Eternal Flames

1

It is sunday morning, I'm chilling on a comfortable chair under a sunshade at the back of our garden. Our garden is big. There are not many trees, but almost the whole garden is covered with a perfectly maintained to unnaturally green lawn. We also have a pool, of course. I never called our house a villa, but in fact it is. We are quite rich, but it wasn't always like that.

    My mom married my dad when they were very young. She got pregnant with my brother when she was around 19 so dad married her later, even they were so young when they married they stayed together.  Then, two years later, they had me and after three years was born my sister Tia. Our dad worked in some company where he was making a good money, but we never spent it, because he was always saying "it's for worse times" and he was kind of hiding some money from us for himself. He also loved fishing. One afternoon, when I was seven, he took his boat and went on sea fishing. A storm came and he never came back home. No one knows what happened back then, the ship was found, but they never found his body. However, he was pronounced dead. We, but especially mom got all his money, so we became quite wealthy.

    We moved to a town at the other side of Spain. Not long time after we moved, mom met Jared. Two years older black American who lives in Spain because he doesn't like USA. They started dating. He is not poor either, soon after, they bought a villa together and we had to move again - well, I didn't mind, it was still in the same town and living in villa was so exciting. Few years later they had a daughter together, so now I have a third sibling, Libby. She's four and she's literally so adorable.

    It's hot outside, but the sunshade and ice tea with bunch of ice makes it much better. My light brown hair in a messy bun, wearing a new yellow top I got yesterday from a mall and low rise jean shorts.

    My phone starts ringing, I pick it up. It is my best friend sofía. 

"Hey bestie, what's up?" she says.

"Hi, just chillin'. How about you?" I answer.

"I'm at the bus stop, I'm meeting with Mason. Girl, I just love him so much. He's nice and sooo fine!" she's talking about her boyfriend and her happy and healthy relationship again, she does it all the time, it piss me off. Not long time ago, my boyfriend Tom broke up with me in bad terms, because I kissed one boy in truth or dare. I think he's taking it too seriously, like, it was just a game. He is really toxic, our dating included arguments and him not allowing me to wear some kinds of clothes, like short crop tops or shorts, but I still loved him so Sofía talking about her boyfriend all the time doesn't make me feel any better.

    "Kiara! Are listening to me?" she almost yells. I realize that I have no idea what she just said because I was drowning in my thoughts. I apologize: "Sorry, what did say?"

"I was asking if you wanna go surfing today."

"Yeah, sounds great. 3 pm?"

"OK. And-"
Suddenly I hear my brother's annoying voice: "Kiara, come here!"

"I'll text you later, I gotta go." I say.

"Kiara!"

"Bye." I end the call and almost run to the front of the garden. My dumbass brother with his two stupid friends Marcus and Leon are standing by the pool. I can't help it, but his friends are kinda hansome, especially Marcus, the tallest one of them. He's wearing only black swimsuit, so he shows his sixpack. I see he has a snake tattoo on his rib. His black hair is wet from the pool, so is Leon's blonde one. Leon is wearing blue swimsuit and unlike Marcus, he doesn't have any tattoos. I look at my brother, I can see how greasy his brown hair is and I know how bad his personality is. His friends may be attractive but that doesn't change the fact that they all are immature idiots. I realize that I am staring and say, making sure to make clear that they're bothering me: "What do you want, Álex?"

"Don't be rude sis, I just need your help with something." I wanna slap him, but I say with a sigh: "What is it?"

"This lounger broke, can you help me fix it?" he shows me a broken lounger.
"Are you three so incompetent?" I walk to the lounger, ,,So what am I supposed to do-" Álex pushes me to the pool.

"WHAT THE HELL! ÁLEX! I FUCKING HATE YOU!" I scream as my clothes get completely soaked and my wet hair get all over my face. They all laugh. My body gets filled with anger, I grab nearest inflatable ball and throw it at him. Unfortunately, it just hits his leg a little and he starts laughing even more.

"Boys, let's get some drink." he orders his friends and they leave, but Marcus offers me his hand to help me climb out of the pool, but I reject with "Leave me alone," and slap his hand, causing him pushing me back to water. Damn it!

    After I change into dry clothes I decide to get some snack in the kitchen. I walk down the staircase, but I trip and miss few stairs. The staircase leads to a corridor and entrance to the kitchen is right opposite the stairs so if somebody is in the kitchen, they see to the stairs perfectly. In this moment it's Marcus.

    He's leaning against the kitchen counter, watching me. He's wearing a red T-shirt now.

"Watch your step," he says. I hear a lot of sarkasm in his voice. I snap at him: "Mind your own business, Marcus." as I walk in and open a fridge. I continue: "What are you even doing here? I don't see Álex here... Where is the sandwich? There was a last one."

"You mean this one?" He shows me a small piece of a sandwich he hasn't eaten yet, then he eats it.

"Sorry, there isn't one anymore. It was so good," he smiles and winks at me.

"Seriously? It's not your house, you can't just-" I notice that he is staring at me and stop talking. His brown eyes are actually really pretty. He comes closer to me and stare into my eyes.

"Your eyes are green like forest, I always thought they're blue, like your brother's." he says. Oh my god. What is just happening? Marcus, my brother's best friend since childhood, who is almost three years older than me, is standing barely 20 centimeters from me, staring into my soul and talking about my eyes.

    "Marcus, we're going to-" I hear Leon. He's standing in the doorway, looking confused, then he gives us a strange look.

"Yeah, I was just having a sandwich, she got mad because she wanted it," Marcus says with a sneer and leaves the room without even looking at me.