Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter One

"I could kill you." Trent muttered and darted his eyes around his company who were quite amused, smirking to themselves as if this made them temporarily superior.

"But you wouldn't." Carmen dug her heels into the sand beneath her sailor style blue and red Versace towel. "I love you more than life itself. You are all I think about. You are all I breath for..." Carmen continued to ridicule reading the message aloud from her phone. Trent looked down at the sand between his legs and felt his face grow hot and the blood inside flush like rapids. The others were in hysterics. "Oh don't be so serious Trent. It's only a joke. We all do stupid things when we're drunk." Carmen gripped onto Trent's knee. 

The most infuriating part about being ridiculed was the hypocrisy of it all. They were all laughing at Trent for sending a perhaps not-so-drunk message to Carmen proclaiming his love for her yet they all felt the same way, even the girls. Maybe nobody felt as strongly as Trent. But they were all enchanted by her. You could tell, as clear as day, even the way they sat; all crammed around her towel in a circle. And as for Carmen herself, it wasn't as if she'd never done anything stupid drunk. Trent practically spent his whole life chasing her round and keeping her acceptable. Of course sometimes he used her reckless nature to his own advantage. But that was different.

"How was Bali?" Leanne fluttered her eyelids; she had thick eyelashes, perhaps her only above average feature.

"It was Cyprus." Jennifer snapped. The treason.

"Jacqueline went to Bali." Tamlyn explained.

"Our house in Java is really second rate." Carmen wrinkled her nose. "But Cyprus is nice." Carmen knew they probably wanted more details but she preferred to keep it short. Short was the honest way of hiding the truth. Her siblings had practically abandoned her. Cyprus had been lonely. "Did you miss me?" Carmen grinned at them all.

"I was in Rome in mid January. I should've come seen you." Anthony sighed.

"Well don't hesitate." Carmen shook Anthony's wrist.

"The city got really hot." Leanne explained.

"I think it just got hotter." Oscar joked. Carmen's lips curled, she couldn't pretend she didn't love the attention.

"That bikini is amazing Carmen." Leanne bit her lip. Why couldn't she get ones that looked that great?

"I think it's what's underneath that makes it." Lennon winked.

"How would you rate your shorts Lennon?" Carmen smiled.

"You can rate mine." Edgar suggested.

Everybody laughed and continued their conversation. But Carmen had since tuned them out. Her one-eyed attention sat a many strides ahead. There on the sand sat her two best friends. There were only two people in the world that really understood her and loved her. But bad things had happened over the summer. Things that had changed everything. And the two people were kissing.

Carmen huffed. She could speak at the top of her voice about risqué topics so the whole of Bondi could hear her. But Ryan and Sienna kept their attention fixated on each other. It was all her siblings fault. Because of them she'd turned down Ryan's offer to go to Buenos Aires with Sienna and his family. Cyprus will be great she had thought I'll get to spend time with Audrey, Leon and Silas. But no, as always, her siblings had taken every chance to get away from their wild baby sister. And yes, Sienna and Ryan had had plenty of fun all by themselves.

Carmen snatched Trent's water bottle and squirted it ahead until the thread of water projected far enough to steal their attention. Sienna snapped her head around, Ryan was slow to click.