Love Your Enemy

“I don’t want to go see ‘the Cullen’s’, Mom,” I complained and used air quotes.
My mother closed her eyes and sighed. She was already tired of my complaints. “They are important people to you father, Liv, please give them a chance.”
“But they are vampires!” my face turned into one big, disgusted grimace. “They are the dead because they have no heartbeat.”

“Olive, please don’t start this again,” she sighed.
I knew what she would say. “We have already been through this a million times,” I mocked her. “But I don’t want to go! Mama,” I said and turned to my grandmother. She sat beside the open suitcase on my bed. “Can’t I stay with you and grandpa?”

My mama, Elia, let out one of her pearly laughs. “You know how much I want you to stay with us, but you’ve got to listen to your mom this time, Livvy.”
I groaned. “C’mon!”
“This discussion is over, Olive, put your clothes back in your suitcase and bring it downstairs,” mom said and left the room.

I dumped down on the floor with my arms tightly crossed over my chest and pouted. All of my clothes lay scattered around me after my small tantrum which led to me throwing them out and all around.

“I don’t think it will be that bad,” my sister Sophia said and walked across the hall from her room.
“What do you know?” I asked sarcastically. “You’ve never met them.”
“But dad likes them, so they can’t be that bad,” she shrugged and pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose; a habit she’d had since forever.
“Get out, Soph, you’re exactly like mom.”

“Lizza called dibs on the window seat, by the way. Do you want the middle?”
It was my turn to sigh. “No, you’ll sit in the middle, it’s safer for you.”
She stretched her hand out and clumsily brushed it over my hair. “Love you Liv.”
“Love you too, Soph.”
I stared at her back as Sophia as well left the room. Then I turned to mama again.

“I’ll help you fold them, Livvy. We’ll be done quickly.”
“How do you stand it, mama, to send your family right in the fangs of our supposed enemies?”
“Don’t be prejudiced, Liv. I know the legends, our heritage, but I also know they are really old. A lot of things have changed,” she told me and placed my clothes back in my suitcase.
“Old like you?” I asked and raised a eyebrow at her.

She threw a sweater at my head and made me laugh.
“No. The legends are old like vampires,” she said and winked at me.

~~~

“Ollie!” I yelled down the stairs. “Come take my suitcase!”
“Do it yourself, lazy ass!” he called back.
“Oliver Talley, take your niece’s heavy suitcase downstairs right now,” mama said as she walked past me down stairs.

Oliver glared at me as he moved his big body up the stairs. “Unfair,” he mumbled under his breath.
I smirked and shoved my way past him. “Totally unfair

The hallway at the end of the stairs was filled with bags and suitcases. My parents and sisters were already saying goodbye to my grandparents. I tried to suppress the lump in my throat. I hated leaving them again; we only just moved back here last month.

“Behave, Livvy,” mama said as she hugged me tightly.
“I will,” I said with a smile. “Don’t I always?”
My grandfather embraced me as well. I drew in the familiar scent.
“Promise me you won’t be polite to them. They don’t deserve it,” he whispered to me.
I snickered and pecked his cheek. “You know me, grandpa,” I whispered back.

“I should probably take off, so I get there the same time as you,” Oliver said. He was running till ‘the Cullen’s’. They lived somewhere in Maine, that was all the info I had bothered hearing.
“Be careful, son,” grandpa said and patted his shoulder.
“And you’ll listen to your sister; she’d in charge of you. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Ollie smiled at her. “You know me, mama.”
I covered my mouth to hold back my laughter when he winked at me. The fact that Oliver was going with us made it all a whole lot easier to cope with.

~~~

“Lizza!” I snapped at my twelve year old sister. “Turn the fricking thing down before I smash it.”
Elizabeth was a dedicated Miley Cyrus fan and were blasting the music at top volume on her iPod; I detested the music.
“Elizabeth!” I leaned over Sophia to poke her arm.
“What?” she snapped back at me and glared at me with her ice blue eyes.

She looked nothing like me or Sophia. But Elizabeth was adopted. My parents took her in when she was only five. She was abandoned in the city we were living in; my hometown Parghelia. They became her legal guardians and adopted her when she was seven. But I treated her like a real little sister – I couldn’t picture my life without her.

“Please turn that annoying noise off before I throw it out the window.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “You can’t open the window when we’re in the air, stupido.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Just turn it down.”
“No.”
I breathed in deeply to calm myself.

Sophia saved us from the upcoming battle and handed me one of the earpieces from her iPod.
“It’s Muse,” she said.
I sighed in relief. “Thanks Soph.”

The speakers on the plane buzzed just as I was falling asleep.
”We are now ready to descend till Portland International Jetport. Fasten seatbelt.”

The three of us – Lizza, Soph and I – had a ritual we always did when the plane takes off or lands. We hold hands; like a circle even though we sit in a line and we hum the song dad always sings to us when we’re afraid under thunderstorms. And I still pretend I’m scared when it is thunder, just because I love the connection the three of us have.

It’s a song he says reminds him of the first years of his and moms marriage. More Than Anyone with Gavin Degraw.
I turn and share a smile with my father as my sister sings out loudly:
“I’m gonna love you more than anyone!
I’m gonna hold you closer than before!”

And as he smiles back at me, I know I will make a effort and play good girl towards ‘the Cullen’s’, because he love me more than anyone.