“Thomas?” I half-whispered, half-yelled in disbelief.Watching me as I came out of the front door and stepped on the porch, he moved away from the shadows under the tree and his eyes inspected me from head to toe.“You are not wearing any shoes. Is that normal for you when you are at home?” he asked instead of a greeting.“What? No, I just… today… Never mind. What are you doing here?” I stuttered, but then went straight to the point.We were talking in a low voice, slowly approaching each other until we met in the middle of the lawn. Cold, salty, fall breeze was playing with my hair and a few blonde strands on his forehead, reminding me of the ocean nearby. A chill ran through my body and I wrapped my arms around me. Some leaves were rolling on the always perfectly-cut green grass, touching the skin on my feet while passing me by.“I thought you might need someone to talk to about this shit today.” He said truthfully.“You came to my place at this hour because you thought I needed som

It was two PM on Saturday, the party day. Linda had hired people to take care of the decorations, and was doing most stuff that needed only a mobile. She was confirming orders, sending invitations, and pointing her fingers to her ‘slaves’ to make sure things would be according to her taste, which was strange because the theme of the party wasn’t her specialty at all.Steven decided we should have a themed party Group game. We had no other choice, but to eventually agree, because he did not say ‘yes’ to any of our ideas. I laughed a few times while seeing Tina and Steven arguing on things like, “what games will there be?”, “or should we dress up as game characters?”. This wasn’t my step-sister’s scene at all, and Steven had no idea how to organize a party.Luckily, I had only one task--to take care of the food. Part of me was wondering if they thought they couldn’t trust me with anything, or if they had decided preparation of food and drinks were enough to take my whole time. Whatever i

Thomas came to stand next to me, and I instantly felt better.“She has her taste, you have yours. Did she break your player because she preferred other songs? No! Those brainless fucks did it!” my defender challenged.I swallowed, glancing from Thomas to Steven, wondering if another fight was going to take place here. A fight over my choice of music? Again? A situation resembling the gas station problem.“Anyway, we are not listening to this. Do you have a better idea?” My step-brother asked, annoyed, coming closer to Thomas with a macho walk.“I do! Let’s give everybody a choice to play their favorite song… by themselves. Let’s do karaoke, guys!” The famous boy yelled, cheers and whistles following. “I have all we need in my car.”“Karaoke?! This is not okay with our game theme.” Steven argued.“It’s a great idea!” Tina finally got involved. “Plus, we don’t have other options and our guests seem to love this.”“Do as you wish! This party was a bad idea from the start,” the boy-twin

In the next few days, I was happy to work on the painting project instead of going to places with other people. Even if I was just sketching something, it was like a therapy. I needed to calm down from all recent events and just be myself.It was nice to know Thomas was near, in the same school or even in some of my classes. We casually talked a few times about music and school. Linda was missing the first half of the week, healing from the nasty flu.Tina was very happy to use me as her doll, dressing me up every morning. We went shopping again and bought a ton of clothes. She finally got the chance to change my hair, including a new long haircut, and… she dyed it red with some shampoo. Well, the woman in the beauty salon did it, but Tina made the decision. The good news was, it was going to wash away in a few days. She was excited for the weekend, and I wondered how the hell I was supposed to ask Emma--Steven’s girlfriend if she was interested in girls.It was the last day of school

Thomas took a few steps away from the lake and plopped down under an old tree, his mind concentrated on a distant memory. I followed him and sat down near him, crossing my legs under me on the dirt ground."I went to watch ice hockey with my band. We were in a happy place, you know. Our song was played multiple times on the radio, and we had an amazing few days. So, we just went to celebrate with a game. It was something none of us ever did. We thought it might inspire us to write a new hit." Thomas smiled bitterly looking at his feet. "We were so wrong. It turned into a disaster.""What happened?" I questioned, dipping into his story."We were drinking. Mostly beer, but Adam--the guy who used to be in our band, he had family troubles that day, so he brought a whiskey his father was keeping for a special occasion. We watched the game, while he was getting drunk. Our team lost. We hung around at the exit of the building and one of the guys who played was just going to his car after chan