Love and Hate

Chapter 1: Where It Begins.

Erin Lockwood laid comfortably, nestled in the embrace of her bed. Until the alarm on her phone blared, jolting her awake as she woke to the shrilly, ear-splitting noise. She rolled over and blindly groped her bedside table for her phone.

Once she felt it in her grasp, she peeked one eye open to look at a black screen.

Not her phone.

She glanced at the bedside table to pick up Ariana's vibrating Samsung with a lighting c***k that shattered across her screen. Erin switched off her phone and fell back down. She rolled on her other side to look at a slumbering Ariana.

"You sleep like the dead," she whispered before she clasped her hand on her shoulder and rigorously shook her awake. Ariana's eyes still closed, her irritable groans grew louder until her irritation reached a peak and she swatted her hand away.

"Lay off," she warned.

"First and last day of school, moonshine," she said with organic optimism. She pinched Ariana's nose and swiftly retracted her hand before she could slap it again.

"Because, I'm a kind person," she drawled, sleep slowing her words. "You can go shower first."

Erin snorted a laugh. "You and kind do not belong in the same sentence, sis." She examined her face, the discoloured contusions beneath her eye is a gradation of painful hues, dark purple, inflamed pink sieved with yellowish tinges.

"The swelling has gone down," she murmured, careful with her words, in fear of setting off a tripwire.

Ariana revealed her swamp green eyes, a stark contrast to the darkish bruises beneath her one eye. "Is it bad?"

Erin made an unsure sound, tilting her head from side to side.

Ariana exhaled heavily and closed her eyes. "Well, thank God for makeup."

Erin smiled sadly to herself, she flung the virgin white covers off her and climbs out to stand up at full height.

She slipped her feet into her fluffy white sleepers and walked to her ensuite bathroom right opposite her queen-sized bed. Though she had lived in the same house with her parents since she was born, she recently moved into the second biggest room in the house, her old room was being used a secondary study.

Her new room was vast in space with a sophisticated, beige wallpaper and watercolour paint art that livened the room. A expansive window that heralded in a wealth of light with a childhood tree, nearly as tall as the house that flowered right in front of it.

The lushwood, storm grey floors polished to a shine with white fur coverlets to decorate. In front of her bed was a wall of furnished wooden wardrobes and at the corner was a prime vanity set.

After Erin was done showering, she came out wrapped in a white towel whist drying her hair with another. Ariana and Erin did a swap, Ariana took her tog bag and dragged herself into the ensuite to shower and change there.

Erin was decisive today because she had planned her outfit a day before. She wore a thin-strapped, pastel brown top with a crisscrossing neckline, paired with high-waisted, washed out blue skinny jeans and a denim jacket to match.

Ariana trudged out with her ink black hair balled in a messy high bun. Outfitted in a white, twisted cami crop top that exposed her enviable, defined stomach. Combined with a leather tights and black combat boots.

"I thought we agreed," Erin said wearily. She walked towards the wardrobes to a section of draws to hunt for sockets. "Thought you would it dial down on the whole, Dark Vader look."

Ariana looked down to skim over her outfit. "The top is white."

"Oh, how holy of you," she said with a laugh, peeling on a pair of pink socks before she moved to open a door in her wardrobe to retrieve light brown, medium-heeled ankle boots.

"And I thought we agreed that you stopped being a pain in my a*s," Ariana said and quirked her eyebrows. "I guess we both made promises we knew we can't keep."

She shoved her last foot into the shoe. "Would it kill you to be nice?" she asked rhetorically, fingers feeling through her sodden strands of gold.

"Friends since the beginning of time, and yet you still act surprised?"

Erin's eyes nearly rolled out her sockets. "I need to blow dry."

Whilst she was completing her prep in the bathroom.

With a good use of concealer and foundation, Ariana hid her grisly truths with cosmetic brushes. Her skin naturally as pale as a winter's moon. She did light work at the vanity by doing a, intense smoky eye and a winged eyeliner.

When Erin returned, her wavy tresses cascaded freely to her waist.

"You done, Grim Reaper?"

Ariana stood from the backless chair and ambled to the exit. "Whatever, goldilocks."

Together they both left the bedroom and journeyed to the swivel staircase with wrought designs embellished into the railing. From the top of the staircase, they were already welcomed by the wafting fragrance of sizzling bacon and fried eggs.

"Hey," Ariana whispered. "Your parents don't mind that I crashed here again last night?"

Erin reassured her with a warm smile. "Dude, then why would my mom give you a separate key to the house? Plus, my dad didn't think it was safe for you to keep climbing the tree to get to my room."

Ariana stifled a smile.

Erin slung her arm over Ariana's shoulder. "You are ohana, family and family means no-one gets left behind or forgotten."

Ariana plucked up her wrist with pinched fingers to unlace her arm. "You and your Disney references."

The two strolled towards the contemporary kitchen, the house styled with an open floor concept from kitchen to living room and the standalone dining table near the widespread windows connected to the sliding door.

Everything in sight was immaculate with matt glazed porcelain tiles, designated sections of the walls was made of natural stone cladding. There was nothing out of place, all simply perfect.

Erin seated herself on the white bar stool beside her father, behind the granite counter.

Mr Lane took a brief recess from his work on the laptop to greet his daughter by looking at her in the eyes. He tilted his head down to peer over at them both from above his thick-framed glasses. "Well, isn't it my two favourite girls."

"You mean, your only two girls," Erin corrected with a questioning tone.

"You're right, by default, since I don't have a son."

Erin punched his arm and he feigned hurt.

Mrs Lane laboured in the kitchen, her back towards them with an apron fastened around her waist to protect her slick, full white suit with an adjustable belted blazer. She turned around and strutted towards them, eight-inch heels clicking.

"You two excited for your first but last day of senior year?" she asked with a greased spatula in her hand. She joined them by the counter, acrylic nails set on the granite.

"If excited means glad to be done. Then yes," Ariana said with her folded arms on the counter, she moved her one arm to rest her cheek on her palm.

"Oh, c'mon there, moonshine," Mr Lane said with inherent enthusiasm. "There's a lot to look forward to in your last year. Try to see it as an end of an era and start of a better one."

Erin glanced back at her dad with a flared brow. "Did you read that off a fortune cookie or something?"

A notification pinged for Mr Lane's attention and he was quick to react.

"New year, new possibilities," Mrs Lane harmonised, tipping the spatula up in an exaggerated flourish. "You never know what can happen."

She poked the spatula in her Ariana's direction before she sashayed back to the stove.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."

Erin swivelled on the seat to face her; she crossed her leg over the other. "Relax, moonie. What could possibly go wrong?"

Ariana perked up with a fact-defying look on her face. "Every time I heard that line in a movie. Two things happened. Things in the character's life went horribly wrong or they or the people around them ended up dead."

Erin and her dad shared an amused laugh. Erin couldn't comprehend her best friend's strange qualm. Every year since she could remember was like the last. Boring. But boring meant safe which is why her parents chose to raise her in Braidwood.

The Lanes always dreamed of a big family, many children but they had only one, and oh how they treasured her. As well as Ariana, she was like a second daughter to them and a sister to Erin.

Inseparable. Bonded.

"Then the solution is simple," Mr Lane concluded. "Watch less tv."

Ariana snorted and casted her a cheeky smile. "You might as well add breathing less to the list."