Our indelible pasts|✔

eighteen - kiana

I LAUGH. "BECAUSE I'm not, my dad is."

My dad owned this apartment long before I came here and when it was decided that I was coming to study in New York, he gave me the keys to it. He apparently feels like it's safer having me stay here all by myself than in the school's dormitories. But honestly, this feels like the most dangerous place for me to stay. But it's not like I have much of a choice anyways.

Pushing aside those thoughts, I grin as I look around at my friends. Noah, Ashley, Kim and Nia are already fighting over which music to play.

I'm excited about today. I needed a day where I felt like a normal college student whose biggest problem was the assignment they haven't yet touched or better yet, what pictures they're going to choose for their next Instagram post. So a day to watch movies, binge eat and drink with friends is exactly what I need right now.

"Who's making the cocktails?" Mason asks, though he obviously knows the answer to the question as he hands me the bag of drinks. "Make them with Bryson. He makes good ones too."

I look at Bryson who approaches us and I smirk at him. "Can't be better than mine though, right?"

"Pretty sure they are." Bryson confidently teases back.

"I doubt that but, let's find out and see." With the bag of drinks in my hand, I sashay my way to the kitchen.

Bryson follows me and helps me remove them all from the bag.

"Crazy that we've never met." Bryson says as I get everything we need to make the cocktails.

"Right? I blame it on Noah." I laugh.

He opens a bottle of vodka and immediately pours some of it into a cocktail shaker. "Me too. He says you guys have known each other for years."

"Oh yeah, we have. We've been best friends practically our whole lives." I say as I start to cut a lemon into thin slices. "Went to the same kindergarten, grade school and high school too."

"That's a lot of years together." He laughs. "I don't know how you put up with Noah all that time."

"Honestly, me too."

We both laugh before falling into a comfortable silence as we make the different cocktails. He actually seems to know what he's doing. Finally some real competition. But I'm sure mine are still better.

"You live here alone?" Bryson breaks the silence.

Unfortunately.

"Yeah." I know better than to voice my thoughts.

"No siblings that live in New York that you can stay with?"

"I don't have any siblings." I say softly. "That are alive."

From the corner of my eye, I can see he's stopped doing what he was doing. "Sorry for asking."

I look up at him and smile, a genuine one. "No, don't be. It's fine. I've talked about the topic enough to not be so fazed about talking about it. I don't know if that makes sense." And besides, I like talking about my sister.

He smiles in understanding. "It does."

"I had a twin." I continue. "Her name was Kayla. We were actually all best friends, with Noah and Nia. If I'm being honest, it's kind of cliché really how the friendship started. We became friends with them when we found out they were twins just like us. It was like, so cool to us as kids cause we didn't know any other twins.." I laugh softly at the memory. "And since then, we've all been attached to the hip. Completely inseparable."

"I was obviously the coolest out of all of us...still am." Noah strolls into the kitchen and I roll my eyes.

"You were the weird one." I laugh.

"So you were into weird guys?" He annoyingly asks and I throw a lemon at him which he unfortunately catches before it hits him.

"Wait...you two had a thing?" Bryson's hand dances between Noah and I.

"Yeah, unfortunately." I tease and Noah throws back the lemon but unlike me, he is actually successful at hitting his target, me.

"Kiana, I'm pretty sure you can do much better than Noah." Bryson says, a wide grin spread across his lips, flashing his perfect teeth.

I laugh. "Yeah, I definitely can. Believe me, I know that."

"You know she's talking like this right now, but you should have seen how she used to be obsessed with me." Noah says. "It was the same way Mason's obsessed with my sister."

My eyes widen at the exaggeration. "Bryson, you can't possibly believe that."

Bryson chooses not to say anything and I shoot glares at Noah who's just smiling back at me.

"Just fuck off." I laugh and Noah stalks off before shouting an "I love you too" to me.

"Twins being best friends with twins is not cliché, dating your best friend is what's cliché." Bryson smirks and he gets a lemon to his chest.

"Let it go." I roll my eyes, my lips slowly lifting upwards.

"Nope." He laughs. "Never letting that one go."

"I hate you." I roll my eyes again and Bryson stupidly warns me about how my eyes will roll out of my head if I don't stop which leads to me rolling them yet again.