The Romantic is also available on my profile. It's the sequel to Sugar, about Bristol and Jared's children, primarily their daughter Ivy. It's mostly told from Ivy's point of view.
11/29/2044
My earliest memory is of a vacation. Ibiza, Spain. I was so little, so curious about everything. It's hazy, and I don't remember details, but I remember the feeling.
I remember the feeling of my father's muscular arms lifting me up and spinning me around, placing me on top of his shoulders. He's so tall, I felt like I was on top of the world. And my mother's blue eyes like the ocean, so gentle, and her voice like a soft breeze blowing through my hair.
Ma petite fleur, my mother called me. My little flower. She wore a long dress, white with red flowers on it. We were matching with our outfits—I wore a version of the same dress, but with a looser skirt that made me feel like a princess when I spun around.
I sat at a table by the ocean, next to my dad. He looked over at my mom, who was standing closer to the water, and they exchanged a glance, communicating with just their eyes. That kind of nonverbal connection that only married couples have. It was probably something like "Let's get lunch in 15 minutes?" "Okay." Then my dad smiled at me, clinking his glass of tequila against my glass of orange juice. I looked up to my dad so much as a little girl—he always seemed so smart, so capable. He placed a red flower in my hair, and I giggled.
I was so happy. Me and my sister both. Monaco wasn't screaming at me when we were in Ibiza—she was actually calm, for once.
Unlike right now. We're on the plane, headed to Paris, and we're sitting next to each other in our small seats on a connecting flight. She's fucking seventeen and still argues with me like she's five.
"Let me use your charging block," she says to me. "Seriously. I'm serious."
"I told you, my block only has like 15 percent. I might need to use it later," I tell her with exasperation.
"Well, my phone is at 15 percent."
"Well, that must suck. It's your fault for not bringing your own charging block and for not charging your phone last night!"
Sometimes when I'm arguing with Monaco, it feels like I'm arguing with myself. We look so alike. Not identical twins, but almost. We have the same golden brown hair, skin that tans easily, and our grandmother's green eyes. We have nice bodies, with nice curves and narrow shoulders. I'm slightly thinner because I'm a dancer. Monaco sits at a desk all day doing her science homework or whatever the fuck. Don't get me wrong, I respect that. It got her into MIT in the early action round a few weeks ago, and now she never stops grinning about it and thinks she's God's gift to mankind. But I personally could never do all that studying.
"Men like kind, generous women," Monaco says to me now, giving me that look she always does, that annoys the hell out of me.
"What does that have to do with anything?" I snap at her.
"You're not going to find a man at the ball if you keep being like this," she says. "Being so stubborn."
YOU ARE READING
Sugar
Roman d'amourJared thinks Bristol is the sweetest girl he has ever met. She's always so obedient, so eager to please. She wants to be loved, more than she wants anything else in the world. She's a young lawyer, still discovering who she is, and he's her boss, a...
