in this street are all early birds," she announced as she glanced outside at the people walking by.

I sighed and went to meet her at the window, "why don't people just relax a little bit more," I muttered, as I let my eyes follow an elderly man taking his dog for a morning stroll.

A commotion from the neighbours next door caught my eye, as a boy's laugh filled the air through the open gap of my window. As I turned to see who the laugh belonged to, my breath caught in my throat.

"Who in Jesus H Christ is that?" I said, in short breaths as my brain attempted to catch up with what my eyes were seeing.

My sister let out a low wolf whistle next to me, "I have no idea, but it's a good thing I fancy girls, otherwise I would be all over that hunk of meat."

I shot her a side glanced look, "yeah, good thing," I replied sarcastically as I rolled my eyes, before refocussing them on the boy next door.

I couldn't make out his exact features from my viewpoint, but his sandy blonde hair was a tousled mess and his t-shirt clung to his body tight enough that I could tell from this angle, he was definitely rocking some hard earned abs underneath. As I continued to study the stranger next door, suddenly his attention refocused as his eyes seemed to bore in the direction of Sabrina and I; with a gasp and quick reaction, we ducked to the floor out of sight.