Little Bird // Thomas Sangster

| Prologue |

Emerald

I remember the day I moved to London crystal clearly. My dad had gotten transferred from the branch of his workplace in my hometown to the one here, and everyone in my family (made up of my mum, dad, sister, three brothers, and me) was excited for the move.

I remember the moment we showed up, my brothers raced each other inside and claimed rooms (side story: the youngest of what I like to call the Troublemaking Triplets, Lukas, chose the one with the biggest bed, which was supposed to be my parents' room. He refused to leave since at that point the only one left was the smallest, and he stayed there for like a week, until my parents bribed him out by offering to put the TV in his room).

I remember my sister skipping down the street to meet the neighbors, her hair done into a neat braid instead of cascading over her shoulders like she lets it now.

I remember her knocking on the door of the house next to ours.

I remember a lady opening it.

I remember her giving my sister a big, welcoming smile that she gladly returned.

I remember a girl her age appearing in the doorway that is later introduced to me as Ava behind the lady that is later introduced to me as Tasha.

And I remember seeing him, with his blonde hair messy and seeming to give his chocolate brown eyes a certain fullness.

At that point I looked away, my mind drowning in an endless ocean of thoughts and instead, as it does, focusing on the least important thing in the universe: the shutters on my new home's windows. Three of the larger of the five windows are lined up to this day, with the one in the middle's shutters folded in on it as if it were hiding from the two on either of it's sides.

I could hear my sister socializing with them, but I was way too interested in the shutters and I think that was the first time he found me strange.

That was not the worst thing ever, though. Later on he did things like stealing my diary and posting every word of it on my old school's website, "accidentally" knocking my phone out of my hand and into the running water fountain, cheating off of my test and telling the teacher I cheated off him, etc...and I'm not weak, so naturally I fought back.

I did things like (with the help of Ava) pouring white ink on his pillow and dying his hair for a week, throwing a basketball at him at recess and hitting him hard in the gut, and stealing his cinematic applications and defacing them.

I hate him. I hate him so much. And I'm glad he's in a different country filming whatever.

Things will never be different between us. Ever.