Christmas Eve 2013
TALIA'S POV
My family, the Kozma's, sat happily at the Hemmings dining table. My older sister Ana was engaged to one of the Hemmings boys, Jack to be exact. They met while in college 5 years ago and had been inseparable since.
This Christmas Eve both families decided to have dinner and spend time together as Ana and Jack's wedding was coming up in 7 days. There had been complete madness all month-long and we agreed that a quiet dinner was exactly what everyone needed at this point. Not a word of table cloths, vows, or flowers was to be spoken of.
Our families simply clicked and I believe that was something good, considering all of the terrible in-law stories we always heard.
As I started a conversation with my brother, Xander, I felt a foot jab into my leg. I turned to the source of the jab, Luke, the youngest of the Hemmings.
Luke and I got along the moment we met, we declared ourselves best friends the first time we hung out and began causing innocent trouble. Being friends with Luke came easy for me, when honestly making friends had always been a difficult task for me ever since we moved to California from Greece when I was 13. We made the move because my dad got a huge offer to do business with a big corporation. Sure, it meant my mom and dad leaving both of their families behind, but all that mattered to them was that they had their kids with them.
I had always been the quieter, more hesitant one out of the three children. Ana the oldest, 23, Xander, the middle child, 21, and I, the youngest, being 19.
Ana was smart and obeyed our parents, she managed to get into Harvard, where she met Jack, but she was a party animal, at least she had been until Jack came along. I had vague memories of hearing her drunkenly stumble into the house in the early hours of any given Saturday and not waking up until after 2 or 3 PM and being so hungover. She studied as hard as she partied.
Xander, everyone said he was a living Greek God. He was a decent-looking young man, but he held that to his advantage and became a player once puberty slapped him in the face. He was sweet, in no question, a charmer, that was what got him all the women. He was very athletic and very much so obsessed with keeping up his physique. If you called his cell phone between the hours of 8 AM and 11 AM there was no doubt he was either at the gym or going for a jog on the beach. There was no one he loved more than himself.
As for me, I was an average, anxiety ridden, confused, freak, who had no idea what she was doing with her life and spent most of her days sleeping or getting overwhelmed by thinking about her future. I spent some of my free time sketching out designs of clothes in hopes that I would do something with those sketches one day, but I knew in the back of my head I wouldn't. The rest of my time I helped my Dad out some days by filing paperwork or taking phone calls for him in his office when he got busy. It was money and I felt nice helping my Dad out. I made the grades to get into Harvard like Ana, but when I went off for a week to visit the campus I was hit with homesickness and separation anxiety and I began to think that maybe being so far away from my parents, even Luke, wasn't what I wanted at the moment. That was before I knew Luke would soon be leaving me to tour the world with his band.
"I haven't seen Jack and Ana remove themselves from each other all evening," Luke muttered under his breath as he brought his fork full of mashed potatoes up to his mouth. "It's disgusting." He shoved the food into his mouth and shook his head. Nobody hated PDA more than Luke. If Liz kissed him on the cheek, he would wipe it away immediately. If anyone wrapped an arm casually over his shoulders, he would dodge the gesture in one swift movement and remind that person that he needed his space. He hated it all.
