Khloe
Elliott and Chase left me alone for an hour and a bit whilst they started the barbecue up. I took the opportunity to start my studying again.
I sat at the desk and flashed through my revision cards, trying my best to get through as much as I could, but I was hungry and fatigued. My heart was fluttering slightly as I tried to get through the cards, but it seemed I only got through three before someone knocked on my bedroom door.
I jumped slightly, not expecting to be disturbed again. But, when I looked up, I saw that Jake had walked into my room and was stood looking down at me.
"Hey, cutie." He said, smiling down at me. I raised my eyebrows at him, he had used the nickname that he used to call me when I was little. He stopped calling me cutie about a year or so ago. I guess it was when I started coming home from a lot of parties and he got wrapped up in his social life and listening to Chase. "What?" He said, confused.
I shrugged. "Nothing." I said, it wasn't worth mentioning, but I also didn't want to draw attention to it. I wondered whether it was Unintentional?
He nodded and looked down at my notes scattered around my desk. "What you been doing?" He asked me.
"Revising." I explained.
Jake furrowed his eyebrows, the same way I would when I felt unsettled.
"What?" I asked.
He shrugged and perched besides me on the desk. "Between me and you, I wouldn't worry about being in the top ten."
I raised my eyebrow. "Why's that between me and you?"
"I hardly think any of us could blame you right now if you even failed." Jake said.
My eyes widened at the thought. I wasn't planning on failing my tests. There was no way in hell.
"Chill out, Khlo. The test this week doesn't count to our end of year grade anyway. It's just for the teachers to see where you're at." Jake said.
In nodded. "I can't fail, though." I said.
"It's not the end of the world, it doesn't count."
"I've never failed a test." I said. Even the ones I didn't work for, I always managed to scrape a C, but I never failed.
"Never?" Jake said, surprised, "even when you were at your old school? Your social life was hectic enough, you can't have had time to revise."
I shrugged. "I paid attention in class." I said.
It was a distraction, after all.
Jake nodded, slowly. "You know, you're full of surprises."
I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to respond. It was just another example of how much they hadn't noticed.
"But seriously, don't worry about this exam." Jake said to me.
I gulped. "Dad will kill me, apparently. He's already disappointed in me. I don't want to let him down anymore." I said.
Jake nodded. "I get it, but I'm sure Elliott will talk to him. He'll understand."
My eyes widened, if Elliott talked to him, he'd find out about everything.
"But Elliott's not going to tell him what I told you and Chase or what happened today, right?"
Jake looked hesitant like he wasn't really sure what to say. "I don't know, Khlo." He told me.
I bit my lip, I hadn't thought of the possibility that my Dad could find out. I didn't want that to happen. That would be so much worse than any of my brothers knowing.
"Hey, it'll be okay." Jake told me, offering me a warm smile. He was slipping back to the way he used to treat me and it was actually kind of a relief. Once upon a time, Jake was one of my favourite brothers.
I nodded and looked down at the notes. "I hate who I've become." I whispered.
Jake furrowed his eyebrows. "There's nothing to hate. You're still the same old Khloe."
"Sometimes it doesn't feel like it." I said.
"You're just going through a hard time. It's still you. You're still the same person. You're just dealing with shit."
I nodded, but I didn't want to talk about it anymore.
"Come on, Elliott told me to come and get you. We're going to eat in a min. You must be starving." He said.
I stood up, nodding. I was starving.
Jack smiled at me and slung his arm round my shoulders and guided me out of my bedroom.
We headed downstairs to find that the back doors were open and the boys were all outside.
When we made our way out to the back garden, some of our brothers were sat on the sun loungers by the pool whilst Elliott and Dean were stood by the barbecue. They all looked over at us when we walked out to join them.
"Hey, Khlo." Elliott said to me, smiling.
I gave him a small smile and let Jake lead me over to our outside table and we took a seat, Jake sat besides me.
The others came and sat down. Tommy took the seat besides me whilst Charlie sat across from me. Chase sat opposite Jake and soon Elliott and Dean came over with the food, taking a spare seat.
The table was already equipped with plates and stuff and the boys put the food in the middle, telling us to help ourselves and we did.
"What do you fancy, Khlo?" Jake whispered to me as our brothers started helping themselves to the burger buns.
"Sausages?" I said, my mouth watering at the barbecued sausages and buns.
He smiled at me and stabbed his fork into two sausages, putting them on my plate along with two buns.
"Want any salad?" He asked and I nodded, so he put some salad on the side whilst I added ketchup to my now sausage sand which.
"How you guys getting on with revision?" Elliott asked us all and I gulped slightly.
I wasn't retaining anything.
"Alright." One of then muttered and the rest of them seemed to nod.
I didn't say anything. Elliott met my gaze for a minute, but didn't ask me to Respond.
Charlie, however, met eyes and didn't take his eyes off of me, giving me his concerned look.
"How you doing, Khlo?" Tommy whispered to me.
I glanced over at him, his plate was as full as possible and he seemed to be stuffing as much as he could into his mouth. It made me feel sick.
"Fine." I said, looking away and taking a bite of my own dinner.
God, it felt good to finally eat something!
"Dads coming home Sunday, guys." Elliott said, catching all of our attention.
I raised my eyebrows slightly, usually I was pleased, but right now it just made me feel nervous.
What would he find out when he got back?
"We need to have a party before he's home!" Tommy said.
I bit my lip, parties were good. I love a good party, but I didn't know how my brothers would react for me going to a party at the moment.
Charlie was still watching me and he mirrored my look of uncertainty. "What about Khloe?" He asked.
My brothers all turned to me and I looked at them embarrassed, not wanting the attention.
"What about her?" Jake asked, probably picking up on the way I wasn't liking being singled out.
Charlie looked directly at me. "We shouldn't be throwing a party at the moment. We should be thinking about Khloe."
Tommy scoffed slightly. "Isn't this us thinking about Khloe? I thought we agreed that she could go to this party? That the problem was that we kept shutting her out? Surely this will be good all of us." Tommy said,
I bit my lip, it was true, part of the problem was that they didn't let me do anything anymore, but what they didn't realise is the events, which caused me to go to parties and take things too far in the first place.
At the last party I went to, I felt like I was doing better and I was mad that they wouldn't let me doing anything. But now I was wondering whether it would be triggering,
I guess Charlie was wondering this too.
Elliott furrowed his eyebrows. "As long as Khloe behaves, I don't see why not. Like we said before, we've got to stop shutting her out."
I was getting the sense they were forgetting I was here.
"How do you feel about it, Khlo?" Charlie said, turning to me.
All eyes were on me again.
I shrugged. "I don't mind." I said.
I didn't know how I felt about it, to be honest. So who was I to stop them?
My brothers smiled at my response, but Charlie looked at me, still unhappy.
We are and they chatted, whilst I sat there, simply nodding to whatever Jake or Tommy turned to whisper to me, mainly asking me if I liked the food. Charlie, however, was just as quiet as me. I felt his gaze on me as Jake turned to say something or when Tommy point out to me how slow I was at eating. He was watching me closely, but i didn't know why.
Elliott was doing the same too, every so often, he would glance over at me as if he was checking up on me. I could tell he was monitoring how much I was eating, but I didn't say anything to it. When I caught his gaze, I offered him a smile, but looked away.
It wasn't until after the dinner that I felt a little bit less watched. The boys decided to play football and I remained sat at one of the wooden chairs, watching them play.
Charlie walked over to where I was sat, seemingly grabbing his drink, but he took his time about it.
I offered him a smile whilst he analysed me cautiously, whilst he sipped his water. "You know, what you did today was stupid, right?" He said to me and I realised that was what he was wanting to say the whole dinner. He'd been wanting to call me out on what had happened.
"I thought you weren't allowed to talk to me?" I said, raising me eyebrows at him, almost amused. In all honesty, I was trying to change the subject, but it only seemed to make fury brew in his eyes.
"How do you know about that?"
"The walls aren't sound proof, Charles. I overheard the conversation. Thanks for fighting my corner, by the way."
He disregarded my compliment and kept his eyes angry. "Drop the act, Khloe." He said.
I scoffed. "What act?" I said, standing up.
"You know exactly what you're doing."
I shrugged. "All I'm doing is speaking. Interpret my words how you like, Charles."
Charlie narrowed his eyes at me. "Acting like nothing has happened isn't going to make me any less concerned for you, Khloe."
I rolled my eyes. "There's nothing to be concerned about. I'm good." I said. "Besides, like Elliott and chase said, they want to handle me. I guess that can prevent you from feeling pressurised to check up on me. Is it nice? Being discharged from worrying about your pain in the arse of a sister?"
Charlie looked at me almost hurt. "Khloe stop trying to act like a Bitch, I know that's what your trying to do, but I get it now and it's not going to work."
I narrowed my eyes. "Get what?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "This, this way you act. Its all a defence mechanism and your scared ill see through this in a way that Elliott and Chase can't. This is why you're acting like this with me now. It's because you're scared I can see you for what you are."
I raised my eyebrows. "And what am I, Charles?" I said, taking a step towards him, daring him to say what he was thinking.
Charlie gulped slightly, but looked at me in the eye, his eyes full with care and compassion. "Scared."
I looked away from him, scared that if I met his eyes, I would tear up in a way that I really didn't want to, but Charlie seemed to pick up on this too and he stepped towards me, wrapping his arms around me. My head is was forced to lie on his chest as stroked my hair gently.
I slowly wrapped my arms around him as he stroked his hand through my messy blonde hair.
"It's okay to be scared, Khloe." He whispered to me.
I didn't want to admit it, so I didn't respond.
"But I'm not going to let you push me away again out of fear. I've realised that's something you do and I'm not going to let you do it ever again." He told me.
I smiled slightly, feeling my eyes well up slightly. "How'd I get so lucky to have you as my twin?" I smiled.
Charlie chuckled. "I could say the same thing about you." He said, kissing my head, pulling away from me. Charlie looked down at me and looked at my glassy eyes. "I love you, Khloe. You're perfect, just the way you are."
He said, making a stray tear roll down my cheek. Charlie wiped it away with his thumb.
"I love you too." I smiled.
He smiled at me and looked back at the others. "You wanna play some football? Gotta warn you though, if we're on opposite teams, I'll beat your ass." He grinned.
I laughed. "I'd like to see you try,"
*****
Thank you for reading!
Omgg so this book ranked in teen fiction last week!! it was ranked at 12, that's amazing! I
This caused me to flip through the earlier chapters, making me want to die... I wrote them so long ago, they need like clarifying and editing so much!!! So thank you for those of you that over looked this to get to where we are now. Of course I'm not perfect, definitely still learning, but if I had started this book now I feel like the beginning could improve :// I hope some point in the future I can rewrite it!!
Anyway, thank you for the support !! It means a LOT!,
I love Charlie and Khloe's relationship. I think they're just the kind of people that really get each other, but they have the same sibling fall outs every so often.
Khloe also hasn't talked to Dean yet :/ but we'll get to that eventually!