One of Us

Apparently, My Brother Is Better Than Me.

"There's something about his manners"

Picture above is Hayden Parker

Well, eight, but the quote only gave me three.

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I used to think I had social anxiety, but then I realized I generally disliked any kind of people I didn't know.

For once, I listened to the rational decision maker in me, and made Kelsee, a fellow acquaintance of mine in the mechanic shop, to see what the damn problem was in that beauty of wheels.

Honestly, I would have seen it to myself, but I had better things to do. Like watching Kelsee bend over to pick a wrench. "I know you're checking me out, Fernandez!" She calls out. She turns around only to see this huge grin on my face. Yes, I'm shameless. But before I could answer her, Uriah beats me to it.

"When did I check you out?" He looks completely confused. Kelsee facepalms herself. "I meant Natalia, not you Nathan." A look of realization dawns upon my brother's face, and goes back to work.

I snigger and go back to work, not before getting a good look of Kelsee's behind. I wish I could ask her out, considering I might have a tiny little crush on her, but unfortunate for me, she's straight.

There's a problem with the world - all the hot girls are straight and all the hot guys are gay. Makes my life so much more harder. Imagine going to a party and hitting on a guy, only to find out that he's gynophobic. Why is a gynophobic person at a party, filled with half naked girls? I seriously don't know, and I don't want to know.

My train of thoughts stop as I hear Kelsee calling me to help her with the Rover. My mind goes haywire, and it starts making a pros and cons list, like in Never Have I Ever. I don't know where that came from, considering my mind is like a being of it's own - out of control.

The pros of going over there -

I could see a sweaty Kelsee in a sports bra (not that I haven't before)
I could get to see an actual 2011 Range Rover Evoque in real life, maybe even touch it. (Cue girly squeals)
I could work on something other than this stupid anniversary Creta, that looks like it will shrivel into rust any moment from now.

The cons of going over there -

I could get recognized by the people who own the car (but that most probably won't happen, I'm pretty much invisible at school)

The pros clearly outweigh the cons, so I go over there to see what the problem is. The Parker twins are standing there, looking just as confused as Kelsee is.

"The engine is stuttering worser than my great grandma at a Thanksgiving dinner, and I have no clue why. The car seems to be in perfect condition, the gears are working just fine..." Kelsee's voice trails off. I check the car out, to see if there's anything I can get to know from it.

I glide my hand over the exterior of the car. It's highly hot, not because of the beauty. The metal is scorching, definitely not because of the sun, it's mid-November, not August. The tires are worn out, not from short trips from school to home. Most probably a long trip. There's hints of mud at the sides, just below the doors, and on the brims of the tires. It looks somewhat fresh but dry at the same time, so it means these two recently went into a muddy area, probably sloshed into one. From what I know, there isn't any muddy area in and around Edison, so they possibly went outside of Edison. So the car has been in use for a long time, if they had to get outside of Edison. The Parker twins went on a long trip and came back in the past 3 days or so, from the looks of the car. Now the question arises. The 2011 Range Rover Evoque is a somewhat old model, which means it needs rest from time to clear up the engine. Did these two give it enough rest? I saw them with the car this morning, so it means that the car definitely hasn't had enough rest. Saying they traveled back and forth with the car to and from school, it means the engine hasn't had enough time to cool down. The engine would have tired out because of overuse, which is why it's stuttering worser than Kelsee's grandmother. Other than that, the car seems to be in perfect condition.

"There's no problem with the engine, it just needs some rest. Give it time to cool down, it's overheated." I say.

"You didn't even look at the engine, how can you be so sure?" I hear a condescending voice. It's one of the Parker twins. I'm not sure which one though. I'm going to call them Thing 1 and Thing 2 from now on, the Parker Twins seems too... lengthy.

"Aren't you people supposed to be professionals? How can you let this girl do this job? I'm pretty sure she's going to mess it up." Thing 2 says. I ignore him. Uriah hear's the commotion and comes over. "What's going on here?"

Thing 1 sighs and repeats whatever Kelsee just told me. Uriah grumbles something about 'low pay' and 'they can't handle a car properly' and looks at the engine. Unsurprisingly he comes to same conclusion as me. "Give the car some rest." He says, and walks off, leaving Kelsee and I to handle Thing 1 and Thing 2.

"See kid? That's how a professional works, way better than you." Thing 1 says. Murdering people is bad, orange is not a good color on you, the people in jail aren't even that hot. Resist your primal urges to wrap his intestines around his neck.

"There's a hospital near by, go get a check up." Is all I say.

"Why?" I'm not sure if Thing 1 or Thing 2 says this.

"Because I think you're deaf."

"Excuse me?!"

"I literally said the same thing my brother said, but you didn't hear it." I retort, not bothering to look at them. I can hear Kelsee sniggering, trying to control her laughs.

"Well, your brother is way better than you!" Was their lame comeback.

I roll my eyes. Apparently my brother is better than me. Which brother are we talking about again?

I walk off from the crime scene. The Hyundai Creta seems way more appealing to me than the Range Rover, purely because the people who own the Creta are more nice and sweet than Thing 1 and 2.

welllllll

next update - saturday (never said which one.)