Chapter Seventeen_Flashback two

Elena.

He rolled a joint the first day I saw him, holding both leads to two different dogs in front of our manor's grounds. There were acres of forests all around us, the nearest house miles away from here.

I was seventeen, fresh out of high school.

James, on the other hand, was nineteen, his skin glowing while the moon highlighted his face. He wore a cap and had a sort of permanent smile on his face. A smile that kept drawing me in.

"Are you sure you want to go ourside, Elena? It is awfully chilly."

I looked up at my dad from where I sat close to the door, lacing up my boots. "Yeah. I want to meet the friends of my new elder brother."

Dad huffed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "We just got here recently. Evangeline would be mad. She wouldn't want you to wander around with her barely there nineteen years old son."

My smile dropped when the 'barely there' son walked out down the stairs, ignoring both Dad and I because surely he heard what Dad had said.

I rolled my ey