Annabelle Luther.

Seven: History in Math, and Night Out. (Edited)

History in Math, and Night Out.

Athena

The rest of dinner had been silent. Annabelle didn't touch her soup for the rest of the night, which concerned me, but I had thrown a lot of information at her, information that she had not been expecting me to know. If anything, she had probably been better off not knowing what I had told her, but she needed to know and be ready for when they went forward with their plan. Of course, mom and dad had no idea that I knew of any of this, but it had been easy for me to get that information with just a little sneaking around and hacking into their computers. I watched as she continued to stare at the table, almost as though she had been calculating her next words or even her next move.

What would you do with that sort of information? Learning that your law firm has, in some way, been racketing money? Learning that your clients appeared on our parent's order? Her world had probably crumbled right in front of her, and while I wouldn't say I liked the idea of destroying her in such a way, it made it easier for me to plant myself as someone she could depend on when things got tough for her. Taking another bite of my food, I watched as she finally lifted her spoon and continued to eat her food, as though I didn't just deliver a ticking bomb into her hands.

"You won't tell them that you've told me any of this. As a matter of fact, this entire conversation never happened. You will not say a word to them about the adoption, and you will not tell our parents that you've told me any of this," Annabelle's voice had been calm. Too calm for someone holding this sort of information. Had this been from years of dealing with much worse than this? Where did she learn to be so aware of her emotions the way she was?

"What did we talk about then?" I asked in a challenge, almost begging for her to stare at me with those dark, cold, green eyes of hers. Instead, Annabelle clenched her spoon before she released a heavy sigh and looked at her. Her green eyes weren't hard or cold. They were soft, almost as though she had pitied me? No, pity wouldn't be the proper term. She looked as though she was genuinely tired, and just wanted to cry, huddled into a corner.

"We talked about your grades and issues you're having at school."

-

"Why do you look so tired?" Freya asked as she handed me a cup of coffee, almost as though she had read my mind. I gratefully thanked her and took a large frozen drink as we made our way into math class. Freya and I waved at Mr. Stevens before we sat down, pulled our binders out, and pulled out our notes from the last class.

"Living with Annabelle is hard. She's up at the asscrack of dawn, blasting music, singing to the music, making breakfast, shouting on the phone or her computer, or...she's not like the rest of us. It's like, she never stops working or has fun. None of us at the house can catch a break or sleep in," I exhaled before I took another sip of my coffee. Freya looked at me with sympathy as she reached over and rubbed my back, causing a form of comfort to consume me. Freya had always been great when it came to comforting people, especially me.

"Well, think about it like this, you have like, what - a week left before you can go back to your actual house," Rolling my eyes from this, I laid my head on the table just as the bell went off. The loud ring had caused me to wince out a bit, as I hadn't realized I had a headache. This whole living with Annabelle thing was not as I expected it to be. The woman was crazy or something. The fact that she didn't actually sleep most nights had concerned her to the point that we all had forced her to go to the hospital to get checked out, only to discover she suffers acute insomnia, something she neglected to tell us.

"I see your sister is still a handful," Mr. Stevens spoke, catching me by surprise. Looking up at him, he had a large smile on his lips; his hands were on his hips as crow's feet lined his eyes—Mr. Stevens, the only math teacher that has been here for the last forty years. Personally, none of us understood why, but we all loved the guy. He had just been so pure and innocent.