Hy guys, this is the first chapter of "The Sunset After Us".
Remember: I'm not English, so if you find some errors in the translation, please tell me! (Read the chapter "Welcome!" for more details).
Hope you enjoy and leave a feedback❤️
~D.Blond🌹✨❤️
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Every person should look inside himself to learn the meaning of life.  
It's not something you discover: it's something you have to shape.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"There are days when I simply think I have the world in my pocket, and everything seems to be mine.
It seems, but it isn't. I would love people to believe me when I tell them, triumphant, how it feels, but the first person who doesn't really believe it is me."
Iris looked up at the landscape around her to choose the next words. Her intense blue eyes flew over the endless expanse of plants and flowers that opened in front of her for a few seconds, trying to look beyond the horizon, down there where the sun was slowly setting.
After a few moments, the pen had begun to move again on the page of the diary, guided by the fast movements of her hand.
"I'd like to prove myself," she wrote, "but it's so hard.
I always thought I had too many dreams, and often our dreams are too big to be realized.
Sometimes I think the world is simply cruel, even... crazy.
Too unfair to give us what we want.
We don't have the freedom to express ourselves, and I think every man should have a story to tell. Instead, no one gives us the chance.
Many would like their voices to be heard, but theirs will be a scream destined to remain secretly within them, forever.
At least, that's who I am.
I spend my life fantasizing about something too big that can never be given to me.
And I imagine, I expand my mind, and in the end my thoughts are so real that I end up believing them.
Maybe it's because I want to become a writer, and writers imagine.
Life is long, and the most varied things can still happen.
But I don't know if there will be a place for me."
Iris hesitated.
She closed her diary quickly, unlocking her mobile phone and checking the time.
It was a quarter to eight.
She was going to be late for Violet's appointment.
And the subway would have passed in ten minutes.
That fateful thought obscured her mind as she realized she should have reached the London Eye area in less than five minutes.
She put the diary of the cover full of stickers into the black leather bag, as she was hurrying out of the botanical garden.
She went out into the street, stumbling and running in the asphalt road.
She looked for Violet's number and started the call, to tell her that she would be late again.
She answered the second ring. -Iris? Iris? Where are you? - Her pressing voice was covered by a background of deafening and confusing voices.
She looked in front of her just in time not to get hit by a car. -Violet, I'm sorry. I'm late, I take the first metro. I don't think... -
-Iris, Grace and I are already outside Lillian's garden. Everything here is already crowded with people. It's time for you to hurry! - Violet's voice resounded in her ears, even louder than usual.
She took a deep breath.
It wasn't her fault.
Violet and Grace had convinced her to go to the party.
She would simply have liked to spend a quiet evening at home writing her book or her diary. She used to go to the botanical garden to be inspired by the fantasies of plants, and that day she had really lost the notion of time.
But she never would have liked to disappoint her best friends. Not even if this would have meant going to one of Lillian Riley's parties, the most superb and proud girl from the high school that Iris and her friends attended.
She had a reputation for dating eighteen different boys and, moreover, all of them of the fifth year.
She always organized random parties, mainly to meet new people and some fool ignorant boys who would easily fall at her feet.
Iris wasn't for these things. She wasn't a party girl.
She was simply happy to hanging out with Violet and Grace a few times a week and watching film and TV series at home with them.
Going to parties was exactly the only thing in the world he hated to attend.
-Iris? Do you hear me?-
She blinked. She wondered how long she was there without saying anything.
Violet seemed quite annoyed.
-Don't wait for me. I just have to go home and put on something pretty. It will take me ten minutes at the most. - She was running and she was in danger of falling at any moment on the road that suddenly became full of holes.
She slipped down the stairs to the Westminster subway station, which would take her to the London Eye area where she lived.
- Alright, but hurry up. - Violet gave her a determined answer. She didn't usually do that, but she had to be especially fond of that particular party. It was known that Lillian could not stand the latecomers and those who arrived after the scheduled time could not participate at the party. Iris had always found it a lack of seriousness, since Lillian sent her most trusted friends to distribute invitations and flyers to all students, inviting almost every person in the school, even though she knew about half of them, which was already no small amount.
-Don't wait for me. - She repeated, while she closed the call.
She ran along the corridors, and jumped into the subway that closed immediately behind her.
She let himself go to a breath of relief. She barely had to wait for the next stop.
But even if I arrive late it will be better...
She would have done anything not to go there.
There was only one free seat and she sat there.
Stipulated among the people out of work, she found herself thinking about how she should feel to be like Lillian. So rich and ambitious, on everyone's speeches, loved and hated.
She felt that she wouldn't have wanted that life.
She thought she was a sad and lonely girl who still had to find her place in the world, showing every day the same mask, her most arrogant and worst. Maybe deep down she wasn't like that.
She was simply a fragile girl.
She unlocked her cell phone display. It was a quarter to eight. The party would start at eight o'clock.
But, however, the longer she would delay, the more she would have had less time to spend there.
When she got off the subway, she could finally start breathing again, finally no longer squeezed between the people.
She would have liked to get home calmly, but she was sorry to disappoint her friends.
She found herself thinking once again about how it would be better at home if she had not accepted the invitation to the party.
Surely, if she had, she wouldn't have found herself running like a madman to her house.
She passed the London Eye with more than thirty people waiting. She used to go there there with Violet when it wasn't too crowded. Usually, Grace used to watch them from below, with the dizziness that gripped her when she saw those hundred and thirty-five meters high.
She realized it was eight o'clock when the Big Ben announced the hour with its characteristic melody, which made her run even faster.
When she finally saw her white house from afar, she took a breath of relief.
She started breathing again as soon as she entered the house.
She looked for the keys inside the bag and turned them in the lock. Strange that the door was closed, usually her parents were both at home at that time.
When she closed the door behind her, she fell on the floor trying to catch her breath.
Or, at least, he tried to do it.
-Evelyn! -
The face of her younger sister shone with joy as she was standing right in front of her and submerged her with all the energy that only a seven-year-old girl could possess.
-Have you already returned? - She said, ironically. She made a little scream of happiness. - Hurray, so I can tell you...-
-Evie, where's mum? - Iris looked around quickly, looking over the deserted kitchen and the apparently silent house.
-Both she and Dad had a business dinner, don't you remember? They're away until late, tonight. - She sulked. -You told me today that your school hours would have finished sooner and you would have come home immediately to stay with me. Instead, you came back and left immediately in the afternoon for the gardens. You promised me that...-
-Evie, have you been home alone since they left tonight? - Iris blinked her eyes as she tried to figure it out. She didn't even remember that her parents were supposed to go out.
-You were supposed to stay with me tonight, but you didn't come back. - Evie looked at her with her shining eyes. - They waited and waited until late but you didn't give a sign to come back, so they had to leave. -
-Couldn't they call me on my mobile phone? - Iris shouted, thinking how stupid her parents could be.
-The phone doesn't work for Dad anymore and Mom broke hers today. It fell by mistake and I walked on it. - Evie looked down, pretending to be guilty. -It's on the kitchen shelf if you want to see it. I opened it to look at it, so it won't look so good to see. -
The most unthinkable things went through Iris' head. Who knows how many things her sister had been able to do in her absence and how she had put her in danger by arriving late at home. She was a very bad and ungrateful sister who, instead of giving a good example, she had left her alone at home.
-How long have you been at home alone? - He asked her, trying to calm her anger.
Evie assumed a proud look, losing all the lucidity in her eyes; she had returned euphoric. - About an hour, but mom said she would have come back after dinner's time. -
Then, at the sight of the gloomy look assumed by Iris, she tried to remedy, worsening the situation even more. -Oh, but don't worry. Mum had already closed all the doors and windows, and I set traps around the house for thieves. No one will going anywhere. -
The little girl's loud voice had only become a low background noise. She only thought about how happy she was that nothing had happened. -Evie. -
She held her tongue back as soon as she saw her older sister take a more serious look than usual.
-Do you not realize that...-
She stopped when she heard her mobile phone ringing for the second time.
Damm, the party!
She took the phone out of her bag. This time it was Grace.
She thought quickly. She had found an excuse not to go to Lillian's party, and could repair the damage done by her sister staying with her for the rest of the evening.
She answered the call and immediately interrupted the friend who had begun to speak. -Grace, tell Violet I can't come.-
-Iris, we're already in. Hurry up, where are you? - Grace's agitated voice was covered with a loud voice and the terrible rhythm of the monotonous techno disco music she hated.
-Grace, I can't come.- Iris raised her voice.
-What? - There followed a long pause, so much so that she thought that at one point she had closed the call. - Iris, are you kidding me? - Grace raised her voice all of a sudden, in a tone of dismay.
-I had...-
-I and Violet have been waiting for you for half an hour! You can't say right now that...-
-Well, I'll come! - Iris almost shouted, stopping her.
She was about to end the call, but Grace spoke for the last time, as if to apologize: - If you want to know, it was Violet who asked me to call you back: you were not coming. She is now busy with...-
Iris threw her phone on the table, letting her talking to no one.
Evie stared at her with her big, brown eyes. -Who was she? What happened?-
Iris knelt beside her. -Evie, I have to go. There's a party... I'll back very soon. - She stretched out her arms, and she hugged her. -I promise you that when I'll come back I will read you what I wrote today in my diary and the new chapter of my book that I began writing yesterday.-
-I want you to stay here with me. Now. - Her sad eyes implored her.
Iris took a deep breath. It was so difficult to leave her alone. She promised herself that, from that day on, she would no longer accept any invitation.
-I made a promise. - She looked her in the eyes. - And the promises... must be kept. -
She couldn't has expressed in words how pain it had cost her to say that sentence.
Evie stared at her, then spoke in a voice that was too weak: -You too had promised me that you would be at home with me today, but then you didn't.-
Iris lowered her eyes and she tried to find a remedy... that there wasn't.
-Listen-, he proposed to her with a half forced smile, - would you like to help me choose a dress? -
The little girl looked at her, then nodded as her face lit up. Iris stood up, relieved that she would at least have fun selecting all her clothes on the bed and leaving the wardrobe in total mess.
Evie ran upstairs. When Iris reached her, she had already taken one.
-This one here. - Iris stared at her. When her sister played at putting on her clothes, she never chose that one, red and with lace sleeves. Evie preferred most colorful and longer clothes to feel like a princess.
It would have been fine, and Violet or Grace could have called her back at any moment.
-I think it will be good.-
As she went to wear it, Evie began to play with her toys in the basket on the other side of the room, which
she shared with Iris.
She came back a few minutes later, still wearing her sneakers.
-Those are not good. - Evie pointed at them. - They must be more elegant. And you have to fix your hair. -
Iris looked into the mirror hung on the wall. It was true, her hair was more than disgusting. She let Evie comb them.
-You're hurting me. -
-Stay still, I've almost finished!-
Two minutes later, Iris had soft, silky hair; she wouldn't have said it, but Evie had been pretty good at it. She was known to have some experience combing dolls.
Iris rushed down the stairs and opened the shoe rack, catching a pair of ankle boots she had last used two years ago for the middle school year-end party.
-Do I look nice?- She asked Evie as she grabbed a more decent bag from the coat hanger.
The girl nodded. -And makeup?-
-I'm just going to a stupid party, there's no need to be perfect. And then, you know that I hate makeup.-
Evie looked at her, as if she hadn't understood the concept. -But princesses always wear makeup. -
Iris laughed. -I am not a princess. Or do I look like one? -
-Yes!
-Okay. - She only put a pack of handkerchiefs in her small bag and gave her mobile phone to Evie. -So you can call mom if you need to. - She knelt before her. -I'll be away so little that you won't even notice that I've gone out. - He smiled at her.
The girl nodded. -While I wait, I'll go upstairs and I'll play with your bracelets. -
Iris stood up, relieved, as she was heading to the door.
She stopped to look at the clock: it was half past eight.
Her gaze flew through the kitchen and stopped on the cupboard, where her poor mother's phone was torn to pieces. Evie had really committed herself, it seemed.
She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but Evie had already disappeared into her room lost in her fantasies.
Iris wondered if she too imagined living in completely different worlds that could accept her simply for who she was.
She locked the door behind her.
There was nothing to desire in this mad world.

WRITER'S ANGLE
Hey, how are you? ❤️
Even though I promised you that I would publish much earlier, better late than never, so here's the first chapter of my new book!
What do you think?
Maybe you wouldn't believe it, but there is a very specific reason why I chose the character of Iris: she is the image that best reflects me. Often I don't feel accepted and, on the contrary, I even feel part of another world.
I gave her my character and my own passions: like me, Iris writes novels and keeps a diary where she notes all her thoughts and reflections.
It's not in her interests to make up or wear fashion clothes (in my class I'm the only one who doesn't care about these things); she's simply different from the others, who by now have all become photocopies, each one identical to the other, with the same passions and habits.
She considers this world even "crazy", where people have now become full of hypocrisy and prejudice.
Violet and Grace are her only friends who, despite being part of the same corrupt world, accept and respect her for how she is.
And on all this there is Lillian, snobbish girl by exception, who spends the hours chasing boys and corrupting students from all over the institute; will there be anything else in her determined and ambitious aspect? His character is one of the most interesting and I intend to introduce her better in the next chapters.
This story is based on autobiographical aspects and some things were not invented, but taken from reality (mine).
Soon I will update my first book, "Chronicles of the Guardians" and I will start to write it even in English, so to give you the opportunity to introduce you my first story (that I created at seven years old).

A little curiosity!
"The Sunset After Us" is a book based also on a song.
Listening to it, I got the basic idea for this story and its theme represents almost every exact moment of the book.
Have you ever heard "Mad World"? 
Already from the title, we can deduce the correspondence with the thoughts of Iris: "Mad World".
In the original it's by Tears for Fears but it's been proposed by other singers and in many movies; the version I prefer is the cover by Jasmine Thompson.
If you haven't heard it yet, I suggest you to do it: for me it's wonderful, and it gives exactly the idea of sadness and melancholy. Also, as you have seen, the title of the song is also that of this first chapter.
I leave you the video below ❤️✨🌟🌟
See you soon, I love you!❤️❤️

~D.Blond🌹✨✨❤️🌸💫

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