Her Eighth Step

Chapter One: Explaining the Steps to Idiots

Before you start reading, I wanted to let you know first, Thank you! And second, my character Dawn is a little shallow, and I made it like that on purpose. Her character is set up so that as she falls in love, her identity changes. Please enjoy, and hope my characters become almost like your friends :)

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The day before my awful sister Macey arrives, I stand in the living room watching my brother Dan and his three friends waste their lives on video games. 

 “You guys are pathetic.”

          Dan barely gives me a glance.  “Says the seventeen-year-old girl who has just dumped her, what, fiftieth boyfriend?” he says.

            His two friends Lane and Pat’s mouths drop. “Fiftieth?”

"Fifteenth" I correct, but nobody seems to be listening.

            Dan’s not-so-friendly friend, Tyler, comments. “Wow. Fifty-one, and you’ll be considered a slut.” They all laugh. Dan glances at me and shrugs.

            “It’s true,” he says. “Fifty-one’s the qualifications.”

            “No, it’s not,” says stupid Lane. “I thought it was up to ten.”

            They all leave the soccer game and start a discussion on it. I let the conversation go on for a while, getting a glimpse of teenage-boys and their casual conversations.

            “Okay,” I say, holding my palms up and stopping them all midsentence. “How about you doorknobs actually get girlfriends first and then we’ll discuss relationships.”

            “I had a girlfriend once,” Pat mutters quietly to himself. That’s Pat. Pat’s the stupidest out of all of them, and always makes these lame side-comments nobody really notices. “So,” he suddenly says, piping up. “Why’d you break up with him?”

            I shrug nonchalantly. “Too needy.”

            Silence.         

            I look up. The boys are all staring at me. Then Tyler, the one who always likes to ramble of facts upon facts about knowledge nobody cares about, says, “Girls are the needy ones. Not boys.”

            “Thanks, Mr. Stereotype.” I sit back onto the couch, watching them watch me. Dan has turned his attention back to the TV, completely dazed. 

            “No, but seriously,” Lane says. He’s good at drawing his words out, like he’s drunk. “Your boyfriend? Needy?”

            Dan takes a deep breath, making a loud noise as he exhales it. Quietly, he says, “My sister is kind of a male in the body of a woman.”

            “Sick,” Pat says, though he gapes at me in awe.

            “I’m not actually a man!” I snap. I throw a pillow at Dan. “You’re such an idiot!”

            “Hey!” he says, tossing it behind him. “I almost missed that shot!” He throws his hands up in defeat. His team lost. “Dammit.” He glances over at my frown and his shoulders deflate. “I hate you.”

            “Women are proven to be the needy ones,” Tyler comments again, like he’s been pondering this silently. He’s the smartest out of all of them, as well as the hottest. And the most annoying. He’s got large blue eyes and dark hair that falls all over them. But that’s all he’s got. Looks.