Finding 4

Chapter 9

Marley

"Oh God," I say through a pinched nose and a disgusted expression. "Elijah, what the fuck is that?"

"I made cookies," my younger brother offers, staring up at me innocently. He's completely oblivious to the fact that his 'cookies' look like horse shit, and they smell like it too.

"Yeah...I can see that." I dare to take my fingers away from my nose and allow myself to smell the contaminated air, only to regret it as soon as I do.

"Do you want one?"

"Uhm..." swallowing harshly I look my younger brother in the eye. I can't tell him no, he's so happy about his cookies. "You know, I'm on a diet." I tsk, "but I'm sure Brody would love one."

Elijah's eyes light up "Yeah! I'll go give him one!"

Snickering to myself, I watch as he picks up a very fucked cookie and runs out of the kitchen. I move for the fridge to grab what I originally came in here for, a glass of orange juice. When I've obtained the glass, I walk out to my back porch and plop down on the swing, staring out at the rolling hills behind our older subdivision.

The sun has just started to set, casting an orangey pink shadow over everything it touches. I sigh as I watch the breeze blowing through the tall grass, and the branches that hang off of large oak trees.

I have to say, it is quite pretty here in Ireland.

"Marley?" The familiar feminine voice fills my ears and my head snaps over.

"Keely?" I question, squinting my eyes to make sure that the girl standing on the other side of the fence separating our house and our neighbors house is actually my friend.

"Oh my God," she smiles "is this where you live?"

Standing up and walking over to the fence I nod "Yeah."

"This is Tierny's house," she beams, still smiling and gesturing back to the house behind her.

I wish I could smile like that all of the time. I used to, in fact I used to be a little ray of sunshine. That was until my life decided to take a deep dive off of a very tall cliff.

"Oh, do you guys want to come in?" I ask randomly, not being able to stop the words from flying out of my mouth. I guess not having a social life for three weeks now is getting to my head. "I mean, if you want to."

She chuckles "Yeah of course. Let me go get her."

Nodding I watch her walk back inside and a few moments later she returns with the familiar brunette.

"Hey Marley!" Tierny smiles and waves at me, still being drug across the yard by Keely.

"Hi," I mirror her smile "small world, huh?"

She chuckles and the two of them walk through the gate sitting on the fence.

"Fair warning though, my five year old brother just made cookies that are royally fucked and he probably is going to want you to try one." I explain as push open the back door, and we walk into the kitchen.

"Marley I swear I'm gonna-" Brody stops in his tracks when he sees my friends. More like one of my friends.

His eyes are dead locked on Tierny, and her eyes are dead locked on him. They're just staring at each other, no words being said, but their eyes making it very obvious what they are thinking.

I nudge Keely with my arm, a smirk across my face. "Look at them." I whisper.

She snorts and whispers back "Better watch out for the lot of them."