Her tongue swiped over her lips, "and..."
Silas rummaged around the drawer.
"And the drawing from Maths, we almost got caught, but she- Heather- hid it underneath her book so we didn't. I, even, added a speech bubble."
Silas got a packet of crisps out, closing the drawer with his right hip, simultaneously opening the packet.
Maybe she had said too much.
He leaned back against the countertop, reaching into the packet and Brynn would be lying if she said something inside didn't sting.
She swallowed, trying to focus back on her work, but her gaze kept going upwards to Silas, who reached into the packet and brought out a couple of crisps.
The pencil was transferred from two hands to her left one as she began to actually start the next question.
She circled the brackets, like Silas had. And she could already answer the first part of her calculations.
"What did your speech bubble say?"
She shot her head up.
Silas was no longer looking at his packet, although his left hand held it up and his right one was still holding a few crisps.
The pencil was back in both hands as she sat up a little straighter. Silas might not find it as funny as she, or Heather, did.
She was a little quieter saying it, "stupid Verlices." It did sound a bit childish now that she thought about it.
Silas snorted, smirking into his packet. "Accurate."
---
Brynn hadn't ever made conversation with her fifth eldest brother, but she had to start somewhere. Some people weren't very good at making conversation.
She could sympathise with that.
Somewhere was here.
"Do you have maths at university?" she asked, quietly, unsure if boundaries were being overstepped.
Silas stopped chewing the crisps in his mouth, looking up from his focus on the blue crisp packet.
He stared, then swallowed, digging into the packet once more, "no."
Brynn's mouth was parted a tad as she nodded minimally, letting out a breathy, "cool."
She fiddled with the pen again, in both hands. She didn't think Silas wanted to speak much more.
That was okay.
The math homework she refocused on was not. But it was doable now. Silas didn't make a move to leave the kitchen area, still eating his crisps with the back of his hips against the counter.
The silence was okay. Brynn tried the next question on her maths sheet and eventually Silas finished his crisps. He crumbled the packet up and threw it to the middle of the island, opening the drawer in front of him once again to get another packet out.
Brynn stared at the question for a few seconds, then circled something that seemed relevant in the question. Then, she subtly looked up to Silas who stood still, looking into the crisp packet.
His index finger tapped the outside of the packet repeatedly as he shifted on the spot every so often. Brynn watched the movement vigilantly.
Then she went back to her math sheet, concentrating on that as much as she could when all she read were words that made little-to-no sense and all she could feel was the tense silence around the kitchen, accompanied by the occasional rustle of Silas' crisp packet.
And as the silence progressed and the longer Silas remained in the same room as her, the more Brynn wanted to talk to him.
Not many opportunities to talk to her older brother presented themselves. And a lot of the time Silas left the room when she entered.
Tightening her grip on the pen, she stopped circling meaningless words and tapped the end of it on the worksheet, nervously. "Will you help me with this question?"
Silas didn't move. Brynn swallowed. "Please."
Silas looked up, eyes passably widening in a way that seemed to be surprise, before nodding and discarding the snack on the island. He wiped his hands on the sides of his blazer and went back to her side and leant over to look at the page again.
Brynn shuffled in her seat as his eyes trailed over her face thoughtfully before focusing on the second question on the worksheet. He furrowed his eyebrows, pointing his right index finger at it.
"Why are you doing cubic graphs? That's a year eleven topic, you're year seven."
"Eight."
"Hm."
His brows remained furrowed as his finger trailed the graph and the third question, and then the fourth.
When he flipped the page over, Brynn thought it best to fill in the quietude. "She likes to give us topics to learn ahead of time before she teaches them properly." She looked down at her intertwined hands with interest when Silas shifted his gaze to her and mumbled, "I don't know a lot though."
Silas kept silent for a while, until he slid his hand under the worksheet and brought it up. "You aren't supposed to know any of this just yet," he said with a firm voice.
Brynn looked up at the sheet, dejectedly. "A lot of people in the class can do them."
"A lot of people in the class have private tutors to do it for them because mummy and daddy pay them to," he gritted, placing the sheet back down with more force than looked necessary.
"What's this?"
Brynn followed his eyeline to a sheet that poked out from her main maths book and tensed upon recognising it. The work she got 21/80 on.
She played with her fingers more frantically. "Uh, it's just another piece of work. It's not important."
Which probably led Silas to believe that it was important because he arched an eyebrow and reached for the booklet anyway. Brynn cringed as he pulled it out from the book and placed it on top of the dismissed worksheet, narrowing his eyes at the, unnecessarily large, score at the top.
He opened it, examining the copious amounts of zeros that filled almost every page, Brynn picking more and more excessively at her thumb nail.
He got to the only page that she was proud of. The 15/15 score stood smally against the bottom corner of the right page and she almost smiled upon looking at it.
But any inkling of a smile that had managed to crawl onto her face faded as soon as she looked at the words next to it. Her heart dropped like it had when she first read them.
It plummeted even further when she saw Silas' eyes narrow in on them.
It took no longer than a second for his grip on the page to visibly compress and jaw to clench before he stood up straight and left the kitchen, taking the sheet with him.
Brynn turned around in the seat, addled. Not much noise was in the room after that, all Brynn could clearly hear was her heartbeat and possibly even her own confusion.
The kitchen doorway remained empty even after a minute of Silas stalking out. Brynn sighed, hoping Mrs Gren wouldn't ask for that sheet back.
She turned back to the worksheet and pulled a face, now looking at the back of it because Silas had flipped it over. It looked even harder.
Wincing, she flipped it back over and slipped it into her book, pushing that away too- for good measure.
Not long after doing that, she heard footsteps re-entering the kitchen. Turning around wasn't so much an option, seeing as the moment she tried to turn the chair, a hand turned it back around immediately and paper was slammed down onto the countertop in front of her.
She jumped, eyes darting from the- now identified- maths booklet and the suit jacket that she was met with when she looked to her side. Zayne's.
Swallowing, the twelve year old leant back with wide eyes.
Zayne's features weren't discernible in any manner of the word, but ire seemed to radiate from the man's mere presence at times. Times like these. Where Brynn was sure she had messed up.
"I'm really sorry. I tried-"
He raised his right hand to quieten her, slowly for Brynn to track it cautiously.
The hand lowered gradually onto the booklet on the countertop, bringing Brynn's attention to it once more before it went back to inbetween Zayne's eyebrows, that furrowed the tiniest amount if one looked eminently closely.
"Did Mrs Gren mark this piece of work, Brynn?" he asked, calmly, although the rough timber of his voice betrayed the steady tone.
Brynn moved her eyeline back down to the work, as if to buy herself more time, and gulped, not sure what the right answer would be. In spite of the fact that she knew Zayne was demanding the truth, knew what the truth was.
Swallowing down the ridiculous amount of trepidation that had managed to build up on her throat, she nodded hesitantly. "Yes, she did."
Zayne observed her for a moment before speaking, "and did you try your best on this piece of work, Brynn?"
The latter answered faster to this question because she had, she really had. "I did, I promise. Silas even helped me with one part," she maundered imploringly, "I really did try, Zayne."
Zayne tsked, opening the booklet to the page with the only good score on it and pointing to Mrs Gren's comment with a less-steady finger. "I shall not have this, Brynn. I hope you understand that."
For a moment, Brynn believed her was referring to her pitiful score, until she looked at where his finger stabbed the page again. She rubbed one ankle against the other anxiously.
"I will be ringing the school tonight and resolve this issue promptly. No other math work should be done by you in the meantime, is that understood?" he said gravely and he kept his finger on the work.
Brynn successfully picked out the dirt beneath her thumb nail, prolonging her expected response by trailing her eyes to the finger atop of the maths booklet. This wasn't how she thought this would go.
"Zusje."
"I understand," she said, side glancing and seeing Silas leaning against the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed. They made eye contact and Brynn immediately looked back at Zayne.
He didn't say anything for a while, analytic as per. At some point he nodded and stopped pressing into the defenceless workbook. "Good. You will not set foot into that classroom tomorrow, not until I have resolved this matter. Rather, you will spend that period with Silas."
Brynn almost did more beyond part her mouth. She almost physically reacted to the way her heart leapt in her chest. Anywhere else.
She could have went to the library instead. She could have sat with Aubrey because Aubrey had to go to extra English tutoring at the same time and she always skipped that. She would have even sat in the toilets for an hour if it came to that.
Instead of saying any of that, she nodded and responded, "okay."
Zayne glanced towards the rest of the schoolwork that was splayed out across the island, then walked out, sparing Silas a single nod which was returned.
She watched the interaction with slight apprehension, uncertain whether joining Silas would be better than going to maths class.
They had only just aptly conversed. It was like the steady release of water from the dam had become a flood.
But Brynn couldn't worry about that at the moment. Silas left the kitchen not long after, leaving his unfinished crisp packet which Brayden took when he came in, originally to make dinner before he decided to help Brynn with her Dutch homework.
"My?"
"Mijn."
"Your?"
"Jouw."
"His?"
"Zijn."
"Her?"
"Haar."
"Me?"
"Me or mij." He nodded once.
"You?"
"Jij."
Brayden hummed, scanning the sheet some more.
"Dog?"
"Hond."
"Brother?"
"Broer."
"Older brother?"
Brynn paused, "uhm..."
Brayden waited patiently as she scoured her brain for the words, but to no avail. She exhaled defeatedly, "ik weet het niet."
He smiled, "het stelt niets voor." Brynn understood that, her teacher said it many times to her.
"Your pronunciation has improved immensely, Brynn. You should be very proud of yourself," he complimented, sliding the, now done, homework sheet back into her Dutch book and standing up to start dinner.
She flushed, smiling to herself. She had put a lot more work in for Dutch than she had for her other subjects. It was her mother's home language, after all.
"I think it helps that Zach watches Dutch movies sometimes," she responded, packing away all of her schoolwork and sliding it to the side, deciding that that was enough for tonight.
Brayden pulled out a two pans from the top cupboards, turning around for a second to look at her, upturned lips, "do you watch them, too?"
Brynn shrugged, "only when Zach puts them on. I don't know what's going on a lot of the time, but I can understand a few things here and there." She looked down, playing with her worn nails. "I like spending time with him," she said, much quieter.
The man on the other side of the island didn't say anything after that. An intermission created itself, or maybe Brynn had created it, causing Brynn to pause in shredding the skin by her thumb and look up, steadily.
Brayden had stopped setting up the pans and turned to face her fully with a blank look that changed leisurely to a softer one. A smile appearing before he turned back around to continue with what he was setting up.
Later in the evening, Brynn was met with something she wasn't prepared for. And she appeared to be the only one in the household who wasn't prepared.
The doorbell rang after dinner whilst Brynn was brushing her teeth and then it had become silent again.
Up until she had been called downstairs where she hadn't expected to see a colossal tree in the middle of the entryway. One that had practically reached the ceiling.
It was bare and surrounded by every one of her brothers, bar Zayne who stood shaking hands with a man by the front door.
"What do you think?" Zach asked, arms crossed.
Brynn stopped on the last step, with a crushing grip on the banister, overwhelmed. She hadn't seen a Christmas tree in years. Father Christmas hadn't visited her for years.
"Does that mean we celebrate Christmas here?" she asked, trying to find the top of the tree.
There was silence before Callan had cleared his throat, "of course we do, hun. Do you want to have a look at the one in the living room?"
Brynn halted her search for the very top of the tree and looked at Callan, "there's more?"
Callan smiled and nodded, "go and have a look. I'll be in in a moment."
She stepped off the last step, ignoring the way the cold wooden flooring embedded itself into her socks because there was too much adrenaline rushing through her at this moment to even shiver.
Sparks shot from her shoulders to her fingertips to her shoulders again with fervent excitement, but she wouldn't allow herself to grin like she had wanted to, not until she knew that her excitement wasn't misplaced.
And it certainly wasn't.
The tree in the living room wasn't as large as the one in the entryway. That would have been impossible, but it was very large and had boxes surrounding it. It's place by the rounded windows felt perfect.
She sniffed when she heard footsteps come closer to the room, taking a tremulous breath in.
To avoid being in the person's way when they entered, she walked forward, closer to the tree.
"Do you like it, Brynn?" Callan asked.
Brynn nodded, "I love it."
"Good. Let's decorate it."
"Decorate it?" It looked perfect as it was.
Callan walked over to one of the boxes, pulling out a shiny decoration and wrapping it around Brynn's shoulders. "Decorate it. Christmas is only a few weeks away, Brynn. We mustn't leave it plain for too long."
Brynn didn't do much on the decoration side, but she did pass Callan the occasional thing and Zach, too, when he came to help. They seemed to know what they were doing more than she did.
She hadn't decorated a Christmas tree for years. Milo had never bought one, he had never even entertained the idea of it just to deride her.
Everybody at her old school had them, and now she had two.
Silas, Ezra and Brayden had put a movie on and Zayne stood close to the entrance, almost leaning against the wall, unmoving. Brynn had nearly asked him if he wanted to assist, before recognising the fact that Zayne most definitely did not want to participate in such an activity.
Zaiden was working on all kinds of switches until the tree eventually lit up with small-scale pure white dots, making Brynn step back in awe.
She stood like that for awhile before something entered her peripheral vision on the left. Turning, she saw Zach holding out an intricate looking angel towards her with a look unplaced.
"This is usually your job."
Brynn looked down at the angel, which she knew was supposed to go at the very top of the tree, and took five seconds longer than she probably should have in taking it.
The soft material of the angel's dress rested comfortably between her fingertips and its face seemed delicate, great carefulness needing to be taken with it, yet looked like it had endured many years.
In observing the angel, she had unintentionally settled into the silence that overtook the room, save from the film playing at a low volume in the background.
Looking up, she noticed Zach wasn't staring at her any more. He looked over her shoulder to the entryway, or rather, next to the entryway, where Zayne had situated himself.
Zach wasn't the only one watching him, unsure. All of them were. All at that blank look that revealed nothing except where his eyes were tracking. Currently, at Brynn.
Brynn squeezed the angel softly, not sure what was happening, but followed what her older brothers were doing. Although, she assumed she was the only one who was focused on a space on the wall to the right of Zayne.
By and by, before the stretch of silence became too extended, Zayne tutted softly, straightening up from the wall and walking forward.
Brynn barely had a moment of discernment, a soft gasp escaping as two of Zayne's large hands eased under her arms and raised her feet from the floor. Higher and higher, until she was level with the very top of the tree, less than within arms reach.
The prickles of the branches poked into her clothes, yet that was the last thing on her mind. The initial shock stayed and the sparks began shooting up her arms again.
As quickly as she could, she placed the angel on the very top branch, hovering her hands around it for a few seconds to make sure it stayed upright.
The moment she moved her hands away, she was lowered back down and she felt Zayne's presence move away.
---
The next day at school, Brynn waited outside maths like she was told to do, a few feet away from the door so that Mrs Gren wouldn't actually notice her standing outside and force her to come in. She wasn't sure if Zayne had contacted the school yet, or if Mrs Gren knew that he had, but she very much did not want to find out.
Aubrey and Penny weren't as hesitant as she was to witness Mrs Gren's anger. They stood between her and the door.
Aubrey took one final glance at the door. "Are you sure you don't want to hang out in the library for a bit and wait for Penny to get out of Art?" she asked. Penny nodded in agreement, looking back at the door again for good measure and Brynn couldn't blame her. Visions of Mrs Gren standing at the door window and gesturing for her to enter with a menacing finger roll came to mind more than once.
She shook her head, trying not to look at the door again. "That's okay, thank you. I'll be okay with Silas," she reassured them. Just them.
"You should go to your lessons before you get caught, really I'm fine," she insisted and they didn't look convinced. However, they still listened.
"Alright, we'll meet you at lunch then," Penny said, not looking entirely ready to leave, but Aubrey eventually dragged her off.
At some point when Silas did come, he didn't stop, only gestured with his fingers for her to follow to wherever he was striding to.
He, apparently, had no qualms over walking past the class door window to Mrs Gren's room. Everytime Brynn believed he would be stopping somewhere, he would pick up even more speed and keep going.
Brynn almost stopped when he made a direct beeline to the university campus. High schoolers weren't allowed in there.
Silas didn't seem to trouble himself with that rule and seemingly didn't expect Brynn to trouble herself that it either, which was ambitious.
Brynn had always wondered what the inside of the university campus looked like, it was the largest out of the three campuses and the oldest-looking. And, if in other circumstances, she might have looked around the extensive corridors and larger classrooms.
Nobody told her to leave, even though many watched as she followed Silas through the building.
The room they ended up in was a library, much larger than the high school library, with multiple levels and more tables and shelves. Silas immediately made his way to a table at the back and slumped down into a chair, dropping his bag onto the table and rooting through it.
Brynn sat down at the same table, two seats away and opened up her own bag, quieter than how Silas was. As Silas pulled out a thick folder and notebook, Brynn pulled out a thin, half-filled-in homework sheet. And whilst Silas began writing in the notebook, Brynn read through the questions of the section she hadn't finished yet.
The university library had more white noise than the high school library did. In the high school library, the quietness got anxiety-inducing at some point if one stayed in there too long. Here, however, there seemed to be a permanent whirring noise emanating from somewhere which kept one sane.
Unlike the sheet before Brynn, which didn't even look like it had words on it anymore due to extensive staring. Silas seemed concentrated, but Brynn couldn't stop shifting in the seat, choosing instead to descry the books on the shelves surrounding them.
Until that got tedious, as well.
She did her best to look at Silas' packed folder with subtleness, which evidently didn't work out, because he shifted his eyes up from his notebook, causing Brynn to look back down at her own sheet.
Silas returned to his own work, so Brynn waited ten more seconds before deciding to try and sneak a glance at the folder again, to see what he was studying at the moment. The black folder was in her sight, but then again so were Silas' brown eyes.
She looked back down and then winced upon hearing him sigh and his pen be put down onto the wood of the table.
"Can I help you with something, zusje?"
Brynn bit her lip anxiously. It was too late, she'd been caught now- for a second time.
"How come you don't study maths?"
Silas looked, for a split second, like he wasn't expecting her to ask that. He answered nonetheless.
"Because I have no interest in studying it."
"But you're good at it."
Inexplicably, he looked stumped for a second. Then he composed himself.
"I'm average at it."
"I think you're very good at it."
She swallowed because he looked in her eyes this time. She held it.
He didn't speak for a little while and that made Brynn even more nervous. Maybe she should have just asked Zayne to let her take her chances with Mrs Gren.
Silas finally blinked and sighed.
"A lot of my chosen degrees involve Math at some point, so I'm never far from it."
"But you don't do Maths by itself?"
"No."
"Do you prefer that?"
"What's with all the questions?" he accused lowly.
Brynn gulped and shrugged minimally, muttering a small, "sorry."
After a minute, Silas picked his pen back up and began writing in the notebook again. The consistent whirring noise in the library was made audible again and Brynn breathed it in deeply and tapped her fingers against the hardwood.
"Why did you tell Zayne about what Mrs Gren said?"
The millisecond sound escaped her mouth, Silas dropped his pen down and sighed into his fingers that were over his mouth.
He rose his eyebrows and gave a small nod forward, "are we really doing this right now?"
Brynn chewed the inside of her cheek and picked at her fingers, but said nothing.
"Fine," Silas gritted. He slammed his notebook shut and glided it over to the side, making it bump into his folder. "I told Zayne what she wrote because what she wrote was unacceptable."
Brynn pushed herself into the back of the seat a little more, disregarding the malaise of it in favour of trying to avoid Silas piercing gaze which she brought upon herself.
Silas proceeded, "And quite frankly, I am confused as to why you didn't tell Zayne sooner."
Brynn furrowed her eyebrows, particularly at the lack of more words coming from Silas. He was expecting an answer.
In truth, the idea of telling Zayne hadn't even occurred at all.
"Because... because it didn't matter."
"It didn't matter?"
"She's not a nice teacher. Most people think that. It's just how she-" she paused trying to find the words. "How she is."
She flinched when Silas hand slammed down onto the table, causing Brynn's pen to roll off. He leaned forward, "that doesn't give her the right to-"
He stopped, taking in her alarmed state before he bit his lip and leaned back into his chair.
Reaching for his notebook, he slid it back in front of him and opened it. "It doesn't matter," he muttered, continuing his work like he hadn't stopped.
Brynn rubbed her wrist, murmering a negligible, "okay."
The whirring noise of the library returned, but it wasn't as comforting as it had been before.
Brynn picked up her pen from the floor and placed it in the middle of her paper. By the time Silas had finished one page and was turning it over to write on the back of it, Brynn had managed to move her pen into seven different positions around the page to align it with different things.
She had also not done well to turn a blind eye to the swelling thoughts and feelings that were itching to shake her hands and legs. She shouldn't have agitated Silas like that. She should be doing her work right now. No, her work should be done by now.
So many thoughts like those repeated over and over and over, until they were rinsed out by what Silas said next.
"If I buy you a lemonade, will you stop thinking so loud?" he was looking up.
Brynn bit the inside of her cheek, she was only allowed to have a lemonade occasionally. Callan only gave them to her every once in a while. This didn't feel like a special occasion.
Nevertheless, she didn't want to agitate Silas further than she already had. Nodding, she let go of the pen she was attempting to put into an eighth position, "yes, please."
Silas sighed, pushing his chair out and standing up to walk over to one of the many vending machines that were by the library entrance, that were just in Brynn's eyeline.
He came back, putting the yellow can with lemon designs on it in front of her. She gulped, "thank you," and waited for what she felt was a good amount of time before reaching forward to bring it closer.
---
I've edited all chapters. They will be uploaded soon, so here is your warning. You have a while to read the current book now as it is, because it won't be coming back once I've uploaded the edited chapters.
They were done a while ago, but people have asked for more time so I decided to just continue publishing like normal because I don't think I can keep starving you. If you are confused about anything in this chapter, I guarantee you that that is because it is part of the edited story. I haven't changed much! It's just better idk.
<3