Hey I just want to thank As Clear As Black and DareBare13 for being the first to review on this story so far.

Also thanks to everybody who added the story to their favorite story and story alert lists.

This is the new and rewritten chapter 1 of Flaming Hearts.

Chapter 1

"Lucinda Maria Mendez!"

I winced at the pitch of my sisters scream. I found it amazing sometimes at how high the pitch could actually go, then at other times I cursed how high it could go, I wasn't really up for going deaf before I was at least fifty but in these last few months I had most definitely thought that my hearing was gonna go bad way sooner with all her shrieking.

Sighing quietly, I turned around to face her and saw her storming towards me with her 'I'm totally pissed off face'. It was the one that she usually got when something was terribly wrong or she was just really stressed but judging by the fact that if she was a cartoon she would have steam coming out of her ears I was guessing that something was wrong.

The fact that she was aiming that face, anger and all, at me made me internally cringe. I had already seen that face way to many times in these last few months, since the planning had begun.

"Yes." I asked her calmly.I didn't want to get her any more pissed off then she already was and getting worried or angry at her for being angry at me wasn't gonna help anybody any, plus I wasn't the kind of person to get really angry at all. One would think so, given my strong Spanish routes, or more so of the fact that my mother had been a true, strong and fierce Latina. So was my sister but I was naturally shy and quiet, the opposite of them. It was easy to say that I take after my father.

So I stayed calm, waiting for my sister to release her anger, hoping that most of it won't be taken out on me. My sister herself wasn't a bad person, and I know she loves me but when she was like this she would take her anger out on anyone who was there. In this situation that way me. Why she was angry anyway, I have no idea but with her giving me 'the look' I was afraid to see if I had something to do with it. "What's wrong."

"Everything is totally wrong.I don't have any bridesmaid dresses, the flowers are all hideous, we don't have a catering service and you, my own sister and my maid of honor, the one who made me do this isn't helping with anything."

I sighed, partly revealed that her anger didn't have anything to do with me-well at least not all because of me- and partly because of how tired she sounded. I wished that I could have done something more to help, after all she was my sister and I loved her and I am her Maid of Honor which meant that I should have at least been able to calm her down, at least a little bit.

Alicia had never been good under stress , and this was a lot of stress. She was planning her with wedding with the guy she loved, the one she had been together with for so long, the father of her children. She was convinced he was her soul mate and so was I, and so was everybody else who had ever seen them together. So her wanting the wedding to be perfect made sense.

I had agreed to be my sisters Maid of Honor after she had said that there was no way that she was getting married, without me, her little sister and best friend, by her side. I had a little bit of a feeling that me being the Maid of Honor wouldn't go to perfectly but I said yes because I knew that Eli couldn't wait to marry her and since she finally said yes-on terms that I would be the maid of honor- I knew that I couldn't do that to Eli when he was looking so forward to being known as my sisters husband.

Me and my sister had always been really close, best friends, something we always told everyone and sure, we got on each others nerves sometimes but we were sisters and I was more than happy-and honored- to be the Maid of Honor, standing right there by her side while she and Eli said I do.

The problem was standing beside her was only part of the job.

It also included going through months and months of planning and shopping and helping my sister with the wedding.I was glad to be apart of it really, and I was happy to be there helping my sister through everything but the problem was, like I said earlier, that my sister wasn't very good under stress and even though I hated to be kinda mean and say this-my sister had been a control freak slash perfectionist slash crazy person these past few months.

Okay, I knew that the crazy person thing was little bit to much and really kind of mean but sometimes, like during her many angry and stressed out rants and crazy shopping perfectionist phases it really felt like she was a crazy person, sometimes I felt like I was going to go crazy by the time the wedding came.

My sister could definitely be bad on normal days making sure everything was perfect and now we were talking about her wedding where she was set to marry the guy that she loves with all of her heart and I knew that she would be absolutely crushed if something went wrong, which was why I was trying to make sure everything turned out perfect on one of the biggest day of her life.

But still, I mean, does she have to act like a psycho about it and take every little thing out on the poor maid of honor slash sister?

Her own flesh and blood.

Of, course she does.

I cut off my sisters cursing when I held up my hand and as her mouth snapped shut and words cut off she glared at me."Hey chica, calm down, todo está bien." I told her. I knew that telling her to calm down could be really stupid when she was this angry but I had been dealing with her enough lately that the Latina from my mother and sister was coming out in me a bit, making my very small, barely existent temper start to rise from my own exhaustion and I knew that she was worrying over nothing this time.

"Alicia, first of all we are heading to pick out the bridesmaid dresses tomorrow, along with your wedding dress, we haven't even picked out, nor picked up any real flowers yet so you can't know that they're hideous because they aren't even picked , Aunt Rose is taking care of the food and please, do not tell me that I have not been doing anything to help cause' I have and you know it."

She sat on the couch quietly, but then sighed loudly and I felt horrible at yelling at her when I saw her dark eyes fill with the tears that she had had yet to shed, the tears that I had been trying to avoid but knowing that they would come with all the stress of the wedding."Hey, honey. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset and yell, you're going through a lot with the wedding planning." I told her putting my arm around her though my words only made her cry harder.

"I'm sorry." I whispered again, feeling so terrible for making my big sister cry only a few weeks before her wedding. Alicia shakes her head. "No Lucy, I'm the one that's sorry. You're right, you have helped, so much and you don't know how happy I am that you love me enough to do that and I have no excuses to take this out on you.I just want everything to be perfect but I'm sorry that I'm taking my stress out on you."

"It's okay Alicia, I don't mind helping besides you're my big sister and I know that you'd do the same for me so I want to ask you something. "She blinks, looking over at me as she wipes her eyes. "I want you to try and relax, and get some rest, please." I tell her knowing that we both really need the sleep.

She nodded before getting up to head down the hall towards her room to rest. That 's when everything catches up with me and I know that I'll likely collapse before I make it halfway to my room. So I let myself fall back on the soft couch and sigh in content before drifting off into a really well needed-and well earned - sleep.

I feel myself being shaken awake and I suck in a breath wanting to go back to sleep. I mumble a go away and then I feel someone's hand flicking my ear and I groan swatting the hand away.

I hear a chuckle

"Come on Lucy, wake up, your coming with me even if I have to pour ice water over your head and get my butt kicked by Alicia for ruining our couch." I let out an irritated sigh before sitting up and glancing at my sisters fiance's face tiredly."Come on Eli, Please just let me sleep." I say irratebly. Eli gives me a look, his face serious but I know from the playful and amused glint in his smoke colored gray eyes that he was having fun with my displeasure of being woken up.

We stare at each other for a good two minutes before I start pouting, making him grin brightly. We both know he had won. I shake my head and keep quiet as I get off the couch and yawn before heading over to the front door, slipping on some shoes, and going out the front door, trying to smooth my hair down and over my face as I head out.

I let Eli drive us to the travel center in his new Toyota truck that glinted a beautiful shiny silver in the ray of the sun. It was a gorgeous car and was probably worth a ton of money, even though I knew that this truck probably toke nothing out of Eli's bank account and he could have any kind of car in the world if he wanted to, merely for one reason.

Eli and his family were rich.

Anyone who looked at their house and cars could see that but the thing that everybody in our family liked about him and his family was that they never let their money go to their heads.

That's why Alicia fell in love with him I guess.

My sister and Eli have had a very interesting relationship, to say the least, they were totally different, yet somehow almost completely the same if that even made sense, but no matter if it made sense or not they were perfect for each other. Even though our family's were so different, complete oppisites.

Me and my sister are both darker tanned like out parents. Our dad, from a small Indian reservation called La Push and our mom was from a large Spanish family in Seattle making me and Alicia, half Mexican and half Quileute and sure, our family was never poor, but we were never ever wealthy either.

That was just us and then their was Eli and his parents who are basically the All-American Rich family but despite our differences I can't say that I was very surprised when Eli and Alicia told me-and everybody else-that they were getting married cause' their story goes waaaaayyy back. A long story that surprised a lot of people involved in it-myself included-along the way.

My sister was only fourteen starting her freshman year and Eli was sixteen, in his junior year when they first met. Though I wasn't there I had heard the story of how they met time and time again. In fact, I had been the first, along with my mother, to hear it the day she got back from school and told us about it and about the cute boy who was two years older then her.

How she had been knocked aside by some older blond girls who were in his grade, one of which was known to be the 'it' girl of the school, trying to get with the 'it' guy who just happened to be Eli. Of course Eli had just happened to be there when the 'it' girl, Hilary, knocked my sister down. Actually a majority of the school had been there to see it since it happened in the cafeteria.

Eli, my sister told us, had been coming to her defense but my sister wasn't one to let her battles be fought for her, she wasn't the person to let herself be pushed around and be okay with it, scurrying along like nothing happened, trying to get away from the attention, like I would do. No, my sister was fierce, she still is and she had probably been the first person in the history of time to stand up to Hilary, which was why everyone had been shocked and tried to stay away from her, since she had become the mean girls new target.

Of course Eli didn't stay away. Alicia had said that after she told off Hilary her eyes had locked with Eli's and that she was a goner, so was he and he was going to go after her. Of course hearing his status as a rich boy, school basketball star and one of the most popular people at school my sister wanted nothing to do with him. It was a known fact that she hated that type of guy, but Eli was different.

It took Eli three months to convince my sister to go out with him. Those three months had been insanely eventful to, espesially for her. But he had managed to convince my stuborn sister and they really did fall into a fairy tale romance and along with that romance they fell completely in love. It was actually amazing how they loved each other so much at such a young age.

They got a surprise of a lifetime when my sister found out that she was pregnant though. It was the month of May and Alicia was in the end of her sophomore year while Eli was getting ready to graduate High School all together. I knew that my sister had always talked about marrying Eli one day somewhere in the future and starting a family but never this soon.

Alicia had been scared out of her mind, but who wouldn't be really, but this was my sister. She was tough as nails, stubborn and had never believed that a story this out of this world and romantic could have ever happened to her. It had never seemed possible but it happened and then she had wound up pregnant. Me and my mom had been the ones there when she had found out.

We had been the ones to convince her that she had to tell Eli. And she had. Eli had been more supportive than any person would have probably thought him to ever be, even my sister. I think that that was when Alicia really and truly realized how much she loved him and how much he loved her. Sure, Eli had been scared, but he had also been thrilled to be a dad. Even after my dad had given him a black eye.

Eli had asked her to marry him back then. My sister had said no but had agreed to move in with him, and she did, after me, my sister, my mother and my aunts had all managed to somehow convince my father to let her.

No matter how young they were I knew that even back then they would likely be together forever. They're story, they're love along with my parents love made me believe in fairytales, in happy endings. They made me believe that I could someday have a fairytale romance with a happy ending.

But that all changed barely two years later after the fire happened.I had only been twelve at the time and since the fire had happened at night nobody had been awake. I had only woken up in time to get downstairs, where a fireman had found me and carried me out, but my parents hadn't been so lucky. The fire had taken their lives, it made me and my sister orphans, it left me scarred.

And everyday when I looked at my scars I remembered. I remembered the pain. I remebered my parents screams. Everyday I remembered that I was alive and they weren't.

And yet everybody said I was lucky.

Lucky that I was alive.

I didn't feel very lucky.

Not when I looked at my scars and all I could do was remember. There wasn't really any way to avoid looking at them either, unless I wanted to never look in a mirror ever again in my life.

The burns started on my forehead, covering the most of it, and they went down the entire right side of my face, going down my eyebrow, part of my eye, over my cheek and chin, all the way down my neck heading part way over my right shoulder but ending at my collarbone. The burns on my face weren't pretty at all, in fact they were extremely noticicable, usually making people stare.

Other than the fact that the ones on my face were terribly gruesome the fact that it had gone over my right eye meant that I had lost all sight in it. It had been weird at first, only being able to see out of one eye, but I had gotten used to it. And I could still drive so that was a good thing I guess.

Then there were the burns that weren't visible but still just as bad as the ones on my face. The burns went from my stomach, right under my breasts, down the entire front of my body all the way past my thighs ending above my knees. Those burns were by far the worst, which made me glad that they wouldn't be seen by the world like my face was.

Then the least dangerous burns of them all were the small ones I had on the bottom of my feet and on my ankles, along with the ones that got just a little bit worse on my palms and hands, reaching a little bit above my wrists.

One of the things I was most thankful for was that my sister was no where near the house during the fire, away living with Eli and her daughter, not having to endure the pain that I had too. Though it was no secret that she grieved their deaths just as much as me. And she was the one at their funeral since I couldn't go, due to being kept in the hospital for first, second, and even on my stomach, a third degree burn.

And right after I had been released from the hospital my sister had taken full custody of me and I had moved in with her, Eli and their daughter and my neice Nickolette. Lots had changed to after my parents had died and my bond with my sister had grown stronger, if that was even possible and my relationship with Eli had changed dramatically to and he became the older brother that I had never had.

I had also became close with Nickolette who was still only a baby then but still one of the sweetest and most adorable little girls I had ever met and with me living in the same house as her while she grew up she had gotten used to me as a daily figure in her life. I also helped them take care of her often, something I took joy in, finding out how much I really loved kids.

I had also tried to spend more time with my family knowing now that they wouldn't be there forever. My moms side of the family had always been a huge part of my life and had been so supportive and caring of me after the fire, just like I had expected that they would be like. One thing that had been surprising though was how much Eli's parents, Mary and Rob, had helped us through this, taking over the role of second parents for me and Alicia but I knew that they would never replace my real parents ever.

But they still helped a lot. I had never really spoken a lot to Eli's parents before, other then when our families had dinner together occasionally but that was because I maybe had been a little judemental, thinking that they were like other rich families who wouldn't give us a second glance. I knew that they weren't like that now, because I had given them a chance and they were really great.

But even with all this support, me and my sister mostly grieved together and with Eli and our families helping us through it all we managed to pick up the peices of our broken hearts, trying to heal the loss of our parents the best we could.

Then another bright spot came into all of our lives three years ago when Sonya and Eli had another child, another little girl named Cecilia. And now, finally after eleven years of dating, they were finally getting married.

I think everyone was releaved and excited to see it finally happen.

I knew that Eli had asked my sister multiple times to marry him over the years yet Alicia had always said no. Either because she claimed that she wasn't ready, or that to much was going on, or that it wasn't the right time. Many people had been wondering if it would ever be the right time. But nobody gave up hope on the two marrying. My aunt's had even placed bets on when they would get married.

"So Lucy, do you think she'll like it?"

I glanced at Eli and saw hime tapping his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel as he watched me waiting for my answer out of the corner of his eye. I knew that he was worried that she wouldn't like it, or even that she wouldn't be happy with what he had did for her but I knew my sister to and I knew that she would love it.

Eli was planning to take her across Europe this summer for their honeymoon.

"Eli she won't like it, she'll love it."

And I knew that she would love it

Eli probably knew that to but he was just a little stressed about the wedding to think straight. Traveling across Europe had been one of my sisters biggest dreams in life but she had either always been to busy with her job as a realestate agent, or with the kids, or worrying about the kids and me in general so taking her to Europe for a honeymoon would be perfect.

Eli had been the one to come up with the idea and had come to me a few weeks back to ask for help on planning the trip and everything that went with it. I had agreed with a huge smile.

Alicia would didn't know anything about where the honeymoon would be. All that she knew was that I knew about it and was helping Eli plan it. She had tried more than a few times to try and get it out of me so it was a good thing that I was pretty good at keeping a secret.

Eli sighed loudly and I had an urge to roll my eyes, something that I didn't do very often. "Really Eli, Alicia is my sister and I know that she's going to love it." He smiled his signiture Eli smile at me. The sweet smile that held only sincerity in it and made many people like him instantly for it. The same smile that won my sister over. Even with the smile I knew he was still worried.

He was just as bad as my sister over making everything perfect for this wedding.

"Just don't worry."

He sighed again.