Friend and Foe

Chapter 1: The Move

Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,

Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.

                          -Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 214.

*Chapter 1*

(Taylor’s POV)

When I was a kid, my older brother and I used to stalk the boys who are passing by our house. We will either make fun of them (like turning on our sprinklers) or will scare them with our K9 dog, Lester. Some of our neighbours will tell my parents the silly things that we are doing (which we marked to be the “Scary Pants Boys”) or some will get nervous whenever they’ll talk with our parents because they know that we can do something bad to them (which are the “Kool-Aid Boys”; they show themselves as the cool kind of boy but turns out, they’re scared inside). We will do that every day and the worst is yet to come during summers. Though he is sixteen years older than me, my brother and I got to hang out together. It’s our life.

Until one boy caught my attention.

It was the first day of June and I was so excited to wake up my brother to start out our daily hunt for the “Scary Pants Boys” and the “Kool-Aid Boys”. As long as my brother and I stay on that window, no boy is actually going to escape the “Taylor and Mikhail Lindsey Show”. But that day, my brother doesn’t want to hunt. I saw him in his room, all dressed up. He was wearing white long sleeves and straight-cut black slacks with his messy golden strawberry blonde hair transformed into a Napoleon-like hair. My brother is pretty handsome and with his 6’1” glory, Mikhail Anderson Sullivan Lindsey is an absolute hottie.

He laughed when he realized I was staring at him wide-eyed and said, “You better stop staring at me. It makes you look like a weird ten-year-old who’s totally envying her older brother. Come here inside.” And so I did. I literally threw myself to him and hugged my brother tight.

“Hey, kiddo. That’s too tight, I guess.”

“Sorry. I just can’t contain myself to not hug you that tight. You definitely look like Dad in that suit. But of course you are better and cuter,” I said as I sit on his lap.

“Really? Or are you just saying that so I can buy you that doll you saw at Wal-Mart?” He asked with a grin.

“Both. By the way, where are you going?” I asked.

“Well, that’s a top secret. And you can’t bribe me this time, Taylor.”

“Why, are you going to meet a girl? Then you should bring flowers.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do right now! So if you don’t mind, I need to go now,” Mikhail said and then kissed my forehead and added “Love you, Tay.”

Mikhail went downstairs and started for the garage. I was left in his room filled with dozens of musical posters and pictures. Staring at the wall, I thought to myself, What is Mikhail’s top secret? His wall is like a gallery of himself, only there are lots of pictures from my birth up to the present. I helped him posting some of the pictures on his wall and so I decided to do the same too in my room. Mikhail’s room is painted with white and black for which he told me the “representation of my personality” but mine’s different. Since I was born, Mom told me that my room has a flower and butterfly wallpapers and so they decided for my seventh birthday to let me design my room the way I wanted it. I had a hard time choosing the right one but then when I saw my brother’s room, I told to myself that I want to redesign my room based on my personality also. That’s why Mikhail and I chose white, pink and black. Turns out, it was a total shocker for my parents.