Devilish Detective ✅

I Can Also Juggle Knives

“Glad you find that entertaining. I can also juggle knives if you wish,” I attempt a joke that makes my aunt scoff in disdain.

“Perhaps you should. What a delight it would be to watch you stab yourself.” Ben chortles and I shrug.

“Any bacon and eggs for me?” I inquire and Aunt Natasha looks up from her plate to scowl at me like I just said something very abusive.

“What do I look like? Your slave? I don’t cook for you. There’s cornflakes in the cabinet. This, you already know.” She waves her hand dismissively and I nod, setting my bag against the wall so I can prepare a bowl of cereal.

By the time I am done, Ben drives me to school as always. I have always suggested to my aunt that I save and buy myself a car, but she has adamantly refused, saying something about how she doesn’t want me to run off at the first chance I get.

I find it odd that she isn’t super keen to get me away from her house, yet she goes out of her way to show me every day that she wants absolutely nothing to do with me.

Talk about conflicting signals.

I cannot exactly complain though as I am eternally grateful to her for taking me in after the death of my mother and my uncle – her husband. I don’t remember much of the incident, but from what I do recall, mom and uncle were taking me out to the park when we were attacked.

It was a robbery gone wrong, and by wrong, I mean we all got shot. By some miracle however, I managed to survive and I even got mom’s kidney, so I can say that I carry a part of her with me. Literally.

Aunt blames me for this, of course, and I cannot say I blame her. It was my idea that we all went out that day. however, I was only five, and I don’t think I could have predicted the accident.

I would have gone to live with my father after the accident, but I however have no idea who he is. I don’t even know if he is still alive. From what I heard, he walked away from my mom and me the year before the accident and no one ever heard from him again.

He just dropped off the face of the earth.

For this reason, my aunt took me in, gave me a place to stay. She doesn’t make my life easy, but I have to be grateful she didn’t kick me to the curbs.

“Get out of my car,” Ben barks out, and before my body can move in response to the command, he shoves me out of the car, causing me to fall to the ground and become a source of entertainment for the school.

Typical!

Students laugh as they take selfies of me which are most likely going to end up on Northview High’s page before the end of the day. Some ignore me, gathering to the other side of the car to wait for Ben to step out, while others pass me a pitiful glance, but they do nothing to help me.

While I gather my things that fell out of my torn backpack, Ben gets out of the car, showing off his new expensive trainers and Gucci belt, earning words of approval from our vain classmates.

Everyone adores Ben. He’s practically the king of the high school. Girls fawn over him, guys want to be his friend, and it makes me wonder why. While I will admit he does have incredibly good looks, when it comes to academics and common courtesy, he is heavily lacking.

He makes up for his lack of intelligence in the academic department by being excellent in football, basketball and swimming. At least he has something other than his defined jaw, smooth black hair and blue eyes to get him through life.

One would think that by being family, I would be popular by default. That however isn’t the case. It’s not like I am hideous to look at, because I most definitely am not, but I guess the old clothes that in no way follows trends doesn’t appeal to society.

“Ben!”

I groan when I hear the voice. I try to quickly pick up all my stuffs and scurry away from the crowd that has now formed at the parking lot, but she shoves me, resulting in me letting go of all my books, so I have to start gathering everything again.

Trixie Cole rushes to Ben, wrapping her arms around his neck and full on French-kissing him in front of the whole crowd.

I roll my eyes, trying my best not to scrunch my face in disgust.
I always try not to judge people and their life choices, but Trixie just makes that super hard. It’s as though she goes out of her way to be an annoying, spoilt brat. From her super short skirt that I’m sure violates the school’s code, to her annoying plastic attitude and super high pitched tone which is totally fake, there is hardly anything to like about her.

However, that seems to be everything society looks for, because practically every girl in school envies Trixie, and every guy is waiting and hoping she’ll spare them as little as a glance in their direction.

Sure, she has a great shape, and smooth, flawless fair skin, but that’s about all her good qualities. She’s as rude and as unintelligent as her boyfriend. And unfortunately, she is also bad in anything sport, so I really have no idea how she expects to get through life.

She is followed closely by Tiffany Romero who seems to be permanently glued to her side. Tiffany is as plastic and as annoying as she is; maybe even more so, and she’s even more oblivious than the average unintelligent teenager, so she really doesn’t appeal to me either.

Shaking my head, I watch them all follow Ben into the school, chatting excitedly about an upcoming party, or whatever it is normal teenagers chat about. I wouldn’t know, considering the fact that I have absolutely no friends.

Ben wouldn’t let me make friends. He and Trixie seem to have found a way to make people avoid me like I have been plagued with some sort of incurable ailment, or something of the sort. At first, it bothered me dearly as loneliness crept in, leaving me sad more often than not, but I have managed to deal with it by putting in all my effort in my school work, counting the days till I graduate and can finally leave the Alders.

When everyone leaves, I am alone with my thoughts and I sit on the ground, staring at my things and I suddenly laugh, finding my predicament amusing.

It’s really comical how people change upon getting into high school. It is as though everyone wants to be popular and recognized, they don’t care who they have to step on in order to achieve this goal.

As kids, Ben and I were practically inseparable. At least, that is what I can tell from the multiple photos I found once, discarded in the attic. We wore matching outfits, celebrated holidays together, we were like twins.

When I found the pictures, I had stared at them for hours, wondering how someone could so easily change and become impassive to someone they used to hold so dearly. It’s both funny and disheartening.

Sometimes I wonder what I have done to make them hate me like this. While I understand Ben and his mom feel bad because of the death of my uncle, can they not understand I had absolutely nothing to do with his untimely demise? Not only that, I also lost my mother that day.

At least Ben still has a parent to support him, and what about me? I don’t even know who my father is, or if he ever loved me.

When I feel a tear threaten to escape my lids, I quickly wipe it off with the back of my palm and force a smile on my face which quickly drops when I notice a shadow and feel a presence looming over me, like someone is reaching out to touch me.