warning!
This isn’t the story with a love triangle. I wanted to try something different rather than the plots of most young adult books so please excuse any flaws with this story but I hope you enjoy it.
“I hate you!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, instantly biting my tongue with regret. My mum’s face was one of horror. I raced up the steps to my bedroom before she could say anything else to me. I flung myself on the bed as if all my energy was exerted from running up the stairs. I should NEVER have said those words to my mum. I don’t even know why she was yelling at me. My mum always seems unhappy. My sister Estelle is normally there to cheer her up but she’s starting her first year at university and she’s living on campus.
I shut off my thoughts as I went to my wardrobe to find my school uniform. I couldn’t see it anywhere and cursed, it must be downstairs in the wash. I couldn’t face my mum just yet so I got out my tattered and faded second-hand uniform. As I picked it up trying to avoid the stench of mothballs I noticed a button out of place. It was turquoise and shiny compared to the other dreary buttons. It was hanging on a loose thread. I decided to ignore it and put on my shirt, turning the button as I fitted it in.
***
I was suddenly coughing up brown dirt around me. The blast of something like gunpowder was ringing in my ears as I tried to get my head together as to why I was not in my bedroom. I glanced to my left and stared at the man shouting orders to other men that seemed like soldiers. The man had a thick brown moustache, light blue eyes and a very thin scar on his left cheek. I don’t know why I was looking at him with so much detail, neither did I know why he would have answers to the millions of questions buzzing around my head in that moment.
“Excuse me sir, where am ?” I asked.
The man saw me and jumped.
“What is a kid doing here?” the man said to no one in particular with a very deep accent.
“I’m sixteen!” I snapped back. Well, technically I was sixteen in two months and five days but I didn’t think the detail really mattered at that moment.
“Well son,” the man replied, “just because you’re sixteen and all grown up means that you’re tough enough to be in a warzone in Afghanistan does it?