Project Equality

Vacation (1 of 7)

May

"Marcos, we are out of soy milk!" I called across the tiny apartment. Sometimes, I was louder than I needed to be. My brother's place was much smaller than my father's mansion, of course, and I had not grown used to not needing to shout.

"Mayella, why do you even drink that?" he sighed, walking into the kitchen. "I'll get some on my way back from work."

"I do it for Lisa," I reminded him. Lisa, my girlfriend of ten months, was a vegan, and she wanted me to adopt some of her diet choices. I was not willing to give up everything, but some things were an okay trade.

"What don't you do for her?" he teased. "I'll be home later tonight, okay? You can take care of yourself?"

"Marcos, I am not a little girl anymore. I can drive, I have a part time job, and I testified in my mother's murder trial against my father. I can take care of myself."

He smiled and rolled his eyes, leaving the apartment. He did not have to worry too much about me, though, because I was taking the car to go to my best friend Viktor's graduation party that afternoon.

Viktor and I had met at a funeral for the two girls, Rosemary and Juliet, who committed suicide after a serial killer threatened their lives for almost four months - this serial killer being my father. He started talking to me, though I did not want him to, but when everything began to get serious and complicated, he was the only person I found myself able to turn to. After a couple of months of friendship, he became my moirail, which is a platonic soulmate who either is the even temper to keep you balanced, or the hot temper you keep balanced. He was the even temper for me.

By that point in early June, we had known each other for roughly a year, and he was still my best friend in the entire world. The thing that sucked was that he was two and a half years older than me, meaning that while he was graduating and going away to college, I was only just about to enter my junior year of high school. Perhaps the worst of it was that he was going to California for college, while I lived in Michigan. That is over two thousand miles, and if you did not notice, that is pretty damn far.

I looked at my phone to see a text from him.

"Hey, May, you're coming today, right? -V"

"Of course I am. -M. Cane"

I grabbed his card which held the last one hundred dollar bill that I had from my time as a rich man's brat, and walked out the door.

The party did not start until three, so I knew that I was going to be early. Furthermore, no one was going to start arriving until some time after three, which would make for an interesting half hour or so. I did not care, though. If there was anything that my friend Jenna had ingrained into me and the rest of our friend group, it was that punctuality means early, and to be on time is the same as tardy. Granted, she had OCD and was a perfectionist who got to school an hour early, but in some instances, her policy of earliness was not so bad.

I could not complain about potential quality time with my moirail, after all.

Arriving at his home, I looked for any sort of sign telling me where to go. Should I knock? Should I go around to the back? Oh, there is an actual sign saying to go around to the back. Fancy that.

"Viktor, your first guest is here!" called an unfamiliar voice. "Which is weird, because the party doesn't even start for another twenty minutes."

"Jen?" Viktor asked, poking his head around. "Oh, May!"

"I am here before Jenna?"

"It would seem so," he laughed. "This is my brother, Alex. I've mentioned him before, right?"