(December)
"Amazing results as always Livia!" My teacher, Mrs. Carnell smiles brightly at me while handing me my math exam back. I flash a smile back and stare at the A mark on my paper.
"Shit, you got A again?" Dahlia asks and frowns. I smile back at my friend and nod, proud of myself. "Tell me your secret, please" she begs.
"I already told you, I studied hard." I say and she rolls her eyes. "What?"
"You're sixteen, you do nothing but study, go get a life." Dahlia says. I know she's jealous about my great results but that still stung a bit.
I stay quiet for the rest of the lesson, trying my best to focus. Even though I'm a straight A student I still glance at the clock every two seconds and count minutes to our lunch break, only 20 more minutes. Then 15, then 10, 5, and finally the clock goes.
I jump out of my seat and start packing with Dahlia. "Gosh I'm so hungry." I say.
"Me tooo, this lesson took like forever." Dahlia sighs.
"I know right?" I say. We head to get our meals and drinks and then go to our usual table in the center of the cafeteria.
"Hey girls!" We hear a loud voice, Abigail.
"Hi Abby, what took you so long?" I ask, usually Abby is here before us.
"I had a history test." She just shrugs off. I nod and begin to munch my food, fish and vegetables and potatoes. Not that bad actually.
"Wait where's Leo?" Dahlia asks after a while.
"He probably just got scolded by Mr. Martin, they never get along remember?" Abby says and laughs like it's the funniest thing ever. Leo is Dahlia's boyfriend, they've been like glued to each other which is kinda gross.
When Leo finally arrives, Dahlia jumps to his arms smiling like the happiest girl alive.
"Gosh you're only sixteen stop that, it's gross." Abby says when they start kissing and I make a puking sound. Dahlia just rolls her eyes at us and keeps kissing Leo.
"Hey can we eat our lunch in peace at least?" Abby asks rolling her eyes at Dahlia who finally stops kissing her boyfriend. We all sit down and start casual chatting.
"This fish is actually surprisingly good." I say.
"No ew it tastes like they found it in the trash." Dahlia says and scrunches her nose.
"You're just picky Dahlia." Abby laughs.
"Or maybe Liv just eats everything she can see." Leo says and grins.
"What?" I ask in confusion, but Abby and Dahlia just giggles. "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask again, not laughing with them.
"Oh well, you know." Dahlia says and looks at me weirdly.
"Huh? No I don't." I say, my confusion just growing.
"Well, you're not exactly the... umh, skinniest of the group Liv." Abby says and chuckles.
"Oh." I just say, so this had something to do with my weight. Oh well. "I'm not even fat?" I say rolling my eyes.
"Well if you say so." Leo says. "But aren't you like, 160 lbs?"
"Well I mean, yeah I am? But that's not even bad?" I say but Abby side eyes me. "What?"
"Whatever, let's just eat okay?" Dahlia rolls her eyes and we all go quiet for a moment. I mean, I'm not fat right? Right?
***
When the clocks finally rings to the end of the day, I jump up and pack my bag quickly. My mom was probably already outside waiting for me so I needed to hurry. I quickly waved goodbyes to Dahlia, we shared the last class together, and sprinted outside.
"Hey sweetheart, how was school?" Mom asks as I open the door and sit inside.
"It was fine, as fine as school can be." I mutter and grin. She just smiles and starts the car. We were supposed to go watch my little brother's football game and were already kinda late from it, hopefully he wouldn't even notice.
"How late are we?" I ask and mom checks the clock quickly.
"Not even ten minutes, Elijah won't even notice." Mom claimed and I nodded.
The car sped up for a moment before stopping at the parking lot. I left my backpack in the car, just quickly shoving my phone into my pocket and then opened the car door. The parking lot's floor was covered in dusty water that made my (almost) white shoes beg for mercy. I tried to jump over the worst paddles but they still ended up looking pretty crummy and grimy.
"I think your shoes are in a great need of wash." Mom scanned my shoes with a smirk that showed one of her dimple. I have dimples too, but that's probably the only thing that makes us look alike. Because we have pretty much nothing else that would even give a thought about us being related. I apparently look like my dad, chestnut brown curls and big chocolate eyes, like mom likes to call them. To me they just look like brown, but whatever.
We arrive at the game about fifteen minutes later. Pretty gladly nothing had happened yet because good lord we would've heard about missing something important so much that I don't think my ears could've survived it. Elijah's pretty keen on his interests, not to blame him. He's four years younger than me, almost five, but we're still quite close.
"Look mom, there he is." I whisper to her as we take seats in the front row so we could see everything. Mom narrows her eyes to see better and spots his son, awkwardly yelling 'good luck sweetheart!'. I know she really means well but he's twelve already... not my problem if he gets embarrassed though.
The game is pretty tough, Elijah makes a couple of goals and mom yells her support every time. I wish I could leave mom home and come here alone but I don't have a car, she is really sweet but good lord is she embarrassing sometimes. At the end of the game they win and everyone starts yelling happily, I too. We get up from our seats to go give Elijah congrats.
"That was amazing!" I say and give him a smile while mom hugs him.
"Mom, seriously stop it you're embarrassing me!" Elijah mutters and his cheeks are brighter than a fire truck. "Can we go get McDonalds? Like pleeasee" he begs and mom nods after a while.
"Okay, you did so well today I'm just so proud of you!" Mom says with tears in the corner of her bright blue eyes.
"Don't tell me you're crying." I sigh with a smile.
"Can I not be happy about my boy?" She asks and hugs him again. She may be embarrassing but at least she is loving.
"Please let's just go." Elijah sighs and pats mom on her back to make her feel better. It helps and we finally make it to the car, jumping over the same dirty paddles as I did before, now succeeding better than last time.
"What do you guys wanna get?" Mom asks as we finally reach the McDonald's parking lot.
"Double cheeseburger for me!" Elijah yells straight away. Bro had planned on this for a while.
"I can take the same." I add.
"Coming straight up." Mom says brightly and leaves the car.
"Don't you should be getting like a salad or something?" Elijah asks me, not like rudely or anything but just casually.
"What?" I ask not exactly understanding what he meant with that. "Why?"
"I'm not sure, my friends said that." He just shrugs.
"They said that?" I ask flabbergasted.
"They said you'd become heavier over time. And that you're not as pretty as you used to be, when you were skinny." He says. "I said I didn't think so but they just laughed."
"Oh." I just mutter back, I don't say anything for a while after that, why was everyone being like that? I wasn't fat right? I never had thought of myself as fat or even overweight. Sure I had been thinner back when I was like twelve or something but I just grew up? I thought I ate the normal amount, just like anyone else. Or did I, maybe I was a bit bigger than I thought.
"Liv?" Elijah asks after a few minutes of complete quietness. "I'm sorry, did I say something?"
"No no." I say quickly hiding my thoughts. Of course I should've told him that it wasn't okay to speak about someone's weight like that but no words came out of my mouth. "It's fine, I'm just really tired. Tell me about the goals you made today, they looked pretty great." I quickly change the topic and listen with half ear as he mutters something about his great football skills or something. I wasn't fat, right? Everyone was just joking and I was too sensitive to get it. Right. Right?
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