Unrequited love

One | Katie

I reach for my laptop from the wooden laptop holder I keep downstairs instead of my room, to prevent myself from watching shows all night. Before I had the stand I used to just leave the laptop around until Colton got it for me, under the guise of almost stepping on it once since I left it on the ground. I think that was the last time we spoke if you don't count today. He bought it over two weeks ago.

I've been waking up early for the past week since I've got six assignments I haven't started and only have till the end of the month to finish them. I got 2 finished earlier this week and have four left with three weeks on the clock. This is what happens when you put everything off until the due date becomes too apparent to ignore.

I open a blank document and I just start typing. What am I typing? Not important and honestly it's just word vomit but it's never failed me. My marks always turn out better than good but I think I'm pushing my luck at this point. I've never put off six at a time. Focusing on the clicking of my keyboard I pray to any available higher beings that what I'm writing is at least legible.

A few hours go by and I've long finished my toast so hunger begins to creep up my throat again.

'Are you doing the same assignment you did yesterday?' I cock my head towards the voice, only relaxing when I meet my brother's eyes. Deciding to ignore him I look back to the screen.

Despite him being tall, and really fucking toned for his age, he's incredibly light footed. Not even the beings I was praying to earlier would hear him walk into a room, he's that quiet. Though the word 'quiet' doesn't suit his character at all. Damon is the type of person to make fun of a teacher to their face or purposely hit someone in the back of the head with a basketball just because he can. He's careless. I like to remind him that it'll come back and bite him in the future but of course he didn't care when I told him.

"What the fuck Damon don't scare me like that," I mumble before turning back to the screen seeing a low power warning. Realizing it wasn't charged after it was used previously, I scold. "Who used my laptop?"

"You did. Yesterday. Like I said," he rolls his eyes before heading towards the front door but I interrupt him before he can leave.

'Wait, where are you going? Where's Colton?' I ask slowly as I divert my eyes around the open living space. He could be in another room but why would Damon alone.

'What do you mean? He left ages ago.' He raises his eyebrows as if my question was stupid. I guess it was. He'd have to walk past me to leave the house.

Confused on how I didn't notice him come back down. He must've purposely made sure not to catch my attention. It's normal for him to ignore me like that but he could've at least said bye.

"We have that basketball game against some school tonight so he went home to get ready...you're coming to watch right?"

"I've never missed one," I remind him, looking back at my laptop.

I've always gone to every single one of their basketball games. I could say I knew all the player's personally by how many times I've seen them play. That and because my brother is the captain so that could be a valid reason too.

Pretty much anyone can join the team after passing a basketball athletics test. It's the same with every sport at our school. They take it pretty seriously here. Our school is ranked number one in the state when it comes to sport and coaches and the school board want to keep it in that place. Because of it they're strict about who gets game-time and who doesn't. Meaning newcomers to the team usually get automatically benched if they somehow make it into their trialed sport. It's the worst with basketball, almost all the court time is given to the top five, every season.