The Midnight War

Chapter 1: The Wine Grow Up

I strongly believe that everything was normal up until this week.

I was wrong.

Maybe it was because my life wasn't quite normal. A normal life consists of people my age graduating high school and preparing for college. It consists of normal teenagers living normal lives and never having to think about living a life like mine. A life like mine wasn't normal at all, thinking about it. I believe I haven't had a normal life since I graduated high school. That's where everything started going south.

Though there's no time to keep wondering random thoughts because I have wine to sell. Yes, wine. I may be eighteen but according to the bottle shop, I'm twenty-two. Wonder why I sell wine? I wonder too. I joined this 'expensive' wine store that my best friend and I found after we ran off. It seemed like a good idea at first but now I'm wondering if I should have thought this through more. I mean, Lottie's Bottle Shop did help me meet some cool people and get to live a pretty cool life, so who am I kidding? My life before wasn't great.

"Thinking again, Cecilia?" My best friend breaks me from my thoughts. Florian Mills-Fisher. I've known him since we were kids and now we are still here together, selling cheap wine that poses as expensive ones. He laid his blue eyes upon me, hoping to help me with my thoughts.

"I was," I responded to him. He fumbled with a bottle, almost dropping it. He gripped tighter to the bottle and then began steam pressing off the cheap label.

"Thoughts invade your mind easily, am I right?" Florian declared. His fluffy, blond hair bobbing as he moved back and forth between wine holders.

"Yeah," I muttered. I continued working, my arms growing sore from all the bottles I steam pressed. Thoughts really do invade my mind more than I like and it gets me distracted way more easily, "Do you ever wonder where we would be if we didn't run away?"

Florian's blue eyes seemed to darken. We may have had a difficult time running away but Florian was the one that took it the hardest. He left behind both of his parents and his three sisters. He cared so much about them but couldn't take being a 'burden to his family', as he put it. I try to tell him he isn't but he won't believe me.

I left my family intentionally. I love my family dearly but they aren't the best people. My parents never tried their best when it came to raising me and my brothers, let alone providing for their family and left me to learn how to live on the streets. They had their past that made them hard as stone and that passed down to their children. They never supported me in anything I did and that made me lose my confidence in succeeding in life. I wasn't going to succeed anyways. My parents would never afford for me to go to college and get a better life than theirs. I could just live like my parents, I mean, it runs in the family.

"Probably in college like my parents wanted," Florian responded.

"Didn't you want to go to college?" I asked him.

"Yeah but I didn't want to go to Yale. I just wanted to attend a fine arts college so I could continue my career as a flute player."

"Oh."

"What about you? What would you be doing?" He asked me as he tilted his head my way. He set down a wine bottle and picked up another one. I couldn't find an answer to his question. I loved painting and art history but my parents would never support a career as an artist. I wouldn't be able to afford to live that life anyways. I couldn't answer because I didn't know what I would be doing. I had no idea what I would be doing.

"I...I don't know," I answered. He looked at me, grimly and gave me a weak smile.

"It's okay. I mean a lot of graduates don't know what they are going to do once they reach college," he reassured me. I tried believing him. Believe the fact that I was just lost until I reached college. Maybe I would have found a course then.