Chapter 1: July 1st, 2022 [Part 1]

"Stavai, momiche! Dva chasá. Aide, aide–."Translation: "Get up, girlie! It's two o'clock. C'mon, c'mon–."

TatiTranslation: Bulgarian for "daddy"storms into my room without warning, and I jolt in bed, dreading the inevitable. 

The swift rattle of curtain rings on brass metal strikes fear into my heart, and then harsh sunlight beams across my sleep-crusted face, illuminating the messy state of my room. Ugh, the light, it burns. I groan, burrowing deeper into the cover of my bed sheet like the irredeemable nocturnal creature that I am.

"I know it's summer vacation, but c'mon. You can't just keep sleeping the whole day away. It's been two weeks since school ended. Aide, aide–." He flops on top of me to nuzzle my head, attempting to tickle me through my tangled cocoon. Not even his stubborn weight and affectionate hands can convince me otherwise.

"I don't care. It's my birthday."

"That's right, and I made you soft eggies with tomato salad. Your favorite. Aide." 

Mmm. Tempting. I can already imagine it: over-easy eggs, bacon strips, salted tomato and cucumber slices, and sourdough bread toasted to a fine, buttery gold. My father’s signature breakfast and my siren’s call. I wiggle my hip, lazing around in bed for a moment longer, enjoying the echo of their voices at play. 

"Them" being the boys who woke me up upon their gracious door-slamming arrival a couple hours ago. What’s worse, they started playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the living room without me even though I’m the one who invited them. Those losers. How dare they play without me in my own house? Joking aside, I would’ve joined them eventually, but laziness proved the sweeter mistress.

“Momchetata igrayat na dolniya etash. Ti pak li shte razreshish Ezra da specheli?”Translation: "The boys are playing downstairs [literal: lower level]. Are you going to let Ezra win again?" Tati’s crisp and playful tone softens, amused by my petulant silence. 

Yeah, I know. I want to dethrone the self-proclaimed king of Joker myself by pushing him off his proverbial high horse. Ezra hates it when I spam Zelda’s teleportation attack or Ike’s Down-B counter– and then I hear the Hammer of Judgment jingle to the electrical power of nine, followed by the boys’ explosive laughter and Ezra’s simultaneous roar of defeat. Ha! That’s what you get, you motherfucker. 

JD cackles the loudest, having stolen the win by being asinine using his favorite character Mr. Game & Watch. I hear goofy little Richie, too, his giddiness infectious, followed by Sunnie’s obvious impression of Marvel’s Thunder God. 

“Don’t worry, my brother. I shall avenge you!”

Tati taps my butt and rises to depart, leaving my door open. 

Sigh. I know he did it on purpose just to annoy me, and now I’m forced to suffer through their constant testosterone-filled roastfest while they wait for the next match to start. Once I hear his voice, the most obnoxious one of them all, I groan. Ugh, when did that guy show up? At first I thought I imagined it, but now I know Ezra must’ve dragged him along without telling me, their bromance too blinding to behold. I already found him annoying enough at school, but now I have to endure him during vacation, too?

Caleb Montgomery haunts me even in my dreams, the wannabe heartthrob and basketball ace of Golden Valley High School. 

This morning, I dreamt of Elementary school, of a memory that I had almost forgotten about. It involved Valentine’s Day, his crudely-cut paper heart that he chucked at my face upon my blunt rejection, and his crocodile tears after I ripped it to shreds. For some reason, Caleb got angry that I refused to give him mine despite the fact I told him “no.” Several times. His dumb paper-mache stocking had already been stuffed to the brim with the glitziest love letters, so why would he want mine?

That greedy and ungrateful little bastard. Besides, my baby heart belonged to Guadalupe then, the smartest girl in class with the prettiest smile. I had been too busy drawing her name in sparkling red glue to pay him any mind, yet Caleb the Crybaby refused to leave me alone no matter how hard I tried to ignore him. All of a sudden, I decided to stand up and walk away, because I noticed the quiet boy who sat all by his lonesome self. 

Jae Dong had just moved to California from South Korea and couldn’t even speak English, yet, so the language barrier proved rather difficult for the other kids to befriend him. I empathized with him, being a fellow ESL student and all, but that didn’t stop our classmates from picking on him for the unfortunate implication of his full name. 

Yup, you guessed it. JD. My best friend.

He always looked so gloomy, hanging his head and hiding his face behind his long bangs– until I slid a plain blue paper heart in front of him, causing him to look up in confusion. That’s when I saw the light in his brown eyes for the first time, marking the beginning of a long and beautiful (if not insufferable) friendship. 

And then Caleb had to ruin the moment by shoving JD off his seat out of nowhere. 

Watching him burst into ugly fat tears ignited a fire in me and I tackled Caleb in pure fury, scratching and biting him to the point of drawing blood, his sobbing screams like music to my ears. I fought off all the bullies who used to torment JD back in the day, and Caleb proved himself the worst out of them all (it’s like that boy held a grudge or something, the hell?). That guy mellowed out over time (thank The Lord), but I still find it hilarious how he likes to brag his scars came from a rabid dog instead. 

Pfft. Whatever, tough guy. You can’t fool me. I know the real you.

I sit up in bed now, struggling for the willpower to move. I actually woke up before the boys arrived, roused by the promise of breakfast sizzling downstairs and my grumbling stomach, yet laziness overpowered my desire for food, proof of the lost hours I wasted scrolling through my phone. 

I read through the Discord chat from last night, which I fell asleep on during an Eldin Ring grind session. Sunnie and Ezra cussed me out with Dark Souls emojis while JD and Richie spammed me with the stupidest memes. Swiping aside Facebook messages, Instagram highlights, and Twitter news, I soak up all the “Happy Birthday!” vibes.

But no call from Maika.Bulgarian for "mother"

Only a "good morning, baby" and “my princess is a woman now.” 

She bombarded our Messenger app with 3D heart emojis and sparkly gifs full of crowns, jewels, and sexy dresses.

I sigh, disappointed. She could have called me and woken me up. I wouldn’t have minded. But I get it. My mother's a busy woman, and time zones are always tricky. She works overseas for days and weeks and sometimes even months at a time. It’s like chasing miracles with her.

You are reading story For You, Lyubov at novel35.com

I clamber out of bed half-naked, trudging to my locked window. Ugh, it feels so stuffy in here that I wrench the window wide open for some fresh air. Only to be struck by instant regret. I grimace from the surge of humidity that suddenly invades my air-conditioned room and decide to reverse that action, cursing the California summer heat. 

I almost trip over a pair of Converse on my way to the bathroom, stopping to catch myself, feeling a bit woozy. I really should clean my room. It’s becoming too hazardous for my health. Ezra likes to joke “you can hide a dead body in here!” whenever Boey and our parents complain about it. I always like to laugh it off. Now, I can’t be bothered to face my sins. 

Everyone knows I hate cleaning my room. I always lose something whenever I feel motivated to do so. At least if I keep it messy, I will know where everything is. Case in point, among the piles of wrinkled tank tops, half-worn shorts, and tangled panties that litter my carpet floor, I pluck an oversized anime t-shirt from the ground and a matching pair of booty shorts before throwing them on, disregarding the need for a bra until I feel like leaving the house.

I yawn, my eyes misting over from the phenomenal effort. 

That’s what I get for screwing my internal alarm clock. These stupid daytime induced headaches aren’t helping, either. Why can't my Feng Shui-obsessed mother just buy me actual functioning curtains? 

Time and time again, I keep asking for thick black curtains (or any pair of curtains that actually do their job, like, I don’t know, block out the sun?), and what does she keep giving me? The frilliest red-white translucent silks she could find in the bazaars of Eastern Europe. She loves shopping way too much, especially in the days between her shoots. I wonder if I can try convincing Maika for a new pair of curtains. Then again, I know exactly how that will end. The moment I ask her, the illustrious movie sensation and ex-Maxim model Desislava Pavlova will devolve into the worst nagging mother. 

“You are my daughter, not a vampire. No child of mine will live like a creature scuttling in the dark!” 

And then Tati would shake his head and grin in that condescending, affectionate sort of way, chastising her in Bulgarian. “You always make such a fuss. Calm down, woman.” And then she would grouch some more before I ambush her in hugs and kisses, pacifying her anger from bubbling over like yogurt left to boil for too long. 

I never see my mom get on JD’s case whenever he plays on the Xbox every day for hours, only emerging from his cave for food and bathroom breaks. Or maybe I do, and I learned to tune her out. I know I betray my Bulgarian roots by rejecting the sun, but a girl’s gotta sleep. Besides, the way I see it, JD’s the true vampire, screwing up his sleep schedule for the daily grind. I sigh, halting that thought process. 

Now everything comes full circle, and I have only myself to blame.

Grogginess weighs on my every limb as I hobble to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom I share with my older brother. The acrylic painting of a red-purple dahlia greets me from Boey’s side of the white wall as I turn to scrub my face with cold water. Oh, and look who I find brushing his teeth after his latest meal. Mr. Sourpuss himself. 

Boey throws his head back to gargle, before bending down to spit in the sink. “Hey, princess. About fucking time.”

“How about a ‘Happy Birthday?’ Bitch.” I straighten the crooked white-red dahlia painting on my side, before grabbing my toothpaste, struggling to strangle the remaining Colgate from the crinkled tube. 

“Okay, Sleeping Beauty.” 

I groan, dreading the punchline to his joke. 

“At this rate, I better find you a boyfriend, because nothing else motivates you out of bed these days.”

Ouch. So much frost in that statement. Did Aya’s anal-retentive old man piss him off again? Don’t take your sexual frustrations out on me, dammit. 

He pauses to gargle a swig of mouthwash and I rush to do the same. Since Boey likes to be thorough, I finish brushing my teeth in time to scramble for the bottle, swishing the liquid like a helicopter. We bend over to spit simultaneously, racing to towel-dry our faces.

“Spitters are quitters.”

I seethe. He’s so quick on the draw.

“Anyway, is this how you really want to spend your vacation?” 

He’s still going on about that? Sigh. “Who says I need one?” I say with a sneer, taking a moment to tweeze the hairs between my eyebrows. 

Times like these are the reason I hate sharing this bathroom. Although we may never have to fight over double sinks marked by my minimalism and his clutter of hygienic essentials, the single shower, toilet, and complicated state of our respective love lives will forever be our battleground. 

I consider the state of my greasy dark hair in front of my bathroom mirror and sigh. Long hair takes too long to wash and dry, and I hate the effort of brushing it twice as much. Depending on the game plan today, I might be able to prolong this hair wash for an extra day, but– Oh, what the hell? It’s my birthday. Might as well clean up. I want to feel like a woman today. 

And while I’m at it, I can broach the topic of curtains with Maika over the phone by demanding them as my birthday present– 

Boey locks the bathroom door before I can move to claim it, and I swear, throwing myself against it.

“Fuck you, Boey! I need to go number two!"