AN: I HAVE NO IDEA HOW LEGAL STUFF WORKS. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A FICTIONAL BOOK AND WILL THEREFORE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO REGARD TO LEGAL THINGS. THANK YOU!
enjoy!
write a review saying who you ship: Adrilark or Phy.
story time!
Chapter 1
"Please leave a message after the tone,"
"Hey, mom and dad. I... I know you won't pick up. I just wanted to hear your voices again. And... tell you how much I miss you. You'll never know that, though. I'm sorry. I-I'm so, so sorry."
I can't hide the sob that escapes my throat as I end the message. I wipe my eyes and pray my eyeliner and mascara arent running.
The scenery has changed dramatically from the bustling streets of New York City that I left only an hour ago. Now all I can see is... green. Trees and prickle bushes are no endangered species out here. In NYC, I had to go to the park to get pricked.
I tap on the glass that separates me from the taxi driver.
"Excuse me? How much farther?" I ask as he pulls back the sliding window.
"Half an hour." He says it so impatiently I can't help but think my very existence is bothering him.
I don't like it.
"I'm not sure you know who it is you're taking to," I say, tossing my blonde, elbow length, thick, thickly curled, in perfect condition layered runway ready hair.
"I am Skyler Evans, and you've probably heard of me. My father is... was Mark Evans and my mother was Margaret Evans. You've probably heard of them, too. I suggest using a better tone with me. We wouldn't want you losing your job, would we?"
The driver grits his teeth.
"I don't think it's illegal to speak impolitely to an actress,"
"Oh, did I mention I'm rich?" I hold up my cocked and loaded, trusty platinum card.
His scowling face turns to slight fear.
"I also have over a billion followers on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and pretty much every single social media outlet you can think of," I smirk. "So how about trying that again?"
I've got him.
"Um, that'd be twenty minutes, miss," he says in a much more agreeable, yet fearful tone.
"Much better," I say, smiling sweetly and straightening my navy, short strapless dress that matches perfectly with my gold belt, gold three-inch-high heels, perfectly manicured gold nails, a gold arrow bangle, gold arrow dangling earrings, a gold necklace and choker, and gold smoky eye. even my cranberry red lipstick has a gold shimmer.
Its kinda my thing to create awesome outfits.
I'm a fashion blogger and vlogger, and I also have an exploding YouTube channel. I do everything from DIYs to makeup tutorials to crazy shopping challenges. I'm extremely popular everywhere and have been the lead role several times on Broadway and in too many movies to count.
I pull out my iPhone and start a new blog.
I rant about the right shades of lipstick and mascara for what occasion. I like to think my style is unique, so many people have said I don't know what I'm talking about with these things.
But I'm smarter than them, so.
Red is acceptable on dates from shades scarlet to flame. Anything in between is also acceptable.
I let a tear fall down my cheek, stained gold from the glitter on my lashes.
Scarlet Sweet was my mom's favorite shade of lipstick. She carried it everywhere and was always telling everyone to use it.
Pretty soon, half the US was in scarlet.
I pull my own scarlet color from my gold purse, examining it with care.
I can see her laughing face, which I will never be able to live up to. Her beauty was never criticized. Never. I get almost twenty hate comments every day saying that I'm rude and copied my mother.
I wish I could be a glimmer of what she is, but who am I kidding? She was Miss. America, has won three different Oscars, and six Grammys.
Yeah.
I was Miss America too, but she was said to be the best in the universe. I've only won two Oscars, and three Grammys.
Speaking of, another hate comment.
"Hey Sky, thanks for the view of your face. We all needed more of that." what kind of hate comment is that? I'm a makeup artist, for goodness' sake!
I open YouTube and delete the comment, then block the hater.
We finally roll up to a house.
Oh no.
Just the thing for me! A broken down, dirty, ugly green house surrounded by woods and a farm. A farm! To think!
I grit my teeth, open my door, slam it and walk up to the house.
I almost puke when I notice the handle is sweaty from someone recent.
I knock on the door with all my supermodel might.
I hate waiting.
Once when I was younger, I had to wait to be picked up from school an extra ten minutes. My butler was way, way late.
I always like to leave a little early to make them miss me at school. It also serves to let everyone see my day limo. Its solid gold with my signature SWE.
Anyway, I threw a huge fit when I got in the limo. He told me he had a family emergency and came as soon as he could.
I fired him that day, of course.
After a whole minute, someone opens the door.
This house just got a whole lot less ugly.
It's the inside that counts, right?
Right off the bat, I know this is the cutest guy ive ever seen.
And ive met Chris Pratt, Sam Claflin, Shawn Mendes, Tom Holland, Tom Hiddleston, Zac Efron, and pretty much every hot celebrity ever.
But this guy. This guy. He's the epitome of gorgeous.
He has Grant Gustin style black hair, curly and short. And his eyes! Green with hints of blue and gold. He has chiseled cheeks, and altogether a perfect face.
I think I'm in love.
"Hey there. I'm Skyler Willow Evans, but you can call me Sky. Where will my room be?" I ask with sugar sweetness.
"Uh, hi. I'm Phoenix, but you can call me Phoenix," he says in a mocking tone. "Follow me. Your room is upstairs."
"Hold on! You need to get my bags. They're in the waiting taxi."
He studies my face for a second. I blush, just like I've practiced for any guys ever and stare down at the ground.
"No." Phoenix says.
My jaw drops.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, sorry. I said no," he motions outside. "Get your own bags."
I clear my throat and stand on my tip toes to stare in his face. Man, he's tall.
"Fine." I walk out the door and open the trunk.
I reach to grab my bags, and scream.
"What's wrong?" Phoenix rushes over to me.
"I chipped my nail opening the trunk door!" I turn to glare at him. "This is all your fault," I growl.
"Huh?"
'You made me get my own bags, even though you don't care at all about your nails! And look what's happened!"
I hold my hand up for him to see and look away. The chip is just too much for me.
He grabs my hand-gently- and studies it.
"I'll finish your bags. You're too prissy to carry them yourself." He drops my hand, and I suddenly feel a breeze where his warm hand used to be.
I study my 'chipped' nail and smile.
Acting since the age of four has really paid off.
My jaw drops.
My room is disgusting.
No, really.
Phoenix and his father 'spent a lot of time' making my room 'awesome'.
I hate it.
I've never, ever, in all my life, had to sleep in an attic. Ever.
I turn, smile sweetly at Phoenix, and slam the door in his face.
The room is atrocious. No joke, its only window is a skylight on the ceiling, which is like a mini roof. Or a triangle without a bottom.
A bed has been hastily crammed into a corner. It looks like the top of a bunk bed without the bottom because of its tiny size. I think its only a twin size.
At home, on my bad days, I'd have a queen.
There's dust everywhere. Seriously everywhere.
I cough.
One lonely light bulb sits over my bed with one of those drawstring bead things to turn it off and on.
A single chest sits like a toad at the foot of the bed. its ugly and fraying in weird places.
Underneath the bed and chest is a shaggy puke green rug. Its not a nice soft shaggy, it's a frayed and tough, unpleasant to even touch. It feels kinda slimy, like partially hardened barf or something.
The rug matches the vegetable wallpaper with peas and spinach in untidy rows. I'm not sure the matching was intentional.
The only thing I can see that might have had any effort at all involved is the closet. It pretty much looks like a hole in the wall with a beige curtain hanging in front of it.
I sigh and go to inspect it, pulling away the curtain.
It's pretty much a mixture of a closet and a bathroom. On one end there's a single rod with like three hangers on it. On the other end is a tiny toilet squished up against a sink with a tiny, musty mirror over it. There's a slight dip in the wall with a tiny bathtub and shower. A shower rug identical to the one under the bed sit in front of it.
I bite my lip and rush out of the closet/bathroom and throw myself on the beige, terra cotta, and puke green checkered quilt on the bed. Violent sobs rack my body.
How had I gotten here? Yesterday I was sleeping in my own king-sized water bed with my perfectly matching navy and gold themed room with a closet that was bigger than most of my friend's rooms themselves. I had a bathroom the size of twenty attics with a bathtub the size of a swimming pool.
No joke. I would swim to bathe.
But that was all before the fire.
The fire that destroyed my home, forced me to live in this dump, changed my life forever, and killed my parents and dog.
I miss everything.
I finally let myself relive the incident.
Me coming home from the mall with my friends for a girl's night. The firetrucks. The flames. The corpses of my servants and parents. I even remember my dog Moi's flaming body as he tried in vain to run towards me, his adorable eyes promising to be loyal to the end. Until his eyes burned, and he was gone forever.
I remember identifying my mother by all the melted silver over her smoking skeleton.
I remember finding my father clutching his fireproof briefcase filled with all our family pictures.
He always kept everything, never getting rid of anything.
I still have his briefcase with the pictures.
My favorite is of me at my school prom last year. The dress was the most expensive there, made from literal spun gold. Everything about my outfit was solid gold, including my gold dust makeup. I had gold twirled in with my hair.
My parents posed with me and my boyfriend, who had matching gold accents and the best suit in school. He was also the cutest guy in school, ranging somewhere between Zac Efron and Chris Pratt. In other words, he was smoking hot.
We look like the happiest people in the world.
I remember finding that gold dress a pile of molten gold by where my room was.
I remember finding my favorite maid's corpse, clutching her little kitten Molly in her hands.
I remember my so-called friends all leaving as soon as the smoky haze came into sight and making me run home by myself.
Everything went downhill from there.
That's why I'm here. I don't have any relatives that are able to take me in and almost all my parent's friends turned their backs because they had 'no room', even though they all lived in mansions only slightly smaller than mine was.
It was my dad's old friend who let me come live here, of all places.
They never even talked anymore, but dad had him on my emergency contact list. None of my other emergency contacts had 'enough room' to take me. Yeah. Those were the ones with the mansions.
And now I'm living in an attic.
My life burned with the flames.
There's a small knock at the door.
"Hey Sky, your bags are outside the door," Phoenix says.
I'd had time to stress shop and get a whole bunch of clothes.
I was now the second richest woman in America next to
The president's wife. All my parent's money has been given to me. I was just old enough to claim it, seventeen.
So now I have thirty-one bags outside stuffed with clothing, makeup, and accessories such as bags, jewelry, and hair things. I will need to stuff everything into one chest an onto three hangers.
"When you're down, get up and fix it," my dad would always say. He always had weird sayings he made up like that, and I called him Fortune Cookie at times.
So I got up, fixed my appearance, and threw open the door.
"Phoenix, we're going to the store," I say.
He raises his eyebrows and nods.
"Uh, okay," he says, and leads me to a beaten-up truck.
We jump in and he starts the engine.
I smile and lean out the window.
"where to?" Phoenix asks.
"Ikea, the mall, Target, and anywhere else with furniture and things," I order.
He raises his eyebrows.
"okay then," he says, and backs out.
After a half hour long silence and awkward stolen glances at each other, we reach Ikea.
Upon entering the store, I feel infinitely better. Here I can let my imagination fly free and do one of my favorite things. The three ds. Design, Decorate, and Develop.
I immediately seek out a bed and am rewarded with a king-sized bed that folds into the wall to look like a neat little closet dresser thing. I select a plain white one and move on to bedding.
I find a navy comforter with a gold tree silhouette on the edge. Gold bird silhouettes fly around it. I get matching navy pillows with the same gold birds on them. There are tons of throw pillows included.
I find a huge white wardrobe with tons and tons of room and immediately pick it.
I get a gold wall sticker that perfectly matches my bedding. It's the exact same silhouette.
I get other things too, like a gold chandelier, a white desk with the same design again and a gold comfy chair, two matching chairs for sitting and chilling, and of course, a shaggy gold and navy ombre rug.
The expenses didn't even make a dent in my account.
I am finally satisfied, so we end up going to Home Depot.
I get navy paint for the walls, gold baseboards, all sorts of bathroom things including a floor length full view mirror and gold vanity, and a giant gold photo frame.
I finally think I'm done.
At this point, its about six thirty, so we stop for dinner at my all-time favorite restaurant, Panda Express.
After a moment of silence, Phoenix pipes up.
"You, uh, spent more money on transforming the attic than we have ever had in our lives," he whispers.
"Really?" I ask, surprised.
I've never had less than a billion. And that's my personal allowance, not even my whole family's.
There's an awkward silence.
"We're doing your room next," I say.
His eyebrows shoot up.
"uh, ok," he mumbles.
I take a bite of orange chicken.
We'll get along somehow.
I order New York's fastest demo team, and by the next morning, I've got them started on gutting the closet. I have them add walls in a corner and a white door. That's the bathroom.
The closet is even bigger. I have a wall connected to the bathroom to the other wall, so the attic doesn't look weird.
They install racks, cubbies, and hangers in the closet extremely plentifully.
I got three more wall stickers to put in the bathroom and closet. We paint them navy and put up the stickers. They look amazing.
The attic is surprisingly large, and I had a considerably big space for the rest of the bedroom.
I wave the demo team goodbye. It only took them ten hours.
Phoenix, my faithful and helpful friend, helps me gut out the attic. After we're left with a completely blank attic space, we tear down the wallpaper and paint the walls navy.
We put up the stickers and paint the wood floor with a cherry red colored finish.
Phoenix and I have to wait for half an hour for it to dry.
I stand back and survey my work. It's looking infinitely better.
"I didn't know you could get something like this done, Sky," Phoenix says with a laugh.
I frown.
"I can get things done when I want to, Phoenix." I say decidedly.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, really!"
I grab a wet finisher paintbrush and flicked the finisher at him, splattering cherry red all over his button up tank top shirt.
"Hey! I'm gonna get you for that!" he cries, grabs a paintbrush, and flicks it onto my navy and gold flannel shirt I tied at the bottom for a rugged effect.
My shirt is ruined, but I don't really care.
I'm vengeful.
I dip my paintbrush in the paint and throw the paint on it at Phoenix.
We both laugh hysterically and continue to throw paint at each other. After a few minutes, we are both covered in paint and dripping like we'd been out in the rain.
Phoenix stops laughing and stares at me a minute.
I stare straight back.
A sudden knock at the door jolts our eyes away from each other.
We laugh and blush, running to answer.
Phoenix's dad is working on the farm. He actually does all the chores around the farm.
I'm glad it's a Saturday. If it werent, Phoenix and I would be at my new school. I'm curious about it.
Phoenix opens the door slightly and peeks out.
I try to take a look, but Phoenix's head is blocking my view. Hes a tall guy.
"Uh, is Skyler Evans here?" a guy's deep voice asks. I get a weird de ja vu feeling.
Phoenix raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah, she's here," he looks back at me. "why?"
"Because I'm her boyfriend."
That's why I got de ja vu.