The Cousins

Chapter 1 - September 2nd

"NESTOR!" Kelvin said, stopping halfway down the stairs. He stared at his 14-year old brother who widened his eyes as soon as he saw him. With swift agility, Nestor leaped off the couch and into the kitchen. "GET BACK HERE YOU RAT BASTARD!" He screamed as he followed his brother.

Their mother, Judith, sat in the kitchen eating a banana. They chased each other around the kitchen and screamed obscene comments to each other until their mother said. "ENOUGH!" Kelvin stopped and stared at her as if she were a teacher giving a bad grade, Nestor took a minute before standing still. "What's going on?" She asked firmly, standing from her chair. They didn't notice before, but she was surprisingly wearing a thick sweater and mittens. The house had been unusually cold, but considering how hot it was outside, Kelvin just tolerated it.

Kelvin pointed at Nestor. "That's my shirt!"

Nestor rolled his eyes. "You don't even miss it."

"I was literally looking for it!"

"You don't even wear this any-"

"Nestor, give it back!" She said.

Nestor took a step back. "But-"

"Now!"

Nestor groaned in defeat as he took the black shirt with the grey Hufflepuff logo on the front and handed it to his brother. Even though they were about three years apart Nestor had been catching up with his older brother in terms of height and "somehow" always ended up wearing clothes that were not his. "Hope you're happy!"

"As soon as I douse this in rubbing alcohol and holy water I will be."

"Kelvin, don't start!" He rolled his eyes, thanked her for the shirt, and went back upstairs to his room.

They walked towards the living room and Judith tried to stop them. "Isn't it cold in here?" She had a smile on her face and tried to rub her arms together like on TV when the actors acted cold. Except actors would have been able to pull off the face.

"It's freezing in here woman, what are you doing?" Nestor said.

"I'm good!" Kelvin said, walking away.

Judith's smile faded and turned off the air. "Yeah it's freezing."

Kelvin got changed into his Hufflepuff graphic t-shirt, grey jeans, black sneakers, and grabbed his Disney backpack that had pictures of all the snacks from the parks on it. As much as he loved food as much as he did writing. If it weren't for the fact that chefs were usually angry he would be studying Hospitality instead of English. The only nice chefs were pastry chefs and that was a lot harder to get into than English and he hoped that if he studied enough he could be an author and be the next JK Rowling, pre Twitter.

He drove in his Hyundai Elantra to Florida Grove University, a modern University in Central Florida that also happened to be right next to the beach. He always parked on the top floor of the parking garage because it had great views and everyone else was too lazy to go to the 9th floor, this way he had a spot and no one would hit his car.

He got off the elevator on the ground floor, threw his longboard on the floor, and started rolling towards the center of campus. Swerving around the slow-walking students, and attempting to not hit the students jumping in front of him, he sped past angular, concrete buildings with glass domes that let in natural sunlight. The University was known for modern innovation to various popular majors, lots of technology has been incorporated into the learning processes to accommodate the modern times.

At some point he passed a grassy area with a large willow tree where students would have a picnic; or what his cousin Solana was doing, reading multiple books. One last sharp turn and he walked through the damp grass and under the willow tree where Solana was sitting. She was intensely reading a leather-bound book, it almost looked like a journal. There was a fire symbol embellished in orange on the front cover. Something he and his cousin had in common was reading books the old-fashioned way instead of on their iPads. Although Kelvin had terrible handwriting and found programs like Microsoft Word great for his major, he preferred writing in a journal. It just felt natural.