*•. Coffee shop.•*

Cami

Cami dropped her bag onto the floor and walked into the kitchen of her apartment. She made herself a hot chocolate that was 95% marshmallow then turned the TV on. She flicked through a few shows before settling on This Is My House.

She rested her head on her arms and sipped her marshmallow engulfed hot chocolate. Then her phone pinged.

Alex:

Come round my house tomorrow? 🙂

She texted back.

Yes please!!! x

She was so excited that she was going round to her friend's house for the first time. She got up and did a little jig on the rug. Then her phone pinged again.

Alex:

Just be careful of my parents

Alex:

Mummy and Daddy don't really like different people until they've seen if they're OK.

Okay, so she would have to be extra careful around Alex's parents. It made her kind of nervous all the same.

Cami realised that she was still in her school uniform. It was itching her, the people who made it clearly didn't care about comfort. She turned the spindly chair next to the marble counter and walked into her bedroom.

It was a dream room. Soft rugs, massive open space, a big screen, a gamer corner with xbox, wii, playstation, nintendo switch, computer. King size bed with poofy cushions and throws, beanbags, shelves of cute decorations and books.  A bathroom attachment, walk in closet, dresser full of expensive products, skincare fridge, mini kitchen with a fridge and cupboards of food. LED lights, massive mirror with hollywood style light bulbs.

Yep.  A dream bedroom. Pretty much everything on your Christmas list to Santa before you realise that you need to dial it down, and you'll only get about 0.01% of what you asked for, because Santa's not a magician. Or at least, that's what Bonny said.

Bonny was her best friend from LA, where she had lived before. She was a cheerful person with a bob of straight black hair and braces. Bonny had never been round to Cami's house, for some reason. She was determined that she would invite a friend round to her house this time. She wouldn't just let them invite her round all the time.

She ditched her uniform, walked into her closet and picked out a thick yellow jumper and denim shorts. It was kind of chilly, so she turned the heating up. She sighed and slid back onto the spindly chair and sipped the hot chocolate again. It was really very tasty now, the marshmallows had started to melt into the steaming liquid so it was all nice and marshmallowy.

Going round to Alex's made her feel nervous, more nervous than usual. Maybe it was that warning about her parents. She wasn't sure. But still, she wondered what the parents could be like. Snobby? She tipped the cup upwards and got loads of half melted marshmallows in her mouth. Maybe they were really strict. It was hard to guess. She hadn't been given much of a clue in the text. It wasn't the best place to start a train of thought if there was no station. And if she was honest with herself, her station was utterly non-existent. Not even a brick in sight.

Then she heard the sound of keys jangling in the door. How? Her brother... but she was asleep by the time he got back, always. This was so weird that she started to worry. Something might have happened? Was he hurt or something?

She rushed over to the door and James walked in, looking tired.

'Hi Cam,' he greeted her.

'Why are you back so early?...'

'I got a message- I mean. Hem hem,' he cleared his throat just like Cami did when she was nervous. 'I just felt like it was time I came home early for once.' James gave her a one-armed, very half hearted and awkward hug.

〰️〰️

This is just getting fishier. James never comes home from work early.  And he was acting sketchy as well. Weird friends and weird brothers... what the hell is going on? I have no idea but I know I want to find out. I want to ask Alex and Twyla but I know they'll just be strange about it and confuse me even more. Ugh. Ever since I moved to this city everything has started showing me doors that I can't open. Ha, I'm so poetic. It's all so frustrating. I just still can't believe that James came home early. Can't believe, can't believe, can't believe. I keep on going on about it but it's just... all been going crazy. So many secrets! What am I going to do about them?

〰️〰️

James was sitting down on the couch, having pulled off his tie. And he was now flicking through the shows on the living room TV.  Which reminded Cami. She ran into the kitchen and paused This Is My House just as Amber 3 got eliminated from the competition.  Her hot chocolate was starting to get a weird skin of dried milk on the top and it was all cold, so she poured it down the sink and rinsed it out, then put the cup upside down in the dishwasher. It was amazing how short a time it took to get ruined. She came back to James and sat next to him.

'You're being frustrating,' she grumped.

'No idea what you're talking about.'

'Yes you do. You came home early which you never do, and you won't tell me why.'

'Do I need a reason to want to see my baby sis?'

'Yes you do,' Cami crossed her arms. He was starting to loose his temper. He flicked her lightly on the head.

'Don't be annoying.' Then he went off to his room. The room he was almost never in. There would have been dust collecting on the surfaces if Cami hadn't cleaned in there every week. She cleaned once every Sunday all herself, it gave her something to do.

Cami shook her head, puzzled. Then switched off James' show in the living room and went into the kitchen to switch her own back on.

This was all getting stranger by the second.