Three Brothers (Completed)

What's Normal

Chapter 1

What's Normal

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"Just stop it!”

Lily’s shrill voice echoed over our argument, it halted our shoving match and our threatening to throw punches. We all froze and turned to her. Her face was a bright red, her blue eyes were storm clouds of anger. It was a face we all knew and I had seen it many times before. It was the face she made just before she started yelling.

I exchanged glances with my two brothers before we turned to face her. We weren’t sure what was going to happen, the look on her face isn’t promising. The party stilled to watch us; there wasn’t a single tinkle of crystal glass, nor was there a whisper. A pin could have dropped and would have been heard by all.

“I’ve been here less than an hour and it’s already gone back to the way it used to be!” she shouted. She waved her arms around like she did when she was very upset. “Why do you always do this?”

We didn’t say anything. I stared at her shoes. A pair of glittery black pumps higher then she usually wore. They matched her dress, and I kind of liked them on her. She wore a simple black dress covered in sparkles—shiny things were her vice—that she had dressed up with a fancy belt and a few well-placed accessories. I had always thought Lily was attractive, but she had really outdone herself tonight.

It was Sean that responded to her first. “I’m sorry Lily, we didn’t mean to take it that far.” Sean was my eldest brother, eight years older than me and a good head taller; he was considered the brains of the family. He graduated early with honors, his sandy blonde hair was shared between us three brothers but his eyes were a sparkling brown.

Lily wasn’t happy with this. A lock of her black raven hair had fallen out of her ponytail. “You always say this. You always say it’s a mistake, like it’s some big accident. It’s been five years since I left and you’d think you would have let me go by now.”

We hung our heads with shame and I hadn’t said a word to her yet. She was right, you’d think after five years we would have figured out which one of us would get her, but instead of talking about it we argued over whose fault it was for her leaving.

James tried to lessen her rage next, “Come on Lil, it’s not that bad. Besides it’s all your fault!”

“You think this is my fault?” Lily screamed.

“Well, yeah Lily! We’ve spent eight years fighting over you!” James cried. James wasn’t known for his sensitivity. Being the middle child of three boys he often got ganged up on, then again so did I and I didn’t turn out nearly as messed up. He got the looks, and when I say looks I mean women were clamouring to get him...all of the time. The same sandy blonde hair and mischievous green eyes. That was my second oldest brother, just one and a half inches shorter than me and four years older.

“I know this!” Lily screamed. “It’s been eight years of arguing over which one of you loves me more! Have you ever asked me who I loved?”

At this our jaws dropped, my eyes found hers and I saw the sudden fear in those vivid blue eyes, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Who do you love Lily? Which one of us is it?”

She stared at us. The three Soran brothers. The three men who had always loved her, who had valiantly fought for her for eight long years. I waited on baited breath, I waited to hear which one of us she’d finally be with.

At this point I should probably introduce myself. I’m Royce Soran, the youngest of the Soran brothers. I look almost exactly like my brothers except my face is rounder, my hair is shorter and but unlike my brother my eyes are blue. The other big difference was that I had been in love with Lily for eight years. James had loved her for seven and Sean for five. Lily had been good friends with us at one point, well two of us, I don’t know what she was to Sean. She had been a permanent fixture in our lives, she had just always been around, but our constant bickering over her had driven her away and we hadn’t seen her for five years now.

I should probably warn you, this story doesn’t have a happy ending folks. This story is how love came into our lives, and how we chased it away.