Class of Messed Up (on hold)

Chapter 4

Odette jumped from her bike before it was fully braked glancing to the bottom left window of her house.

The curtains were closed and the lights off.

She sighed relieved. She was not in trouble, her mom had not yet come downstairs for her night tea. She could silently go in and lock herself in her room, pretending she had been there for a while, studying.

However, her plans are washed down the toilet when she almost steps over a figure sprawled on the steps in front of her door.

"Aaaaaah!" She screamed when the person caught her foot and made her fall backwards. She landed painfully on her butt.

"Oddie!" Sebastian could have woken the whole neighborhood with his shout.

Odette looked first at her kitchen window before addressing the problem in the form of a huge quarterback in front of her. The lights were luckily still off.

She studied Sebastian. The dumb smile, the glazed blue eyes, and the backwards varsity jacket were enough to state the obvious and she knew that if she got close enough she would smell the stolen alcohol he spend the late afternoon consuming.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered getting up from the ground and patting her chess skirt to take the dirt off.

"It's my house!" He said loud enough to be heard by the neighbors.

"Shhh!" Odette reproached keeping an ever watchful eye to that window on her left.

"Though I can't open the door." He leaned back down against her front steps lazily tapping his belly like he had no problem at all in spending the night exactly there.

"This is not your house. That," she pointed to her left, "is your house."

"No, it's not. My house has a balcony swing." He lifted his head to look over Odette's house entrance. "Hey! Where did my swing go?"

Odette rubbed her eyes from under her glasses. That was definitely not a problem she needed today.

She again pointed to the neighbors' house and this time he followed her glance.

"Look! There's my swing! Hi, swing!"

"Shhhh!" If he kept talking this loud it wouldn't take long for her mom to investigate the source of the noise and ground her for a week. "Why don't we go over there with your swing?"

She felt weird, not because she was addressing him like she would with a small child but because she was addressing him at all. The words exchanged between them were mostly polite greetings as they lived next to each other for six years now.

"Great idea, Oddie." He made a move to get up but lost his balance and landed back down with a loud thud. "Woah!"

He laughed while Odette grimaced already thinking about the week she was going to spend without her phone.

Odette tried to pull him to his feet without much success. The guy was huge, and Odette, mere 5' and a few inches.

"C'mon, Sebastian, you gotta help me." He finally did something right and stood on his feet, one of his arms over her shoulders. She took the weight with a grunt.

"Wow, you are so short. Shortie Oddie. Oddie shortie." He sung.

She was already risking herself to help him and he was there mocking her height. Maybe she would have left him to sleep outside on the hard floor if it wasn't for the possibility that he might cause more problems to her, being unsupervised in her front lawn.

"I'm not short, you are the abnormally tall one." He only burped in answer. Realizing that was more important things than defend how many feet above the ground her head was, she continued. "Okay, now we put one foot in front of the other until we get to your swing."

"K." He said following her command but putting more of his weight on her.

She was worried they both would fall before they got to the McCoy's house but they kept upright, even if zigzagging through the sidewalk.

"She dumped me, did you know?" Odette was surprised when he spoke again. "Three years and she just dumped me. She said she wanted to try new things. What kind of explanation is that?"

Odette knew what he was talking about. She was never much into chit chat and usually was the last to know about the gossip of the school, but when the hottest guy in school had come back to the market since freshman year (before puberty had made its wonders) it had even reached Odette's ears.

With such an exciting news everyone had already speculated the reason for the break up and it was a different story every time you asked. It could be narrowed down for two reasons: a) he cheated on her, b) she cheated on him.

"Do you know how much it hurt?" He asked her again. "Of course you don't. You have never been in love." He blurted when they finally got to his front door.

He was so wrong.

She had been in love and with the very same guy that assumed she hadn't. It was an unrequited love and with time it had died down. It wasn't fast, though. Four years she spend stealing glances at him, sighing only thinking about him, daydreaming that he felt the same.

Still sometimes, when their eyes met, when he was the only one to defend her from the bullies in the football team, those feelings came back.

She quickly pressed the doorbell annoyed with her relapse, she didn't want to go back to drooling over the football star.

She had to press the doorbell one more time before the youngest McCoy opened the door. Lexi was two years younger than Odette but always wore so much makeup that looked two years older. Her blue eyes, identical to her older brother's, studied the pair.

"Little Lele!" Sebastian greeted her excitedly, much different than her eye roll.

"You can drop him on the couch." She turned her back and disappeared in the kitchen, the smell of popcorn in the air.

Odette shyly dragged the quarterback inside the dark living room, the TV as the only light. She was glad that Mr and Mrs McCoy appeared not to be at home and she wouldn't have to explain their son's state, though she imagined having Michael Caleb as a son would have made them used to this kind of situation.

As soon as they were near enough to the couch, Sebastian threw himself face down on the cushions.

Odette stretched her back, relieved with Sebastian's weigh not on her shoulders anymore.

"I'll go them." She mumbled shifting on her feet. Should she say something else?

Sebastian faced her with an ear to ear smile and gave her the thumbs up. "Thank you. I love you, Oddie!" And blew her a kiss.

As old habits die hard, she had her cheeks warm the whole walk back to her own house.

Now the kitchen's light was on.

Shoot!

Odette took her phone out of her skirt pocket and kissed its screen.

Until next week, dear friend.

A/N
I'm not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I hope you guys had as much fun reading it!
Thanksgiving is almost here! What's your favorite thanksgiving  dish?

Next chapter on Friday!