Chapter 1
8 years later
"So, who are you maiming this time?", Allie asked as she moved aside discarded dresses on the floor to clear a path for her to get to her side of the room.
"I'm not maiming anybody. I'm just going out on a date", Kate said patiently and continued to comb mascara through her lashes.
"Oh, crap." Allie closed her eyes. "I hope you aren't going to kill anyone this time."
"Those were all accidents", Kate protested."I haven't actually killed anyone."
"Dan nearly died of heart palpitations because he was scared of you. You almost drowned Jake after pushing him into a pool.", Allie started enumerating, making little ticks in the air like she was checking off her grocery list.
"You can't possibly think any of those were my fault. They were just all really bad dates." Kate exclaimed cutting off Allie's bad-dates-of Kate checklist.
Allie gave her a wicked grin."All of them?"
"At least I've kissed some frogs which I can't say the same for you." Kate said glaring at her reflection on the mirror. "When are you ever going to stop waiting for that little boy who had the same name as you?"
Allie tuned out her cousin's voice and pulled back the thick drapes to stare out the window. She really shouldn't have teased her cousin about going on a date and now she won't hear the end of it until Kate left for her date. At 18, her cousin was only one year older than her and it was times like these when she felt the need to lecture Allie about how to live her life.
And with that thought she zoned out and thought about that day eight years ago. She never did see him again but not without lack of trying. She had gone to the park everyday since then and even gave the flower shop owner enough money to pay for the flowers they tried to steal just so she could wait for him to turn up.
Not that it did any good, Allie thought, looking over at Kate who was busy trying to look for shoes to go with her dress. I really have to get over this childhood crush of mine. He probably hasn't spared me a second thought over the years. He probably thought I was a boy.
Stop it, she told herself. Think of all those children in Africa no food, no running water, forced to be child soldiers, blood diamonds, human trafficking...
Kate slapped her hands down the linen-covered window seat and said loudly,"This is all your father's fault."
Startled, Allie looked away from the window. "What? Child Soldiers? Looking like boy? No food? What?"
"I really don't know where you go off sometimes." Kate folded her arms and glared at her. "I could have been telling you I was pregnant or that I had a brain tumor."
"Well are you? Who's the father?" Allie asked smiling innocently.
"You know sometimes I think you do this on purpose just to frazzle my nerves", Kate said. "And don't think I didn't notice how you completely ignored brain tumor and jumped on pregnancy."
"Go on, now you're starting to sound like Aunt Marge." Aunt Marge was Kate's first stepmother. She lived in Australia. To make up for not being here for Kate, she gives lectures on life lessons every time she calls.
"That's not even remotely funny." Kate, as usual, did not give up."You keep sighing like an ageing old lady, when you're seventeen you should go out and have fun. Drink some booze and make some bad choices"
"You sound like an anti-"anti-sex, booze and drugs" campaign. So who's your date tonight?" Allie asked trying to divert the subject away from her apparently none existent social life.
"Frankly, I don't think it was right for your father to let you run around wearing your brother's old clothes, not playing dolls with any of the girls and having your hair cut like a boy until you were nine..." When I met him, I decided to look more like a girl and grow my hair out, Allie thought.
"And I think you're unhappy, which makes me unhappy. And I don't want to be unhappy, so we're going to fix you to be more like me." Kate continued gesturing to herself.
Allie started to laugh."I don't want to be like you. Thanks but no thanks. I have a strict no heels, short skirts and anything-that goes-anywhere-near-my-eyeballs policy."
"Hey! You should be so lucky", Kate pouted then took a deep breath and continued unfazed. "You should go to Andy Risotti's party tonight! It'll be so fun I can do your hair and make up, dress you up and make you look all fuckable. Okay that's the plan. I'm going to go and cancel my date with Mike and we can..."
Allie sighed and sat down in front of the dresser in resignation. When Kate got her mind into something she was like a bloodhound on steroids. It's not that she didn't have a social life. She was part of the school track team and she attended school dances. She just didn't like the noise and the booze and the drugs that turned perfectly sane people into animals.
"So let's get started", Kate said laughing manically while holding a curling iron and her make up bag.
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The Name Game (On hold)
Romantizm"I met him when I was 9 years old. He had blonde hair and sky blue eyes. I was instantly captivated. " Allie Louis had always measured all the boys in her life by her first love whom she met 8 years ago. Convinced she had already found her one...
