The Last Defender (FINISHED)

Chapter 2: The Letter

My mom, being the sadist that she was, decided that I had to get ready and eat breakfast before I could open the letter. And the worst thing? She made sure it was right next to me while I was eating, so tantalizingly close. Then, 45 minutes later (I was tired, okay? Don't judge me.), when I was finally finished, my mom said I could open the letter. She, of course, also wanted to know if I was accepted or not. Come on, she's my mom. And then there was my dad, who just sat there silently, urging me to go faster. I reached for the letter, then paused. I decided it was payback time.

'Actually,' I said, a big grin spreading over my face, 'I'll wait.' The big, victorious grin that was on my mother's face melted. 'What?'
'Well,' I explained, 'We have a whole party planned, but we don't even know yet what it's going to celebrate;  Me going, or me staying.' It was true. I was supposed to go to Kim and Vince's house next door in about 15 minutes. Me and my friends, aka Kim and Vince (the twins), Nicky (The loud one), Joann (aka Jo, aka the Tomboy), and Alex (my boyfriend), had a sleepover planned to celebrate whatever it said in that letter. Usually, every other Friday, we'd have a sleepover, either at Kim and Vince's, or at my house. We didn't break away from that pattern, we'd had a sleepover last Friday at my house, and if I'd be staying, we'd have it again next Friday. But if I were to go to Birchwood, then I'd leave Monday, and I wouldn't come back for a while.

'So..?' my mom asked, not getting the point. I shrugged. 'You guys come with me when I go to Isabel's,' I said. Isabel was Kim and Vince's mom. 'We'll go early, so we make sure we're there first. Then we'll gather everyone, we have more than enough cake and stuff. I open the letter, with everyone there, parents included. Then everyone'll know what we're celebrating, and I won't have to tell them 20 minutes after I opened the letter.'

My dad nodded slowly. 'She has a point, Marissa,' he told my mom. She sighed with exasperation. 'Yes, thank you, George,' she said, smiling faintly to let him know she didn't mean any harm.

So there we went, a few minutes later, on that long journey of about 3 seconds. Kim opened the door before we could even knock, her brother Vince behind her.

Kimberley was a tall girl with wavy brown hair, and brown eyes. She was 14 years old, and had been my best friend for as long as we could remember. Everyone usually calls her Kim. Her twin brother, Vince, also had brown hair and brown eyes, and he was even taller than Kim. His hair was straight and came down to a little over his ears. Me, being all short and stuff, always felt like I was surrounded by giants in their house. The only one shorter than me was Nicky.

'Hey Steph,' Kim said, 'did your plan succeed?' I laughed. She knew I had hoped to open the envelope in front of everyone, mostly just because she convinced me to. I nodded and held up the sealed envelope as proof. The twins grinned. 'Good,' she said, snatching it away from me,' now come inside.'

And so we did. My parents joined Isabel and Henry, the twins' dad, who were sitting in the livingroom. I joined the twins up to their room in the top floor. Not the attic, because there was a slanted roof, but it didn't start in the twins' room. It was a huge room, at least 8 meters from the door to the far side of the room, and 2,5 meters on either side of the door. There were two different coloured carpets in the same, shorthaired and extremely soft style. Kim's side was a cream white colour, and Vince's side was dark blue. The same counted for the walls. The long walls were different coloured. Kim's side was purple, and Vince's side was a light blue colour. The short walls, so the wall on either side of the door, and the wall on the far side from the door, were covered in chalkpaint. They were completely wiped clean. Above the door was a stripe in the middle, indicating the border of the room. Not as if you couldn't tell from the carpet border. Parallel from the line above the door, on the opposite wall, there was another stripe, from floor to ceiling. Again, not as if you couldn't tell. Half a centimeter from the carpet line on either side, there was a desk, with a chair, and a laptop on it. Above the desks, there was another window, looking right into my room.
On either side there was a queensized bed under a large window. Beside the beds, on the sides closer to the desks, there was a bookcase. On the other side there was a drawer for clothes. Then there was some random personal stuff everywhere. It looked surprisingly neat, but probably only because Isabel had forced Kim and Vince to clean their room.

I sat down on Kim's bed, which had a surprisingly soft, hot pink bedding. Of course, I'd felt it before, but it was so much nicer than my own. I glanced into my own room, which I could see from here.
The thing is, our house was pretty much identical to the twins'. But I have a lot less room in my room, which is also the top floor in my house, than either of the twins separately, because my parents figured it would make a good attic, as well. So basically, I had to share a room with the attic.

Kim joined me on the bed. 'You know,' she said, 'I know you really want to go to that school and stuff, but damn... I'd miss you.' I nodded. That had been my main problem in whether I should go or not. I'd miss my friends to much. We'd been friends, all of us, since as long as I could remember. And then I'd have to miss them for longer than we'd ever been apart. Damn, did that turn out different than expected.

10 minutes later, everyone was there. We were all sitting in the living room, in a circle around me. My parents across from me, Kim on my left side, Alex on my right side, an arm around my shoulders, and everyone else in between them. Kimberley handed me the envelope, which she still had. I was very aware of the twenty-six eyes watching me. Alex, Kim, Vince, Nicky, Jo, Alex's parents, the twins' parents, my parents, Nicky's parents, and Jo's dad. Slowly, I opened the envelope. I took out the letter, took a deep breath, and started reading.

"Dear miss Gray,
Thank you for your interest in Birchwood School of Arts. We received many interesting and excellent applications, only some of which we were able to accept this year. We reviewed your application very carefully and note several strong features. There is rigorous competition for entry into our graduate programs and your application was not among those that we were able to accept..."

By then my voice had died down. I had been denied.

Okay, so, hi. This is a shorter part, but I was getting kinda sick of this part. The parts from here are going to take a little more time because I need Mr_Rorlord's help. Next chapter will star Dino, which is one of his characters... Welp, I should get started...

xx Rissa