"Kota! Bring that box inside!" Skylar yelled from the house. I groaned loudly and picked up the box.
"Sky, you know I hate that name! Always have always will! Why do you always call me that?"
"Because that's what I always call you....always have, always will."
"IT'S DAKOTA!" I yelled and walked outside. I heard her laugh as I left and I just rolled my eyes. The wind was blowing hard which created a lot of waves in the ocean. As I walked towards the beach, I looked back at my new house and smiled. This is going to be so much fun. Confused yet? Let me explain. I'm Dakota Kiley Ross. Last month I graduated high school, which makes me 18 years old. I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the smartest person in high school, probably because I wasn't very devoted. It's been a dream of mine since I was little to be a model. Most people hate me because I can eat anything I want and not gain any weight. What can I say? It's a gift. I have long, light brown hair to the middle of my back and I have bright green eyes. Um...anything else? Oh yeah, I'm 5'10 which is a good height for modeling. Anyways...since I'm going to be a model and living in Ohio won't get you very far, my dad bought me this beach house in Orlando. He wanted to make sure that I'd be okay in Florida, but since he still wanted to protect me, he bought this practically secluded house. It's huge so I'm not complaining. I guess being brought up in a rich family does have some advantages. You're probably wondering where Skylar comes into the picture. Well she's my best friend in the whole world. She was going to move down to Florida anyway and when my parents found out, they said she could live in the house with me. No charge. Of course she agreed because the offer was too good to pass up. The weird thing about our friendship is the age difference. I'm 18 and she's 22, but we're still so close. It just goes to show that age isn't anything but a number.
I laid down on the private beach and just stared at the sky. It's hard for me to grasp the fact that I'm really on my own now. My parents are hundreds of miles away. Freedom!
Skylar:
"You missed a spot." I said pointing to a strip of unpainted wall.
"Oh no." Dakota replied unenthusiasticly. "Come on, Skylar, we don't really need to paint the walls. White isn't so bad." I looked up from where I was standing on my ladder on the other side of the wall.
"I am not living in a house with white walls. I'm sorry, but I just can't do it," I calmly said. Dakota stopped painting a quickly forgot what she was doing.
"I know I could get by with white walls," she said as she leaned up against the freshly painted wall, "as long as it meant that I wouldn't have to paint another second."
"Earth to moron!" I yelled, pulling her out of her daze. Noticing the bright paint on her back, Dakota shot back,"Shit! Why didn't you tell me I was leaning in paint?!"
"You looked so comfortable there, and far be it for me to pull you out of a daze." I retorted. " I've known you long enough to know when to open my mouth. and when not to." Dakota let out a loud
"Uh!" showing that she was slightly offended, but in a sarcastic way. "Well you obviously don't know me well enough or you'd be off that ladder and running for seclusion."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I said confusedly. Dakota looked at me smugly and then looked towards the half-full bucket of paint. "Oh, no you don't." I said to her with that superior I'm-older-than-you look. "That paint was expensive, I'm not buying more of it." Dakota again got that look in her eyes.
"I guess that's one of the advantages of being a rich little girl, I can have my parents give us some more money for paint. Like I said," she added in a conniving way, "I'd run for it if I were you." With lightning speed, I hopped of the ladder and out of the house knowing that I'd beat her in any fitness challenge. If I could just get out the door, I'd be fine. Even though I knew that turning around would slow me down, I did anyway and was rudely awakened to see Dakota starting to hurl the paint from the can at my direction.
"Shit!" I screamed and grabbed for the door. I did get the door which prevented me from getting paint on myself. However, the door was less fortunate. The largest splotch of brightest pain imaginable marked the no-longer-clean door.
Well, I guess now would probably be a good time to talk about myself. I have shoulder length dark brown hair and green eyes. I'm about 5'10 which I think is a pretty good height. I used to dream about being 6'0, but at 22, it's highly doubtful that I'll grow any taller. Dakota is my absolute best friend in the whole wide world. Even though she's only 18, we grew up together because we were the only children in our old fogey neighborhood; naturally, we clung to eachother because those old people can be scary! Anyways, Dakota has long light brown hair and green eyes. She's 5'10, too, but we look and act as different as night and day. She's going to be a model, so she has that thin look. Also, she's not exactly a rocket scientist. Don't get me wrong, she has loads of social smarts. But she's not exactly the school type. I, on the other hand, am the complete opposite. First off,
I'm a semi-genius Doogie-Howser-type. I graduated a year early and went off to college to train to be a nutritionist/fitness trainer. For the past year and a half,
I've been making a name for myself my field, which can be pretty hard seeing as how I come from Ohio. But, Dakota and I had to get out of there as quickly as possible. We've been planning since she was old enough to understand that a modeling career would get nowhere in Ohio. So last month when she graduated from high school, we threw our shit in her 4-door Neon (her car was better than my rusty P.O.S car) and headed for Florida. Of course, Dakota's anal dad was hesitant about letting her go, but hey, she's 18 and can do and go where she wants to go. Once he realized that, he offered to find and pay for a nice big house in a safe neighborhood (this turned out to be a deserted beach area.) So, here we are, in Florida, with money and time on our hands.