The News That Almost Killed Her

Never did Rhian think that she could possibly get killed by walking into her house.

But today she almost did just that.

As she walked through the front door of her house, she tripped over an abandoned backpack, almost cracking her head open on the wooden floor, but thankfully, she caught herself before her forehead kissed the ground.

What the?

Turning her head to the side, she saw her brother’s backpack lying on the ground, innocently. As if it was mocking her.

“Are you ok, Miss. Rhian?” she turned around and saw the housekeeper, Martha, staring at her. Rhian hadn’t heard her come from the kitchen. She plastered on a fake smile and nodded in reply.

“I’m fine Martha, I’m just going to go up and see my dear, dear, brother. You can go back and finish dinner.” She said, sweetly.

“Yes, Miss. Rhian,” Martha curtsied and went back to the kitchen to finish dinner.

Growling, Rhian grabbed the backpack strap as if she was strangling her brother and dragged it up the stairs, not caring as it bounced with each step. Sure, her mother would care that she was showing ‘unladylike behavior’ but she definitely didn’t give a damn right now.

Without knocking on the door, she burst into her brother’s room, pushing the door with so much force it hit the opposite wall with a resounding bang that matched the anger that she was feeling.

“Bradin, how many times have I told you stop leaving your backpack by the front door? I almost broke my neck on it!” Rhian growled as she stormed into her brother’s room. She found him sitting on the end of his bed, nonchalantly flipping through a skateboarding magazine. He had jumped when the door burst open and was now staring at her.

“Sorry, sis, I didn’t think that it would bother anyone.” Bradin smirked back and caught the backpack that she threw at him easily.

Rhian and Bradin are fraternal twins, both having blue eyes, dark brown hair, and similar facial structures. They also have a light smattering of freckles on their nose and a lopsided smile, and a good sense of humor.

Bradin is older than Rhian by two minutes and doesn’t let Rhian forget it, much to her annoyance. He, being the older brother, constantly annoys Rhian and tries to get her to do things for him, using his winning smile and sly tactics that usually get his parents to take his side on arguments.

Rhian has the classic little sister syndrome, trying to get her parents to believe her over her brother. With her stubbornness and determination, she tries not to let her brother trick her in to doing things for him. Needless to say the two get into a lot of arguments as their personalities clash.

Even being 18 years old, they argue like they’re 12, it’s sad and annoying, especially to their separate group of friends.

“Didn’t think it would bother anyone?” Rhian repeated as she raised her eyebrows. “Do you know how many times mom and dad have tripped over your backpack.

“Well, Rhiannon, I don’t remember mom or dad every complaining about it.” He replied and cocked an eyebrow when his little sister winced at the use of her full name. She was named after the Celtic goddess of the moon, a statue that her mother was proud to have in the living room, but dislikes it so much that she refuses to answer by that name. “So I guess you’re going to be out of luck when you run to mom and dad and try to get them to side with you this time.” He looked at his backpack and held it away from him as if it had some kind of fungus. “And I told you not to touch my stuff.”

“Well excuse me, your majesty,” Rhian rolled her neck and bowed for emphasis and Bradin rolled his eyes at her antics. “We mustn’t make his highness unhappy or he’ll blow a gasket.”

“Do you even know what a gasket is?” Bradin asked as he stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. That was how he gave himself away when he was angry. He runs his fingers though his hair as if he had an extremely itchy scalp.

“Yes, I know what a gasket is.” Rhian replied her voice dripping with sarcasm as she rolled her eyes. “Unlike you I actually know how to study and keep an A average.” She shot at his B- average that usually slipped into the C range.

“Oh don’t tell me we’re back into that again.” Bradin said in a warning tone as he tightened his hand into a fist. “Not everybody is cut out for school ‘Miss. I don’t have a life because I’m studying all the time.’”

“Well excuse me, ‘Mr. I don’t have a girlfriend because I have intimacy issues’.” Rhian shot back heatedly. This was how every argument started. One of the twins would be mad about something, take it out on the other, and insults would fly back and forth, with no sign of it stopping anytime soon. “But just because I study, doesn’t mean that I don’t have a life.”

“Really? What happened to Blaine, the last guy you went out with?” Bradin put a finger to his chin, pretending to think about it. “Oh, I remember, be he dumped you because you were too boring.”

“For your information, we mutually agreed to break up!” Rhian replied haughtily. Bradin sneered at her and cocked his head to the side.

“Did you mutually agree to let him date the school slut behind your back too?”

“You know what, Bradin; you can just go to hell!”

“I’ll see you there before I even get there myself!”

“Kids, what are you arguing about now?”

The sudden voice made Bradin and Rhian turned to the doorway and saw their father, Artemis, standing there, his hands shoved into his pockets. Even though he’s only 40, their father looks way older. With his salt and peppered hair, more gray than anything else, and heavy bags under his eyes, you can tell that he works really hard at his many car dealerships. It pays off too; the McAllister family is one of the richest where they live. Bradin and Rhian don’t like to be known as the rich kids, so they don’t do anything flashy. Their mother works as a hostess to parties that she throws and as a co-hostess to parties that other people in their class throw.

Millie McAllister is practically in love with the fact that she’s rich. She tries to make her children show that they have more money than other people do, by making them go to a lot of fancy parties, but so far nothing has changed. Neither like to speak it out loud, but they wouldn’t be sure if their mother was being faithful to their father. At 35 years old she is stunning and is a definite contrast to their father, to put it nicely, she’s a snob. She doesn’t like it whenever Bradin and Rhian socialize with people that aren’t in the same class as them, and she always talks down about others.

“We weren’t arguing dad, we were just practicing for a play,” the lie easily rolled off of Rhian’s tongue, she looked over at Bradin, who nodded in reply, backing up her story.

“That’s good; I don’t think that I could stand your guys’ arguing for today.” Artemis sighed as he untied his tie. “Not with everything that’s going on?”

“What is going on, dad?” Bradin asked, immediately jumping on the bait. The twins had a feeling that something had been going on lately, whenever they went into a room that their parents were in and they were talking, they would immediately clam up. It was starting to scare them.

“Nothing you kids need to worry about, you should get washed up, dinner is going to be ready in a few minutes.” Artemis added and left the room.

“You do know that he’s hiding something, right?” Bradin asked, flicking his hair out of his face. Rhian rolled her eyes towards him.

“I know that, let’s just hope that tonight they’ll tell us what it is.” Rhian replied and left his room to go to hers.

After changing into nicer clothes that Millie had set out for them, Bradin and Rhian joined their parents at the large dinner table. The twins hated to eat at a table that is seated for 18 when the four were the only ones that ate there. Now, during dinner, they sat at the table, picking at their food in anxiousness.

“Rhiannon, don’t slouch, you’ll lose your posture.” Millie scolded. Rhian flashed an apologetic smile and immediately straightened up and discreetly kicked Bradin under the table to sit up straight too.

“Mom, you have the less expensive dinner plates out,” he realized, she only did that whenever there was something that she wanted to tell them. “What’s wrong?”

Rhian looked over at her brother before looking at her mom, who suddenly looked like she was about to cry. She wasn’t that worried about what was going to be said, her mother usually over dramatized things. Last time she had some ‘bad news’ was when she said that they weren’t going to be able to vacation in the Bahamas.

Instead they went to Paris.

“It’s nothing to be alarmed about, really,” Millie replied, although she had a strained expression on her face. “We’re getting the house renovated, so we can add another wing and a home theater.”

“So, what’s the problem with that?” Bradin asked in confusion.

“Well, with so much dangerous construction going on, and for the sake of our hearing, we can’t stay in the house listening to the rack for 3 months.” Millie continued.

“Wait, where are we going to live then, in a hotel?” Rhian was completely confused with this whole situation. Why did they need another wing anyway, their house was already as big as it could possibly get. But apparently it wasn’t big enough for her mother.

“Heavens, no! We’re going to stay with the Beaumont.” She replied. Bradin grinned and Rhian looked like she was going to kill herself.

“Mom, we can’t stay there!” she declared and then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth as her parents looked at her in shock and her brother looked at her in smugness.

Serena and Sebastian Beaumont aren’t bad at all. Sebastian is the owner of the largest metro that runs through Atlanta, and Serena is pretty much a trophy wife, like Millie. Really, they weren’t the problem. Their son, Nicholas, or Nic, was. The two hate each other, and have hated each other since elementary school where there was an incident with a lollipop and glue that left the both of them crying and screaming for their mothers.

They’ve been arranged to be married since they were born and Rhian would rather do anything than stay in her ‘fiancée’s house for three whole months, she would rather chew off her foot. Or her brother’s foot, she would use her foot to kick her brother’s ass, considering Nic is his best friend.

“Why can’t we, dear?” Millie asked tightly, her lips pursed.

“It would give you and Nic more time to get to know each other before you get married, you haven’t really been spending a lot of time with him, lately.” Artemis added.

“I meant that we can’t stay there because I wasn’t sure what rooms we were going to stay in.” Rhian replied lamely and Bradin snickered at her.

“You’d stay in the best guest rooms of course,” Millie sounded offended. “I can’t have my children stay in the rooms that other people have slept in.”

“Of course.” Rhian sighed and wondered if she should go out and buy a taser.

She might need it.

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Read and Review please, Constructive Criticism is welcome.