Holding Onto You

 

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ch. one

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ONE | SIERRA



EVER SINCE I was a child, I had been told that home wasn't a place. That it was the people who surrounded me, the ones who were there for me, and would be there for me forever and always. 


The day of my fourteenth birthday, there was no such thing as 'home' anymore. 


Not when your mother walks out on your family for a rich man, and your father buys a ticket to a far away land and whisks you away to protect your family's status on the social hierarchy.


One day I had everything; loving parents, a best friend I would do anything for, and the captain of Oakdale High's varsity dance team. 


I had a home. 


Now, after four very long years spent as an unsociable loner I'm back,  my long-lost ex-best friend is glares at me with his very muscular arms crossed over his chest, as his olive green eyes narrow at the sight of me. 


I wave at him awkwardly even though I definitely had gotten the hint that he wanted nothing to do with me. 


"Sisi!" Mrs. McMillan exclaims, her bright red lips in a huge smile. "You've grown so much, how are you sweetheart?"


Why after four years would I suddenly come back to this town? A town now full of so many people who I didn't know? My father was the answer to that question. After we had been struggling for so long, living in a two-room apartment which probably hadn't been remodeled since the building was first built, which was in the 1960's, and with a drinking addiction, he finally decided to clean up his act after he was offered a job back here in Oakdale. And thank god for that. If it wasn't for that job offer, we would have had to start living on the streets. And since we obviously wouldn't be able to find a home in a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months, the McMillan's, who had been friends with my parents forever kindly agreed to let us stay with them until we had enough money to rent a house long term.


Snapping out of my reverie, I broke out into a grin, facing Mrs. McMillan. "I'm great! How about you, Mrs. McMillan?"


"Sierra, please call me Amelia. You're making me feel old." I laughed at her statement. Mrs. McMillan was in her late-thirties, but even then, she wasn't the type of person who made it easy to guess her age. Some might even suspect she was in her late twenties. She was beautiful, and wore her raven hair long, voluminous, and knew exactly how to make heavy makeup look natural. 


"And call me John!" Mr. McMillan added, before he walked away with my dad.


"Miles!" Amelia said, calling over her son who was doing the whole, loner-bad boy-brooding thing over in a dark corner in the living room. I inhaled sharply as he made his way toward us. 


"Yeah, Mom?" He asked her, his eyes wavering over me with his expression completely neutral as if I was invisible, and then faced his mother. 


"Why the attitude? You and SiSi used to be best buddies remember? Now show her to her room, and be a gentleman." She raised her eyebrows, giving him a knowing look, then shoo'd the two of us away. "Don't forget to take her bags up!" 


"You only have one suitcase? Figures." He spat, and picked it up, turning away from me and starting walking up the stairs.


My mouth opened to retort, but since he already turned away, and since I still couldn't come up with a comeback. I followed him in annoyance.


What the hell made him so pissed at me in the first place?



--




After a couple hellish hours had gone by, a realization hit me like a damn truck. Nothing whatsoever in my life had changed, I was still an antisocial awkward teenage girl, and although my father's life had changed for the better, I suddenly had an ex-friend ready to murder me in cold blood. 


Sighing, I placed my feet onto the coffee table after settling down onto the couch, and reach for the TV remote which disappears into thin air before I can even grasp it.


"What is your problem?!" I cry out. "I was about to use that!"


Miles scoffed. "You come into my house, make me carry your things, and now your sitting on my couch about to watch something?" He chuckled humorlessly. "Oh hell no." Then he dropped himself onto 'his' couch beside me.


I scowled defiantly at him. "People like you are the reason why we have middle fingers."


John walked by, and Miles laughed as if I had said something funny, and proceeded to sit closer to me. Any sign of annoyance or hate disappeared from his face. "Oh, SiSi, I missed you so much." 


"I'm so glad the two of you are getting along!" John smiled, at the two of us and then continued to exit the living room. "Don't forget to show Sierra around, Miles."


I narrowed my eyes at his suspicious behavior. "Are you on your guy period or something?"


His face finally darkens when his father finally is out of view. "Congratulations, now I hate you."


"I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you think I give a shit about your feelings." I stated, sarcasm seeping from my lips.


Miles then stood up, brushed off his pants, and looked at me expectantly and barked. "Get your ass up, Novak. I'm showing you around." 



And suddenly, just like that we were strangers again.


•.                  •.                     •.




MOST CHILDREN GO through that phase in which they are afraid of the dark. Our over imaginative minds create monsters, ghosts, and other mythical creatures, because well, we're kids. 


I wasn't one of those children.


When I go to sleep, my room must be closed, curtains must be drawn, a single ray of light from a street lamp or something cannot be seen. I never wondered if I was secretly a goth or something but even though my room was completely dark, tonight I couldn't sleep. I hate getting flashbacks of things I don't want to remember.


Things like Miles McMillan. 


What the hell happened that made Miles the very corrupted soul that he is today?


Shaking my head from such thoughts, I sat up, from my guest bed, brushed my hair down with my fingers, rubbed my eyes, and made my way downstairs and to the couch.

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