"Your partner in crime, Lilo will be coming through too. Let's watch her start a strop", she rolled her eyes.
I laughed, "Of course, typical aunt Lilo. Does Eiffel know yet?"
"Uhmmm no. We'll be doing that during dinner." She stood and left my room.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and shot a text to Kris, telling her to come over for dinner. I texted my Sugar Daddy a.k.a Dad, he's totally sugar daddy material. Hot and Rich.
Texas: What is this I hear about someone moving and shaking my academic world?
Immediately a bubble popped up, looks like he is not busy.
Sugar Daddy 🤤 : What can I do luv? I'm one of the movers and shakers of the world. I take it your mum told you?
Texas: Yes she did. I'm happy for her
Sugar Daddy 🤤: I am too, she deserves it and I'm happy to have you both to myself 😁
Texas: Lmao...same here.
Sugar Daddy 🤤: Give Eiffel a kiss for me. I gotta go baby.
Texas: Okay. Later.
I dropped my phone on my chest and sighed. I stood up and walked to my desk. I picked up a blue marker and marked the next Monday on my calendar, that's when we'll be leaving. I looked around my room, fuck it's been 14 years in this room. I've grown emotionally and mentally attached to it, this room has seen my tears, my mental breakdowns, my fears and anxieties, my everything.
Well, I think an introduction is now due. Chloe Greene and Shane Hall are my parents and they are not together anymore. After knowing each other for 5 years and being so head over heels for each other for 7 years in their marriage, they decided that love was no longer enough to hold it down. They got a divorce when I was 6, as they were married a year before I came through. Throughout being a kid, they never had fights or arguments in my presence, no screaming fest, no silent treatment, they were the ideal couple, even their meeting was ideal. Dad grew up in Texas, Mum came on a family vacation. The typical Boy meet Girl, Boy fell for Girl, Girl fell for Boy, it became a matter of who would tell who first. After their Texas friendship was formed, they kept in touch. Dad's mother, my paternal grandmother passed away due to cancer, throughout the stress of grandma's illness, they lost communication. Dad got sent to Birmingham to live with his Aunty, they met again because Mum lived in Birmingham then. This time, dated each other through college and got married immediately after college because they couldn't wait. To shock everyone, they went their separate ways after 7 years. According to Mother, there are some people who you can't be more than friends with regardless of how much you love each other and for my mother, that's Shane Hall. Sometimes, they see each other and you can see how much they love and care for one another but looks like marriage is not meant to be in their cards.
Okay, I know you are wondering who Eiffel's father is. To burst your medullas, we have the same father. After their divorce, Mum landed a job in Manchester so she decided to move us both to Manchester. 14 years later, Mum was on a project out in Paris and Dad was on a business trip to Paris. They bumped into each other, due to the lingering sexual tension and physical attraction, one thing led to another after drinks, my little Eiffel was made. You'd think that'll bring them back together but No, they still decided to stay apart. We spend our holidays with Dad, so we are always in touch either in person or video calls and text messages.
Aunt Lilo, that's my mother's best friend out here. They are as thick as thieves and she's secretly still rooting for the #Shaloe ship. They've been friends since high school and still friends. She's an interior decorator, who gets taken across the globe for jobs and all. She's an African American and she has all the sauce and sass that comes with being Black. I dead love her, she's like my second mother. She grew up in Birmingham, so imagine a badass Black woman with a Brummie accent. She has a man who we all like but according to her "We ain't gon' last, I'm just there for the dick", her words not mine. Aunt Lilo is fun to be with and I personally love her.
Eiffel Hall, my little sister. Energetic as fuck and lovely too. She has me wrapped around her pinky finger without even knowing it, she can get me to do whatever just by giving me that puppy dog eyes we both inherited from our mother. Naturally curly brown hair, hazel eyes we both got from Dad, light freckles dusted her cheekbones. She's a bundle of joy and liveliness.
My personal favorite, Kristen Moore. My very bubbly friend, you know the kind of person that can make you see your bad situation different without doing anything but just smiling, yeah that's who Kris is. We met in high school and since then we've been glued together. Kris is a positive person, nothing negative the world gives her can tear down her positive vibes, it's just crazy how she keeps up that front. Her father died when she was 6 and she lost her brother recently to an overdose but despite all that, Kris is still the positive person I've always known. She's also creative, Kris is a phenomenal and amazing dancer. With her beach blonde hair, icy blue eyes, plump pink lips, average height, she looks like a typical dancer. Let's not forget, Kris is dead emotional, she cries literally after watching every romantic movie on Netflix. Whenever we are seeing a movie, I keep a box of Kleenex right beside me because of my teary eyed best friend. She has a boyfriend, Sean, we've both been friends since high school. I've been a mediator between them because they both liked each other and were too scared to face it, using my parents' story as a reference point, Kris was scared they were going to grow out of each other and then she'd lose him as a friend. After every persuasion, they are 2 years old now.
Meet me, Texas Hall. Yunno save the best for the last yeah. Weird name right? My Dad named me Texas because he and mum met in Texas and because I'm the fruit of his loins. I'm not the only one with a weird name, Eiffel was named Eiffel because on their one night stand, Dad fulfilled his "Wine on Eiffel tower" promise to Mother. I am the typical Latino American but I can't speak Spanish to save my life (someone somewhere in my family tree was a Latino), moderately tall, full breasts, wide hips, not too wide but enough to be noticed, perky ass, most of my features are from my mother but my freckles are from Dad, naturally curly brown hair of a medium length (Eiffel and I got that from our Mom) but I threw in a mix of blonde highlights in there, hazel eyes with a swirl of gold in there, I dunno whose eyes those are because it's not Dad's or Mum's, I'm 20, I live in Manchester, United Kingdom. I have the perfect Mancunian accent, lived 14 years in Manchester to have an accent. I just finished my freshman year at University of Manchester as an Arts Major. I'm an artist, I draw, I paint, according to family pedigree, I took after my paternal great grandfather, heard he was quite the artist.
I don't have a boyfriend, I broke up with my ex-boyfriend after high school grad. He was going off to UCLA and I was staying in Manchester, I didn't see a point in a long distance relationship and I don't feel like I dead loved him that much to want to stick it out, I just felt like I wasn't there yet. Judging from my parents' issue, I have not written out love and romance in my life but I feel like I'd know when I'm there. I'm a tattoo and piercing person, I have a belly button piercing, nose piercing and a tongue piercing. I have a dreamcatcher tattoo on my back and bird tattoo on my wrist, I did that one myself. My dream, save being a renowned artist is to own a tattoo parlor.
I picked up my phone and walked to my window. I took a picture of the night street and posted it in on my Insta with the caption "NYC in a week, can't believe I'm leaving this behind". I got a few likes within seconds, my page was not all that, just few pictures of myself and most of my paintings. I heard a buzz from my desk, it was text message from Courtney, my cousin.
Court: You coming to NYC? 😁
Texas: Yeah. Ma just told me.
Court: When? When?
Texas: After the summer I guess. In a week or thereabout
Court: OMGGGG!! I cannot wait. I'm gonna tell my friends like right now. I'm so fucking excited.
Texas: Lmao. Of course I can feel you buzzin'.
Court: Say Hi to Aunty Chloe and Eiffel yeah?"
Texas: Yes mami.
My door opened abruptly and I just knew it was that brat. I turned to her with a full intended glare but I couldn't help but laugh. "What is this Effie?", I laughed loud. Her curly hair was in tangles and filled with pins and clips in the wrong directions. "What were you trying to do?"
She sighed dramatically, "I wanted to braid my hair, it was not working so I decided to clip it and it turnt worse." Okay Aunt Lilo was rubbing off on her. "Can you help me with it before we eat?", she asked in her cute Mancunian accent.
"Mum told you to come get me, no?", I raised a brow.
"Yes but I know you'd be fast with it. Pretty please?"
"Fineee. Sit your ass down."
"Bad word", she placed her hands on her waist.
I stood up and stretched, "Looks like Mum would be expecting us to come down", I said while putting my socked feet in my slides.
She held my arm, "Okay okay, perfectly good word. Help"
"Thought so", I mumbled. Taking out the pins and clips took a while and I braided her hair into a fishtail braid. "There you go", I tapped her shoulder.
"Thank you thank you, my favorite sister", she kissed me all over my face.
"I'm your only sister", I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Ermmm no. Krissie begs to differ. Come down, come down. Aunt Lilo is here!", she exclaimed and ran out of my room.
I shook my head and smiled fondly at her antics. I grabbed my phone and went downstairs.
"Texxx!!", Aunt Lilo screeched and pulled me into her arms. "Oh my God I'm just gon' miss your beautiful face around here", she whispered in my ear and hugged me again.
"Lilo, let her go and let's eat", Mother said from the counter. She looked at me, "Where's Kris?"
"She's on her way, I gue----" I was about to say when the front door opened, followed by a shout.
"Hello familyyy!! Texxieeee!! Effiee!! Aunt Chlo!! Where are you?", she sang. She walked and entered the kitchen and blushed since we were all looking at her. Her blonde hair was in a bun and her voice sounded scratchy. "Oh. Hi family", she said sheepishly.
"Allright luv. Sit, you came at the right time. Let's eat", Mother smiled at her.
She sat in between Eiffel and I, she squeezed us both in a hug.
"Hey. Are you okay?", I whispered softly.
She scrunched up her face and mouthed "Later."
"Lilo, do you mind taking the grace?", Mum gave her a smug smile mainly because Aunt Lilo always fucked up the grace with either a cuss word or sass.
We all held our breath as she started, "I wanna thank God for my little family right here, for how much He has blessed us, our jobs, our schools. I bless Him for providing for our needs here and there. I thank Him that despite the fact that my #Shaloe ship is sinking at the moment, He'll lift it up. I thank Him again for giving me the insight that it's time to move on from Kevin and get some new dick. Amen"
When I heard her boyfriend's name I knew dick was coming after so I placed my palm over Eiffel's ears. We all chorused out choked up Amens. We ate our food over light conversation that carried everyone of us along, we talked about Mother's work, we talked about Aunt Lilo's bitchy boss, we talked about Eiffel's summer camp that she just concluded, we talked about Kris' imminent dance competition and my paintings.
"Baby, I haven't seen much of your paintings on the Gram. What's wrong, Painter's block?", Aunt Lilo asked.
I've been having some issues with my creative side for a while now, I haven't been able to draw and it's making me throw a mental strop but I'm used to these things, they come and go when they feel like. I just need to find a new source of inspiration. Maybe NYC will do me good on the creative aspect. "I've been a little slow in that aspect, I can't even bring out stick figures", I grumbled.
"Anything we can help with baby?" Mum asked with concern.
"No I'm good, it'll pass", I gave her a smile.
We finished our food and Kris cleared the table. "Kris baby get the wine and let's make a toast", Aunt Lilo said excitedly.
"Wait, am I taking wine too?", Eiffel asked hopefully.
"Oh while at it, grab orange juice for Eiffel", Mum smiled sweetly at her. Eiffel just rolled her eyes at Mum's antics. Aunt Lilo popped the champagne and poured into our flutes, while I served Eiffel her juice.
"Toast, everyone!!", Aunt Lilo exclaimed. "To greener pastures", she said and we all clinked our glasses.
"Okay guys I have news", Mum said while looking at each of us. "Dearies, I got promoted to the position of Project Manager at work yesterday."
"Yayyyy!!", Eiffel and Kris squealed.
"Oh my God, I'm so happy for you. Congratulations Aunt Chlo", Kris gushed.
"Congratulations Ma", Eiffel stood and pecked her.
"There's more", everywhere went silent. "I'll be out in Mexico for a long time and Texas and Eiffel are going to New York to be with their dad", she said in one breath.
Eiffel said, "Coolll, we are staying with Dad" just the same time Kris said, "What?? You all are leaving? Why?"
"Kris honey, this is not just a month long project, it's going to take a lot of time to kick-start it and all of the shebang. I need both of them in good hands"
"When do they leave?", Kris asked shakily.
"In a week. You both have a week remaining of the summer to spend all your time together. Cool?", Mum raised a brow.
"Cool Ma and that time starts now. Kris come on", I dragged her away from the dining area. We got to my room and she sat on my bed very quiet, very quiet that it was scary. "Kris? What's going on?" She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and for the only person who looks at life from a positive lens to be in tears, I knew something was very wrong. I knelt to look at her, "Hey Kris I promise I was going to tell you after Mum did but she said she'd break it to everyone over dinner. I'm never going to forget you, you know that right? Regardless of the distance, you are the yin to my....."
"Sean is cheating on me", she whispered softly.
I was stunned, her words shook me to the core, "What now? Wait, how did you find that out? How did you know?" I stood and sat beside her.
"A message popped up on his phone and it said 'I had fun the other night, wanna do it again?" and then he replied "I'll let you know when I come into town", she said then burst into tears.
I wrapped my arms around, "Hey hey, Shhhh. It's okay. When did he leave Manchester?"
"He went on a family vacation 3 weeks ago, he got back yesterday and he came to say Hi to the 'rents (her foster parents). He left his phone on my bed to get beer when the message came in. He replied when he got back, excused himself to go to the bathroom then I read his reply."
"Did you ask him about it, I mean it could just be another vacationer. They went to Hawaii right?" I wouldn't put it past Sean's parents to go waste some money in Hawaii, they were dead loaded and social too. Sean's parents could have thrown a party for all the youngies, that's also one thing I can't put past them because throughout high school, I can count on my two palms how many parties were thrown in the Wrights' residence, courtesy of his parents.
"The message had a cucumber emoji, Texxie", she gave me a deadpan look.
"Shit, that's a plot twist I never saw coming", I mumbled. "I still think you should confront him about it. I mean, we both know how long it took you both to own up to your feelings and I know how long it took him to get you. I don't think he'd fuck that up because of owt", I reasoned.
"If it's the girl from the pictures on his Gram then maybe he really did fuck things up for a piece of ass because I'd gladly turn gay for her just the same way I'd turn gay for you. In other words, she's hot as fuck", she said angrily.
"Hey. I still think you should ask him."
"Even if I broke up with him, there'll be no you to replace him because you'd be in New York", she sniffled.
"Hey, why would I forget my first love now?", I gave her a goofy grin and she grinned right back.
She wrapped her arms around me, "I'm gonna miss you T"
"You still have me to yourself for a week", I smiled. "So how about we get ice cream, snacks and watch movies till we knock ourselves out?"
"Let's do it", she grinned and removed her sneakers. She got settled on my bed and picked up the remote.
"Pick a movie, I'll be back". I walked to the kitchen, Mum and Aunt Lilo were not in sight. I gathered the ice cream tubes, popcorn packs and gummy bears as I turned to leave, there was Eiffel standing there looking like she had been crying. "Oh Jesus, you scared me", she just kept on looking at me. "Are you okay Eiffel?"
"Can I sleep in your room tonight?", she asked with a small voice.
"Of course. Come on and help me with the gummy bears". We both walked to my room to see Kris settled on some movies to watch.
There we were, just us girls, three of us, chewing popcorn, licking spoons, chumming on gummy bears while being focused on the TV. I dunno who passed out first but all I knew was Eiffel stayed glued to Kris throughout the movie or rather before she passed out. I checked my phone, it was 3:45am. When I looked to the side, I saw Eiffel and Kris tangled up in each other, good luck to them trying to untangle that when they wake up. I switched off the TV and mulled over everything that has happened and in a strange way, I was looking forward to NYC, which was very strange because I hate moving and changing an habit. For me I like stability and moving to New York is uprooting my stability but for once, I'm welcoming it.