Hey! This was prompted by TooBusyBeingAnAwkoTaco- you've got great ideas, love! :D
Enjoy!
Abigail Clarke scoffed at her twin sister as Carolyn twirled to the acoustic music that played from the stereo. "Carrie, can't you do something different with your time?"
"Like you do? Reading story books all day and staying cooped up in your room?" Carolyn said calmly, unfazed by her sisters annoyance. "I'm sorry, but I prefer to breathe the air outside."
Abigail rolled brown eyes. "You're sixteen and you're still spinning like a ballerina in pink dresses. Grow up."
"Like you did? Diving into a bottomless pit of black and depressing music?"
Abigail was about to snap back a reply, but she refrained and stood up, slapping her novel shut and storming out of the common room.
Abigail and Carolyn, though twins, were complete opposites and not afraid to tell anyone so. Inheriting their mother's smarts and their father's quick wit and mischievousness (though they do put these things to use in much different ways), they also shared the same eyes and blonde, curly hair. While Carolyn straightened her hair and kept it just below the shoulders, Abigail kept the curls and let the locks fall to her mid back, and she dyed the ends a different color every month. In any way you could think of, they were different; their clothes, their grades, their musical taste, their friends, their dates, their preferred careers, their idols; their favorite foods.
And it had been years since they could be in a room together and not fight.
"Whoa, slow down, rock star," their father chuckled, nearly plowed over by Abigail.
She ignored him and retreated back to her bedroom. Faintly, rock music began to play from the other side of the door, once it had been slammed shut.
"I'm home," Mara called from the doorway. She hung up her navy blue blazer in the closet and entered the common room.
"Welcome home, Mrs. Clarke." her husband smirked and leaned down to kiss her.
"Mum, do you know where grandma's white shawl is? I'd like to wear it to the dance this Friday." Carolyn asked, switching the stereo off and turning to her parents, hands clasped behind her innocently.
"I think it's in the attic, in that old chest of hers." Mara replied, moving into the kitchen to start preparing dinner.
"Thank you," she said and skipped out of the room.
As she climbed the stairs up to the attic, Abigail poked her head out of her bedroom, music now silenced temporarily. "Dad, where are the spare parts for my record player?" she yelled, making sure she could be heard downstairs.
"In the attic, I believe!" Jerome hollered back from the couch, flipping through several channels boredly.
"Alright," she closed her door behind her and jogged up to the attic.
Carolyn was already shuffling around, moving boxes and dusting her hands off in disgust as they got covered in dust. Abigail rolled her eyes and kicked a couple unlabeled boxes aside. When she found the cardboard box labeled, Abigail's Record Player Parts, she opened it and pulled out the box of extra needles. She closed the box and was about to head back downstairs when she noticed a box shoved in the furthest corner of the room. The lid was open and a thick, pink book sparkled in the light of the sun that shown through the attic's single, small window.
That doesn't look like something mum and dad would keep, she thought with a tilt of her head. Curiosity got the best of her and she pushed her way through the boxes to the one with the book. She pulled it out, finding that there were others and the box was labeled in Jerome's chicken scratch, Amber's Stupid Scrapbooks.
Auntie Amber loves scrapbooking, Abigail thought in acknowledgment, and stared at the cover of the first scrapbook.
Jara 4 Ever, it read in sparkly, capital letters.
"Carrie," Abigail called.
"What," she sighed, pulling a few scarves out of their grandmother's old chest and glancing at them thoughtfully.
"Do you know what a 'Jara' is?" she said with a chuckle.
"Jara…Jara… Oh, Jara, I think, is what Auntie Amber calls mum and dad. It's their couple name; Jerome plus Mara equals Jara. Just like Auntie Patricia and Uncle Eddie are Peddie, and Auntie Amber and Uncle Alfie are Amfie, and Sammy and I are Cammy." She giggled at the thought of her boyfriend, and then she stopped, looking over at her, "Why did you want to know?"
"I found one of Amber's old scrapbooks. It's called Jara 4 Ever." She explained, opening it to the first page. "'Does he think no one knows he's got a massive crush on her?'" she read aloud the caption for the picture; Jerome staring at Mara from across the common room in Anubis House as he played on his Gameboy and she read a book.
"Oh my, gosh, look at dad's hair! It's so poofy compared to now," Carolyn laughed, pointing at the picture as she took a seat on a stool behind Abigail, who sat on the floor with her legs crossed.
"'Their first kiss! I'm so glad I saved that picture before she deleted it!'" Abigail rolled her eyes.
"You know, mum and dad never tell us stories about when they were in highs school. We should ask them to tell us about how they started dating and stuff. Uncle Eddie always says that they're lucky they're even together." Carolyn mumbled as they continued to flip through the scrapbook.
"Yeah, but Eddie's always joking around anyway. Why would he say they're lucky if they seem so perfect all the time?"
"Maybe that's why." Carolyn pointed to another picture further into the book.
I can't believe he cheated on her! Amber's caption read in bold, black letters.
"Dad cheated on mum?" the twins exclaimed simultaneously.
"Go, let's go," Abigail urged her sister up and they rushed for the door, forgetting what they had come for in the first place.
"Mummy, daddy," they said slowly, sliding into the kitchen where their parents were playfully arguing.
Jerome froze and leaned down to hiss in his wife's ear, "They sound like every single pair of creepy twins in every horror movie I've ever seen!"
Mara looked up at him and slapped his arm scolding me and he shrugged innocently.
"You cheated on her?" Carolyn accused, jabbing a finger at her father.
Jerome jumped back in shock, and began choking on air. "What, when?" he gasped out.
"When," Mara demanded.
"In high school," Abigail said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, holding up Amber's scrapbook.
"Oh, in high school, the one and only time—right, J," Mara asked, giving him a look.
"Of course, darling," he replied sincerely, wrapping his arms around her. He looked at his daughters, "You two shouldn't be looking at Amber's scrapbooks; she's crazy."
"But you guys never tell us about your high school life and your relationship in school, so we took it into our own hands." Abigail said with a smirk.
"She told me not to," he mouthed, pointing down at his wife. When she looked up at him, he grinned lovingly and pecked her forehead. He tightened his grip around her waist. "I love you…"
"I never told him he couldn't; I just said that you two have never shown any interest in our pasts."
"Well, now we are!" Carolyn squealed. "Can you tell us about your relationship? How you met, when you started dating—everything Amber has in the scrapbook but elaborated?"
Mara spoke hesitantly, "Well we stayed in the same boarding house at school, that's how we met…"
Review? Prompt? I need 9 more!
"...and you never would have thought in the end, how amazing it feels just to live again. It's a feeling that you cannot miss; it burns a hole through everyone that feels it." -Blue and Yellow, The Used
-Rachel