AVA

Today as a new day, started off fresh. It's my first day at home after being discharged from a two-day hospitalisation.

They said the cause of my blackout was a panic attack that had my blood pressure high, so I wonder, shouldn't that be an hour of treatment? That's what I thought.

But mom and Christian were the kinds of parents that believed survival was only in the hospitals. I mean, can you blame them? Mom is a doctor, she saves other people's lives, but when it comes to her family, she's over-cautious for our health.

On the other hand, Christain might have lost his late wife in the hospital, but he believes in my mom now.

However, the nurses had refused to let her treat me, and it was a good thing, actually. Back in London, when I was around ten years old, she once overdosed on me, trying to cure my flu.

Well, as I was saying, today is a new day. As Leigh has been motivating me the past days, I try to push back all the dark sides in my head and focus on the brightness of the sun.

I know he is so inspiring.

Through my stay at the hospital, I felt reborn. There was no brain seizure, numbness of bones and icy fingertips.
It was supposed to be all nauseating and fatigued after all those IV drips, periodic shots-I cried on most of them, pills I had to swallow a couple of times a day before everyone because no one trusted me alone with my medication. They all claimed I was going to throw it.

And they were right; I'd do if I had the chance, but with their eyes penetrating right through me, I only could cringe to the size of the pill, frown at the colour and shudder when I downed it in my throat.

Admittedly, I am not very fond of drugs, except we are talking about life or death situations.

For the third time, I willed my head to stay on point. That is on today.

I had bathe myself after a weird conversation I had with mom some minutes ago,

She had proposed after setting my requested pair of clothes from the wardrobe to the bed bench. "I would help you to the toilet."

"I think I can manage. It is not like I am diagnosed with a limited life disease."

"Ava. I am here now."

Her face thickened with worry. It seemed like my sarcasm only drilled into her aged ache.

She had been kind to me; the least I could do was offer her peace of mind.

"I know. Can I just bathe myself?" I started with understanding and waited for her to understand the last part too.

I am seventeen now; I need my own space. I am not a baby, I didn't expect her to take a couple of days' break at work, but she did. Now we are stuck at home, denying me freedom and the chance to snuggle with those my body craved to feel nearby.

"Okay, I will go down to the kitchen and prepare you some tea." She had recommended. It was a decent offer, so I smiled at her until something descended from my brain.

"Is Leigh home?" My mouth was quick to ask, as I hadn't seen him for over three hours now.

Mom had begun turning when I called her; she stopped and swirled around. Her eyes tightened into slits, and when she spoke, her voice sounded accusative.

"Yes. Uhm... I've been meaning to ask. You two are getting along these days."

It was a simple gratitude remark, she wasn't expecting any reply from me, but all of my bones stretched and tensed underneath my flesh.

My head sparked through Thinking of a lie.

"He is helping me with summer studies."

Her eyes had quickly lightened up with hope and excitement; she smiled from a distance.

"Is a good thing." She concluded.

"Mhmm."

"Alright, I will be right back with a warm cup of your preferred tea." She had chirped, and enthusiastic exited the room while I remained glued to my spot for over half of a minute.

Right now, after that bathe that took twenty minutes, I had blow dry my hair, fixed a light layer of make up and dressed up into a baggy outfit that completely opposes in my head, but I was too lazy to start going through my wardrobe.

Mom can be really fashionable-

I fled down the stairs, waved over to Marina. She was in the kitchen along with mom, who promised to be right there with my tea; at the same time, I barged into the living room, where Christian was on the couch in casual clothes, his daughter Lilith, at the other end of the sofa concentrating on the telly screen, and Leigh sprawled on the carpet on his back, his hands folded behind his head as a pillow, also focused on the telly screen.

My naughty eyes were fast to detect where his shirt uplifted, revealing his chiselled lower stomach, hell, even a hint of his pointed V-line, a thin layer of hair that disappeared where his trousers had imprisoned.

The sight was powerful enough to perk up my mood.

I was smiling at myself when Christian patted the space beside him and opened his arms.

My exhilarating mood died inside, but I maintained it on the outside and sprinted into the man's embrace, slipping my bare legs into the blanket he has over his legs too.

"What is that? Do they have to be so brutal?" I cursed under my breath when some man was violently taken down before reaching the touchdown zone on the screen.

Christian laughed, and mom settled by my other side after running her hand down my hair and handing over the tea as promised.

While I thanked her, Leigh glanced over and smirked at me. "That's not very brutal."

"You think?" I scoff at his objection as the man on the tv was now basically crying in the middle of the field.

He peeks up again, both brows raised, lips quirk up and linger his sensual green eyes on me.
"My linebackers were once crushed in a game."

"All of them?" Mom gasped and shifted forward, either intrigued or bothered. I couldn't see her expression from behind.

Now that she has her attention on my stepbrother, he seized his titillating gaze, diverting it over to her.

"All of them. It was a challenging game." He answered her with regard in his tone.

I wonder how he does it-deceiving people from his sins, unlike me, who fell ill for guilt.

Through my cognition, I heard Christain's voice asking his son,
"Who did you play against?"

"Dad, they were so strong, we couldn't hold them. We only took one of them down."

"You weren't harmed, were you?"

"No, we just failed."

"At least, you are always protected." It was mom's voice this time. She breathed deeply as though from relief and brought her hands to caress my hair from behind.

"I feel guilty. And it was mostly my fault."

That his confession cut me off the trance, and my eyes flicker over to him directly.
"Why is that?" I mumbled.

He was now looking back at me, his tongue sweeping over his lip, when in a soft voice he answered, "I wasn't very well."

Even when I wanted to cut off the eye contact, his were so intense I could feel every message in them.

Please, stop. My head kept begging my now rapidly beating heart, as we weren't alone, and I was situated in between the two people in the universe that I wanted to see me as the girl they've portrayed in their eyes.
What we were doing now could expose us if it continued for another three seconds until Lilith broke through the quiet between her brother and me and the noise coming from the telly.

She began to speak, but there was something in her thick voice I couldn't tell.
"Dad, about the clothing brand I told you, it's ready and waiting at the warehouse. I thought maybe Ava and I could launch it."

My eyes averted to her, but before I could think of what to say, my phone dings on my lap.

LEIGH: I was thinking of you.

It was hard to suppress the smile pulling on my lips while my eyes idled on the screen, that I didn't care for his blunt and brash attitude towards Lilith.
"What part of you're grounded did you not understand?"

It is unfair, I know. I shouldn't have told him, for all I did was created more hardship over the one we should be solving.

Since the day Leigh learnt about his sister's feelings for me, he hadn't spared her even a glance. And all that he threw at her was derogatory remarks, impudent mockery, or dismissed himself anywhere she appeared.

It was my fault, though; I was ruining everything around me. Now a sibling bond that was supposed to be stronger than everything is gradually crushing right in front of my very eyes.

"I am asking my father, not you." Lilith had abruptly sputtered and turned over to Christian. "Dad?"

"No, Lilith. You have to understand you are serving your punishment."

"If we don't have it open now, the holiday is soon ending. We would never get the chance; I am leaving for school."

"That would be fairer." Leigh snorts while typing on his phone.

I wish I could tell him to stop, but saying that would sound like I was on her side, and that's the last place I want to be.

So instead, I shot Lilith an apologetic smile as she was barely holding up, her voice was cracking when she begged,
"Dad? I know I am asking too much, given you all think I don't deserve it. I agree, but this is just to consolidate my bond with Ava. Isn't that what you want?"

"I would think about it." "It is not necessary." Christian and Leigh said simultaneously.

When Christian voice was negotiable, his son's sounded annoyed.

He was now pushing up on his feet, not caring about the risk of his extremely conspicuous behaviour. While every set of eyes in the room were following him, he just disappeared from the room.

"He is being a dick." Lilith furious bellowed, intending for her brother to grasp, but Leigh wasn't the kind who turns back to remarks as those. Mainly those from women.

I've seen events like this, he might stop and glance over his shoulder if it was his gender, but he hardly allowed himself to stand and offend a woman. It was why this whole current attitude of his towards Lilith is strange to me.

"You disappointed him." Said Christain in a matter of fact tone that only set ablaze to his daughter's emotions, and now she is on her foot, simmering through every pore on her body.

"Stop siding with him, he is always that perfect son in your eyes, and I am the troubled child. But you have no idea." She stormed for the exit and stopped when mom pleadingly called after her.

Her slender body rotated and confronted the three of us on the sofa. She ran her fingers through her flowing hair and exhaled a frustrated laugh, jutting her chin towards the telly screen that was showing football.

"Look, we are always forced to watch freaking football because all that this family is obsessed with is his future. He is the only one that matters." She spat accusingly with disgust on her face as it was trickling in her words.

Christian seems frustrated and pressured, he heaves a sigh next to me, and in the calmest tone he could muster, he tried to reason with his daughter, who stood all furious across the room.

"He is your brother, eldest, Lilith, and-"

Lilith cuts him off and irritably snaps, "This is ridiculous. I am going to my room."

***

That night, I was agitated on my bed, tossing and turning after getting off on an hour phone call with the boy in the room across the hall who kept talking bad about his sister after failed attempts of trying to persuade him to let the whole Lilith situation go downhill, given I have turned her down.

My existence had ultimately brought chaos. Now I can not sleep because my brain would not stop working on different thoughts.

The creaking sound of my door opening had me bury my head down and fake sleep until I felt the blanket leaving me.

And the thing is, when I said earlier I was on a length call with Leigh, his whole charm and masculinity at the end of the logical conversation we had that switched to 'I wish I can kiss you right now' conversation had me thinking of something very dirty, something Chloe, back in my boarding school used to do to herself.

For a moment, I had thought of sneaking to Leigh's bedroom, but I've heard frequent footsteps down the hall; there was no safety in my determination.

So I thought I could solve the problem of my damped night shorts myself without humping Leigh's laps, but when I took off my shorts and pantie, I couldn't bring myself to do anything. I don't know what was right or wrong and if I could hurt myself in the process and end up hospitalised once more, for that means writing a statement of how I got in the situation.

God knows that is the only embarrassment I haven't seen, and I don't ever hope to.

It was through that worries the reminder of the destruction I brought to my mom and the entire Boyce family crawled into my head. I forgot to slip back my underwear, so right now that Lilith was pulling onto it, I collected every power in me and clasped onto the comforter to spare myself the embarrassment, but Lilith was sharper. She drew the cover and exposed where I was bare from hip bone to down, and her eyes widened in shock as I quickly squeezed my legs and brought them to the most less exposed position I could fold into.

"Were you?" Her face began to twitch from a stifled smile.

I felt utterly humiliated at my situation. I didn't have an answer.

Great, now she found a reason to mock me.

"You should try toys. It would be more fun. Or you can let me help." She purrs when I barely make eye contact. I can hear the laugh behind her words while I quickly snatch back the comforter from her.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT, LILITH?" I ask through my teeth while slipping into my underwear underneath the cover.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her skull, "I won't judge you. Even Virgins needs some good release at some point."

Great.

Annoyed, I scrambled out of bed and began shoving her toward the door until she stopped me by the arms.

"Jeez, do you have to be so Rambo?" She sasses before actually asking. "Can you drive me? I don't have a car now, and you know how Uber is over here."

"I thought you were grounded?" I fired.

"Fuck it; It is not like I am naive as you. I can't pretend to be what I am not." She shrugged and pressed her hands together upwards, spurring with kitten eyes.

"Lie."

"Come on, drive me, please." She pulled me by the wrist outside my room to hers.

"Is late." It's almost one in the morning, I don't drive at this time, and mostly I can't be her victim. I remember how she and her friends wanted to frame me the other day.

"Dad and Susan are asleep. No one would know. I promise I have nothing planned against you." She added when she read my pensive frown.

Some minutes later, I found myself driving in the hills' empty streets as everyone had slept off in the neighbourhood.

Lilith had let me wear her sweater dress before we trickled down the staircase of our home and slipped into our shoes silently.

I was behind the wheels driving with Lilith by the passenger side. She was still in her nightwear but had a hoodie over the shirt. Her legs were stretched out and crossed by the ankles on my dashboard. I was battling between asking her to keep her legs down and the guilt of wrecking her car when she began, "When we first moved here, there was so much open land around this neighbourhood, Leigh and I would race onto it. We attracted the other kids, and they watched every time from a distance. But they only wanted to play with Leigh because he had been charming and outstanding like always. No one saw me; the girls rather play football than play dolls because he was always playing football. So he introduced me to them and said, she is my everything. She would probably be the one to choose my wife when we grow up. Ever since then, all the girls wanted to be my friends."

From the first sentence in her statement, I had gotten intrigued. While she spoke, I shared my attention on both the road and her.

"So that's the thing about Embry? You wanted to choose for him?"

Didn't she get the glamour of the tone? Leigh only wanted to boost her prominence in the children's eyes. Believe me, even then, he wouldn't want her interfering in his business.

"I know what is best for him. He had always made wrong decisions for himself when it comes to love." She bluntly said and leaned her head against the window.

There was an urge to defend Leigh in every cell that lives in me after what she had said because her meddling wasn't only affecting Leigh; It involves me too, in the worst possible way.

"What he did was nice, but he's grown up now. You can't expect an eighteen-year-old Princeton quarterback to depend on his sister to decide his love life."

"As I said, his choices are stupid." She snapped, possibly to antagonise me, because she was immorally clicking her tongue against the wall of her mouth when she glided her head and faced me.

For a moment, I stopped dead with the hair on my body all risen up, marvelling and fearing for the likelihood of her knowing something she shouldn't.

Her insults, claiming Leigh's choices were stupid, had hit, but it felt like a scratch compared to the terror that got me pale and had my heart palpitating.

Stop looking at me.

Her expression tells she was taking satisfaction from my shift of complexion; she took off her long legs from the dashboard and folded them on the seat when she scooched over, propping her head on her hands while her eyes probed thoroughly.

If not for the air conditioner, I'd be sweating from the tension.

"Stop here." She slams the dashboard unexpectedly, making me jump a little bit and hit the brake suddenly.

Thanks to the fastened seatbelts else, we'd be in the process of getting buried in the morning.

"What's wrong with you?" I screamed at the top of my voice when the car halted abruptly and parked by the side of a gas station.

"Is not my fault you're a bad driver. Come, let's go." She smirked, jerked her head towards the opened shop and climbed out of the vehicle.

"What are we going to do there? It's a liquor store. None of us here is illegal." I call after her as she lurches ahead, glancing back occasionally with a smug smile on her face.

"I need a drink, and I need one to deliver somewhere." She announced and raced back to me, grabbing my fingers in her while I confusedly gaped.

"I am not going to a party."

"It is not a party." She snorts and runs her other free fingers along my cheek before she gleefully urges me to "Loosen up. It's just some old friends you will want to meet."

"Lilith-" I began, but she pulled me into the dim light shop, where the man behind the cashier desk was probably dead or too drunk to notice us walking in.

My face is presumably purple from the smart lights as my stepsister's face was when I look back at her.

She was gesturing with her free hand, one finger on her lips for me to shush while she pulled my hand with the other.

My heart was thumping in my chest when she stopped us by the end of the lane and began searching through different bottles of alcohol.

Granted, I've had my parties and been involved in countless, but I have never gotten my hands this dirty. Usually, the boys sort out the liquor problems while my responsibility is to look beautiful and appear at the event.

"Your sweater has a better and deep pocket. It can take it." She decided after snatching a medium bottle from the shelf.

"What are you doing?" I withdrew when she started shoving it into my pocket.

No...

She looked up and down the quiet aisle and stepped over me.

"Watch and learn how to drink at seventeen." She smiled stubbornly and sank the bottle into my pocket.

"We are stealing now? No, I can't-I will not get involved in your madness." I angrily pulled it out and sat it back onto where it belonged.

I knew Lilith was a lot of things but thieving? Come on. We have a family Amex that never runs out of money. What else does she want?

Sternly she picked it up and threatened, "Then I will hold it up and run out through that door. That way, we both wake up behind bars."

"You are unbelievable; I thought you changed."

"Told you I am not like you." She breathed intentionally in my face. "That depends, though, if this whole thing isn't pretence." She smirked, waving her hands around me.

It was then some man decided to appear before I ripped her hair from her scalp.
"Is everything okay over there?"

His appearance interrupted the challenging glare I was trading with my step-sister, and she succeeded in slipping the bottle into my pocket and grabbing some more from the shelf in her other hand, waving it over to the man.

"Yes, we are about to check out." She smirked at him and backed off of me.

"You are crazy, you know?" I whispered under my breath, and she stupidly pinned it on adults for making the rules strict.

"How much is it?" Lilith asked when we were at the cashier desk.

"Your ID please?" The man required.

"Why?"

"To confirm your age."

Lilith scoffed and set down the Amex card on the desk.
"Since when does our age makes us prisoners in a free country? But in case you can't tell, I just clocked twenty-two a few months ago. This badass young face had a story behind vitamins and good genetics."

The man didn't look impressed with her lies. He still demanded, "ID, please."

"Is not with me, told you I don't walk with my age around. Didn't your mama tell you it is disrespectful to ask a woman her age?"

Shoot!

My jaw fell open at her profanity while the man stood unbudgeable but formed a frantic frown into his features.

May God save us.

"I am so sorry." I apologetically pleaded with the man wearing a grim expression. "We would not buy it. We would just leave." I told and tugged on Lilith's hand towards the door.

"You better, or I will call the cops." The man warned before Lilith flipped her middle finger and hollered as we exited, "Dick, I was thinking of tipping you."

"Stop it. You got what you want."

"No, I didn't. You rejected me remember? So I heard you prefer dicks." She shoved me back when we were outside. I stumbled and almost fell while she ran across the road.

"Stop it, Lilith."

"Just kidding." She swirled on the middle of the empty road, laughing. "Don't take offence."

"We are going home now?" I asked when we were both in the car.

"Drive to falling waters."

"I am not going to Quinn's."

"It's not Quinn's. It's quick delivery." She convinced and peeled the lid of the stolen liquor, taking a long swig of the contents in the bottle before she held it over.

I scoff and beckon at the road, "I am driving. And I thought that's the package we are delivering."

She's drinking from it and grumbling for me to suit myself.

"Not everyone is calculative like you are." She rolled her eyes and threw her legs over the dashboard as earlier.

At falling waters, I pulled by an average house you can call a mansion that wasn't Quinn's. There
are a couple of cars parked on the driveway, but the place seems too quiet for an active party. So I assumed my sister for once told the truth.

When we stepped out of the car, Lilith led me through the backyard, where there was a large pool, a resting area and even a jacuzzi, causing the motion sensor lights to turn on themselves at our intrusion.

I wonder how much trouble we have to get in tonight.

The patio door slid open while I was scolding Lilith for entangling me in this trespassing that was about to get us in trouble.

I panicked, my heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I did the dumbest thing a thief would.

I jump into the pool and hold my breath underneath the water, hoping to stay in there with a racing heart, unnoticed unless my snitch stepsister decides to rat me out.

And she did because a figure jumped right into the pool, and I began to lose air as I reached the greatest level of fear.

My eyes were squeezed tight while my body was pulled up above the water as I gasped for oxygen.

And so I am caught red-handed.

"I didn't mean-" I started when my body hit the cope, but as my eyes slowly opened, I gasped at the person I found smiling down at me.

"Arlen?"

"Ava." He chuckled deeply.

Holy. . . freaking. . . moly.