The Corruption ✔️

Chapter VII

I Hate Being Compared 
Tyler Foley

It had been two weeks and I couldn't stop thinking about Andrea. Or sledging. Or sledging with Andrea. But most of all, I couldn't stop my thoughts from trailing to the intimate moment I shared with Andrea behind the tree. I found it plaguing every waking hour and sometimes even my sleeping hours. If I didn't do something about it, I knew that I would spontaneously combust. It was the first time Andrea had actually shown even a trace of interest. Every other time I would so much as breath too close to her, she would stiffen like a slab of stone. It was a rare and precious moment I had shared with her. My thoughts moved to relive the moment that she had traced a timid finger over my bottom lip. It heated at the memory.

I curled on the armchair, watching the flames hungrily lick at the wood in the fireplace. One hand was wrapped around a hot mug of coffee, and the other was playing with the end of a cigarette. Cautiously but with the air of carelessness, I experimented with how close I could get to the burning butt of the cigarette before it got too hot. Once my finger had twitched and pressed against the scarlet stub. The sting was oddly exhilarating in my caffeine-drugged state. I took a long drag of the cigarette, relishing the bitter taste it left in my tongue- swirling with the taste of coffee. Both were vile habits that I always said I would quit but never actually did. I had been smoking for as long as I could remember. And good, hot coffee seemed to just go hand in hand with a cigarette.

I tried to stop my thoughts from trailing to Andrea. But the effort of trying not to do it just reminded me of her again. My father had been acting even more insufferable than normal. Every 'family' dinner was punctuated by sly comments about me compared to Andrea. I wanted to say that they didn't affect my opinions of Andrea. But I was a teenage boy at the end of the day, and the green-eyed monster was stirring. If there was anything I hated more than being beaten, it would've been being compared. Was he trying to provoke me? It certainly felt like it. I couldn't stop my perception of Andrea be tainted with just a sprinkle of jealousy. But a little sibling rivalry never hurt anyone. I tried not to think about the fact that I didn't think of Andrea as a sibling in the least.

I should have directed my anger at being compared towards my father, but I felt the distinctive chill of animosity-filled rivalry every time my father and Lucy looked at Andrea with hearts in their eyes. I would have denied it at the time if you'd have told me, but the obvious favouritism at home affected me more than I let on. How was it possible for my father to love this girl who he had known a month, yet had never even given me a hug in the eighteen years he had known me. It wasn't right. That wasn't how father's were supposed to work.

So it was probably this that influenced my decision in the late hours of the night.

I should so kidnap Andrea.

Okay, yes. It did sound bad phrased like that. In reality I was just planning to take her away to California. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was just an excuse to see my homeland again. Well then I would've been hitting two birds with one stone. Not only was I going to get time away from my constricting father and his accomplice, I would be getting to see Colton and Agatha. The idea planted itself firmly in the rich soil of my teenage mind. All I needed was something that would tip the scale.

And tip the scale it did.

Loud purposeful marches rang through the house. From where I was sat, I had a good view of the whole house. A flash of tawny brown hair at the top of the balcony caught my attention. I smirked wickedly, this was really going to tip the scale. I breathed out lungful after lungful of smoke and it was answered with a dramatic gasp and the footsteps hastening. Lucy emerged from the veil of cigarette smoke.