Neighbors

Neighbors IX

Chapter 9

O H  H E L L  N O

As daylight shines through my curtains, I hear Andrew groan and roll around. I groan as well and stretch my loud, obnoxious one just for Andrew. I make noises sounding like a pig and a moose dying.

"Shut up, Brent." Andrew says, his voice muffled by a pillow. I open my eyes suddenly wide awake. I fly up out of my bed and look for my phone. When I finally find it underneath me and not where it should be charging on my dresser, I look at the time and almost die. Its ten in the morning. We missed half of school.

"Andrew! We are late for school!" I cry, and get out of bed. Although I really don't care about school, something is making me want to go. I look over to my right suddenly and see nothing but Andrew sleepily getting out of bed.

"What?"

"School. It started four hours ago!" I scream and run to my closet. I slide on a sweatshirt and find some skinny jeans. I slide them on after taking off the clothes I was already wearing, not caring if Andrew sees me. I've seen him naked multiple times. One of the down sides to being neighbors. And I'm sure he saw me naked as well, because I literally do not give a crap. He sees female bodies all day, not like mine is any different.

When I turn around, I find Andrew sliding out of my room and to his room where he is shucking off his shirt...damn. The gym has been making some upgrades on him. How come I never noticed that? Oh. I shake my head to clear my dirty thoughts and charge downstairs after grabbing my phone and backpack. I throw them on the couch and run to the bathroom. Quickly, I put on some concealer and mascara and then run a brush through my hair, but see its greasy and end up putting it in a sloppy bun.

I take control of the microwave, heating up a bagel for ten seconds just so it's a little soft. No need to put it in a toaster that takes forever when I can put it in a warm microwave.

I run outside, locking the door and turn to see the driveway empty. Mom isn't here. She was home last night. Right? I actually have no idea. But that explains why I didn't wake up earlier, or get plowed down by mom in the morning, her screaming I'm going to be late.

"Brent! Get in!" Andrew calls from his truck, his window down. I don't acknowledge that I've never seen this car before, and just get in.

We pull away, definitely leaving our skid marks on the street, and flow through the steady traffic. Not a lot of cars block the road, but there is enough to make Andrew be cautious of the road. Im sitting in the passenger looking around, when I notice he has a lacrosse bag on the floor of his truck. He plays lacrosse?

"You play lacrosse?" I ask, grabbing the bag.

"Oh yeah, I sighed up after someone finally told me to."

"So you play two sports now?" I ask, holding onto a glove.

"Yeah. Football and lacrosse."

"Cool."

Somehow we get to school during third period, which is lunch. I somehow feel more at ease knowing I won't have to walk into class and get singled out.

Andrew and I make up some lame excuse as to why we are late, saying a deer got hit on the road and we couldn't move past until cops showed up and moved it. Of course, the only cop available was probably from Florida because it took him so long to get to the small city of Salt City on the edge of Lake Erie. They believed it. Or I think they did.