Page 1 of Always Meant To Be

Prologue

Elena – Age Seventeen

I roll my eyes,watching my big sister flirt with the coffee shop employee, who happens to be my school's wide receiver and two years younger than her. She knows flirting is forbidden, but she doesn’t care.

Liliya giggles, twirling her finger in the brown hair, and I inwardly groan, knowing she will disappear to the bathroom with him. I honestly don't understand how we're related, although if you look at us, you wouldn't think we were.

She's at least three inches taller than me, and where her hair is dark brown, cut to just above her shoulders, mine is white blonde and hangs to just above my butt, and then there's the eyes. Hers are brown like our mother’s, and mine, they're violet like our father’s.

Some people think my mama isn't my mother, especially because I look so much like my father, though his hair is light brown. Unfortunately for me, I know for a fact she is.

Growing up with a sister who looked like she could be a supermodel while I looked like the typical girl next door but withcurves, her picking on me continuously, expressing how I was a leftover from one of my father's affairs, I got curious. I did one of those home DNA tests last year.

The test confirmed I was my mother's and father's kid; obviously, I tested both, silently hoping I was adopted.

I may have been petty and threw the results in my sister's face, and then questionedherpaternity. I may have also had a split lip afterward, not that my parents cared. Mama never noticed, always ignoring me until it suited her because I wasn't born a boy, while my father believed the lie that I tripped and banged my mouth on the corner of the dining table.

He always believed her, and I always got punished when she wanted me to suffer, but whereas my father would send me to my room, my mother would choose violence.

She loves the belt; it's her preferred method of punishment.

"Sestra!" Liliya snaps, making me jump.

I look her way and raise a brow at her calling me sister in Russian, especially when I know she hates speaking it after she failed her Russian exam in college. Attending college is mandatory, no thanks to our father.

How a Russian-heritage idiot like my sister can fail her own language, I'll never know.

She narrows her eyes at me before smirking at the employee whose hazel eyes slide down her body, causing her to push her large chest out further.

I wonder if my father knew he paid for her breast enhancement surgery last month?

Another way I'm completely different from my sister; she's a whore and loves being the center of attention, while my virginity is still intact, and I like to be in the shadows. While she's currently wearing a very tiny top that can be classed as a bra, and a denim mini skirt that barely covers her butt, hoping men will ogle her, I'm in a pair of jeans and a Jane Austen t-shirt, hopingto get no one's attention—heck, my hair is up in a messy bun, and I don't even have any makeup on, while my sister’s face is caked in it.

Two completely different people, and yet we're blood.

"What would you like,Sestra?" she grinds out.

I roll my eyes and walk over to the barista instead of the person serving her because his eyes haven't even moved from her breasts.

“Can I have a small mocha latte and a blueberry muffin, please?” I ask as I pull out some cash, refusing to allow my sister to use this against me, and place it on the counter before looking toward my guard, Andrei.

He's looking around the coffee shop, his gray eyes assessing everything.

I clear my throat and confirm, "A black coffee, Andrei?"

He looks at me, his eyes softening, "That would be perfect,shmel."

I give him a warm smile at his nickname for me. He's been my guard since I was three years old and became obsessed with bumblebees and butterflies. I dressed as a bumblebee for about four years while also wearing my butterfly wings.

I've been his little bumblebee since, even after I grew out of it.

Though I do still love butterflies, I have one tattooed just above my butt, at the base of my spine. No one knows about it, which is how I need it to stay. Every time Mama uses the belt, the tattoo is always covered by my high-waisted jeans.

If she sees it, I know she’ll carve it off my body.

When I got it two years ago, Andrei believed I was in the library and stayed in the car out front. At the tattoo studio, they asked for ID, but all I had to do was mention my father's name, and they let me have it done.

I did give them a tip, though.