Red Hair, Black Soul (Red & Black #1)

01 | Could you pass me the Cheerios?

Making children switch places in the middle of their school career should be illegal.

That's exactly what I told my parents when they transferred us from Scotland to Ann Arbor in Michigan, USA. After Dad lost yet another job and Mom decided she's had enough of teaching children, they made a decision about leaving. But not to another Scottish town or city. Not even to another British or even European country. No, they had to aim high and set their minds on the United States, the country of hamburgers and cowboys. Which was, of course, everything I could ever want as a vegetarian who is afraid of horses.

I did everything that was in my power to make them change their minds. I begged, yelled, cried, all for nothing. I even threatened to make a run for it and live with our sort-of-haunted aunt in Northern Scotland. I must not have been persuasive enough because it didn't give me anything. Even Everett, my older by eight years brother who has always taken my side before decided to stand against me now. As a result, before the school year was even finished, I found myself already packed and making preparations to quit both my normal and music school.

I think it was him I blamed most. My brother always supported me, always was there for me, and helped me with every matter. He was the mediator between me and our parents when something went wrong. He was the one who held my hand when I refused to learn how to walk led by any of my parents. He was my idol, my hero, and my personal bodyguard since the very day I was born - and maybe even earlier. So when I heard him answer with a yes to the question asked by Mum and Dad, I couldn't bring myself to believe it.

And it that moment, when I stood beside him and with wide eyes watched his lips form that one, short word, something inside me broke irreversibly. I knew it then, and I know it now, when nothing about the two of us is the same anymore. We are distanced, nothing like what we used to be. There were days when you couldn't see us apart, when we've spent every second of the day and night together, too busy to even eat breakfast. Right now, all that is between us is cool politeness and mutual tolerance when we pass each other in the kitchen or on our way to the bathroom. I know he wants to make it right again, can feel he needs me to forgive him. And I want it, too, every fiber of my being screams for me to forget it all and go back to the old days. But even though my heart and my soul want to forget, my brain - the real estate of humans feelings - can't bring itself to do it. Not after what he did to me. Not after he stuck that one final nail to my coffin despite knowing how much I wanted to remain upside and living.

That's why I ignore him now when he finds me eating cereal at the kitchen table and wishes me good morning.

"Could you pass me the Cheerios?" He asks, grabbing a bowl and sitting down next to me.

I resume eating.

"Cheerios are mine. Yours are the chemistry-filled sugar bombs with the taste of a soap." I tell him.

"You could have easily used the term Lucky Charms, as most people do." He responds, reaching for his cereal box reluctantly.

"I'm not most people." I reply curtly, shoving a spoonful of cereal into my mouth.

I can hear the first of his nerves snap in his long, tortured sigh. And as much as my pure and good heart hates it, the dark, wrenched part of me squeals with delight hearing this.

"Daira, we've talked about this." He sounds exasperated. "Even though you're different, you have to at least try to fit in."

"What for?" Those are my nerves now that are close to snapping. "So that I could make some friends, start and new life and pretend nothing happened?"

I am no longer hungry so I get up and place what is left of my breakfast in the sink. I know Everett hates it when I leave the table when someone else isn't yet finished. That's the main reason behind why I do it now.