What Makes You Beautiful

Chapter 1

“Eve! C’mon, I need help with this box!”

                “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said walking down the driveway of my new house. I grabbed the box my sister was struggling with and brought it inside. The house was absolutely beautiful… and big. One might say a little too big for only two people living there. But what was even more exciting about the move was that we were now living in London. Stacey and I had always dreamed of going to London, so when she finally became of age to obtain the money my parents left us (which was quite a lot since we ended up also selling some valuable family jewelry), we made the dream a reality. We spent two years hard at work to get more money to pay for the flight over and pretty much everything else besides the house. Our new dream home was located in a pretty neighborhood with many trees and other quaint and dainty homes. Life just couldn’t get any better right now. 

                “Alright, this is the last box. Now we get to pick which rooms we want!” Stacey said excitedly and started to run down the hallway and up the winding staircase to the second floor.  “I call the biggest room!” 

                I laughed to myself. For a 21 year old woman, Stacey does not act her age. She’s a child at heart and always will be. Me being four years younger I’m more of the responsible one who keeps the house clean and runs the errands while Stacey runs around the house screaming about how much she loves this one British boy band. I can’t even remember the name of it. Funny, because Stacy has actually been to one of their concerts. One of her ex-boyfriends bought her these VIP tickets for her birthday to go see the band while I was singing at a benefit that night. She came home telling me how she got to meet them backstage, but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying amidst all the squealing she was doing in between words. Boy bands aren’t really my thing so I never bothered listening to whoever this new “prodigy” was. All I ever heard for the next year was how “hot” they were and amazing they were and how she wanted to see them again and fall in love with… I can’t even remember the name of the one member she wanted to “marry.” I don’t understand why she would waste her time dreaming about a relationship that will never happen when she has so many cute guys falling at her feet, pleading for a date. Stacey went out with guys often. I, on the other hand, preferred to avoid relationships. I’ve been single for three years. My last relationship was a time I just wanted to forget about completely but it still comes back to haunt me. So much happened. So much pain. Stacey’s loud voice snapped me back into reality.  

                “Evelyn, get up here!” Stacey yelled.

                “Calm down! I’m coming up now!” I made my way up the stairs and walked down the hallway of the second floor. There were four bedrooms and one bathroom with a Jacuzzi bathtub. Sweet.

                “So  I was thinking I could take the one bedroom at the end of the hallway because it’s the biggest and you can have the one up here with the balcony. That leaves two bedrooms as guestrooms. The bathroom needs a little work on the floor tiling and I have a feeling you’re going to want to paint your room over considering the color is a puke green…”

                “Ew.” I made a face and walked into my new bedroom. It was actually really big. Stacey’s room must be a master bedroom because no regular bedroom gets bigger than this. What immediately drew my attention was the slide door leading out onto a spacious balcony. I walked out onto the concrete flooring and looked down onto the backyard. The backyard was fairly large with a patio and a large fire pit. Behind the fence ending the space of our backyard was a row of trees and then a large building. I cocked my head to the side making sense of the odd setup. Here you have a perfect suburban neighborhood and then literally right behind it is the hustle and bustle of a busy city. I walked back into my room and started to plan out where I would put everything and what color I wanted my walls. A pretty blue green color would definitely look nice with my grass green bed spread. I figured I would either hang my guitars up on the wall or find a stand for them. Stacey and I spent the next four hours moving in the furniture we had preordered and unpacking pretty much every box we had. There wasn’t much to bring with us. We took note of what needed to be fixed and materials and accessories we needed to finish up the house.