Me and Jackie have been living at the Walter household for a month and 12 days now. I was skeptical at the will reading when mom put Kathrine as mine and Jackie's guardians. But now that we're living here, I'm actually really enjoying it. From the talks about theatre me and Danny have, to Lee showing me cool tricks on his skateboard. But the part I've loved most about my stay here is Alex. He's been such a sweet boy, and I think he may be my best friend. Me, Skylar, Grace and Jackie have become a little quad of people, Alex and Kiley occasionally joining us too.
I would also go with Alex and Kiley at lunch and during my free periods sometimes so that I could have two stable groups. I can tell Jackie is happier now she's here, her smile seems genuine and her eyes are bright. My sister being happy is something I've wanted for the last 7 months of my life. We've even fallen into a routine, to the point where we've got designated shower times. I'm during the evening, she's during the mornings. She's always been a morning shower girl, just like our sister, Lucy.
It's another early morning we wake up and Jackie goes for her morning shower. I notice some of the boys sneaking around with something, I can't quite tell what. A few moments later I hear a scream come from the bathroom. "Jackie?! Are you okay?" I shout in to her. She unlocks the door and ushers me inside. She's in her bath robe, her hair in a towel. "What's wrong?" I ask her. All she does is take her hair out of the towel to reveal bits of ginger in it. "Oh my god, what the hell happened?!" It's not even like she could pretend it was intentional, it's splotchy and all over the place.
"Someone put bleach in the shampoo." She says, looking at her hair closely in the mirror. "Don't worry, we can fix this." I go out of the bathroom to find Issac. "Hey Issac, can you go get Kathrine?" I ask him. He has a really large grin on his face. "Uhhh, no. We had a bet that your sister would rather skip school than go with messed up hair." I look behind him to see Jordan filming the doorway, Benny with Jackie's bathroom bag in his hand and Cole leaning against the doorframe. "Are ALL of you in on this bet?" I question, anger bubbling inside me. "The only one that isn't in on it is Alex and You. Lameeee." I hear Lee say behind his brother.
"You're all Jerks, y'know that right?" I barge past them, trying to see if I brought anything to cover Jackie's hair for today. A baseball cap. If she puts her hair into a low ponytail no one will be able to tell. This will have to do until we can go buy hair dye after school. I go back to get Jackie from the bathroom but she's tried venturing out alone. Jordan is filming her and the boys are laughing at her. For some reason, Cole is gone. Weird. I see her in her room, baseball cap in my hand.
"Okay, good news and bad news. Good news, if you put your hair into a low ponytail the baseball cap will look intentional. Bad news, we're gonna have to wait till after school to get hair dye." My sister looks distraught. She's never dyed her hair and wanted to keep it that way. "It'll be fine. When we get home I'm kicking all their asses. I'm sure Alex will help." I wink at her, trying to get her to laugh. She let's out a little chuckle. "Can we keep this between the two of us? Just for today." She says to me. I nod, holding out my pinky.
"I pinky promise." I leave her to go get ready myself. A pair of blue flaire jeans with a white long sleeve shirt that glings to me. I pair them with my worn out white converse. My hair being in a low ponytail with two front pieces in the front untied. Maybe my sisters sudden hair issue won't be noticeable if I'm also wearing my hair in a ponytail. I put on some makeup, making sure to do each step in detail. I then go check on my sister. I have leant her some sweatpants and a black top so it looks like she's going low key today.
"No one's gonna notice." I reiterate to her as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. We go downstairs to grab breakfast and get in the car. Alex gives Jackie's unusual outfit a look. "I'll tell you later." I whisper. I'll tell him once Jackie's told Kathrine and George, but for now it no one's business. We get to our lockers. We're 20 minutes early. I see Jackie's talking to Skylar so I feel free to give Alex my full attention. He's got another book in his hand. Fellowship of the ring. "You really like books with rings don't you Walter." I've picked up on using Alex's last name when talking to him in the last 2 weeks. He doesn't seem to mind the nickname so it's stuck. It's like my version of him calling me Stell.
"It's a more under ground and better version of Lord of the rings." He states. It's as if he doesn't know there's an entire trilogy for it. "I've seen the movies Walter. They were mediocre at best." He scoffs and my words. he looks as if I've just killed his entire family infront of him. "Well that's because you haven't read the books. Y'know I think that's a great date idea." Excuse me?! DATE?! My cheeks turn red. He's now clocked onto what he's said. "I uhh I meant it's a great idea to set a date to uhh, y'know " He's talking really fast and he's looking at the ground. Both qualities he does when he's extremely nervous.
"You're gonna have to work harder than that if you want me Walter." The bell then rings and I'm off to my first class of the day, Art. I should've waited for Alex's response but in all honesty I'm wayyyy to nervous to think about it. I'm never nervous to boys reactions to me flirting, or them flirting back. But with Alex, he's got this weird hold on my emotions that I myself can't fully comprehend. It's a peaceful walk until Cole comes up next to me. "Blondie." I hear him say. Ew. "Cole. Haven't you got other people you need to go bother?" He laughs at me, as if what I said is a joke.
"Don't be like that Blondie. Let me walk you to class." He's got a cocky grin on his face. "What would Erin say about that?" Erin is coles not girlfriend girlfriend. The entire school knows they have chemistry but Cole "doesn't do girlfriends." Like okay, do you want a medal in not being dependable? "She's not my girlfriend, so it doesn't matter what she thinks." I've learned that with Cole, if you entertain his idea long enough he'll eventually leave you alone. If walking me to one class means he'll leave me one then so be it. "If you walk me to class will it shut you up?" He nods, happy he's got his way.
Good thing the classroom is about 30 seconds away. Just need to wait 30 seconds and this hell will be over. But before I can make it to my escape from Cole Walters, the guidance councilor, miss Jacob's stops me and Cole in the hallway. I spoke to her briefly during my first week of school. I have to see her once a month due to the accident just to make sure I'm not isolating myself. "Stella, I wanted to inform you of an opening on the debate club you asked about, it'd look great in your Collage application." Thank god. A club I can actually do that I'm good at. "Thank you." I say as she gives me the flyer for the times. "Also, the extra credit you asked for in Chemisty and English are here." She hands me more paper. I say thank you to her again.
"Cole, I'd like to talk to you." She tries to say to him nicely. "No thank you." He tries to walk away but Miss Jacob's stops him. "It's not a request. Make an appointment." She walks off in a hurry after that. "Instead of making her life harder, just go see her Cole." He looks at me, confused. "Didn't think you cared." He towers over me. "I'm not entirely heartless. See you at 3:30." I try to walk away but he follows me. "You're gonna be late to your own class." I sit in my seat. He's escorted me to my seat. Why won't he just fucking go away?
"Gotta get you here safe."
"I can do that just fine myself. But if I need help I'll be sure to call your brother. Bye Cole." He's left gob smacked. He looks me up and down and walks out. Skylar, Grace and Kylie are stairing at me. "Did Cole Walters, THE Cole Walters walk you to class?!" Grace is basically fangirling over the fact he was less than a foot away from her. "Not by choice." I remark, getting my sketchpad out. "It's litterally the Cole effect." Grace looks at the entire group. "The Cole effect?" I question.
"The Cole effect. Everyone has fallen subject to Cole Walter and his charm, it's really only a matter of time before you do Stella." That's coming from someone who is still victim to whatever the Cole effect is. "Well Stella is clearly into the Alex effect." Skylar teases, my cheeks turning red. "What, no. Me and Walt- Alex are just friends." Whatever I say won't ever convince them that there's nothing going on between me and Alex. Especially Skylar. "Oh come on, the tension between the two of you is that thick, it can be cut with a god damn knife." The entirety of my art lesson is Skylar and Grace arguing over weather I liked Cole or Alex more. No matter how hard I tried to get them to stop they wouldn't.
When the bell finally rings for lunch I'm happy to get myself out of that situation. I walk to meet Alex outside of his class, a smile immediately forming on my face when I see him. "Miss me Walter?" He walks out of that class and our arms accidentally bump into each other. I can't help the little tingles I feel when his skin touches mine. It's electric. "How was Art?" He asks me. I immediately think back to the debate that my friends were having in class about him and his brother.
"Fine, my friends may be the most annoying people on the planet but I love them really, how was your class?" I ask. Hopefully if I ask him about his class this twinge in my heart will go away. "Boring. Classes with you are much better. I at least have someone to talk to then." Over my time at the Walter house me and Alex have formed such a close bond. It's like if I ever have a problem, I tell him about it and suddenly the problem just melts away, so quickly. We never stop talking, it's to the point where he sneaks into my room once a week and we're just sat on my bed talking until early hours in the morning. It's my favourite part about a Friday night.
Today is Friday, which means it's our late night chat night. That also means school is going to drag like hell. "We're gonna have the house to ourselves tonight, that means we get to make hot chocolate without the younger ones taking it." I smile at his announcement. "I can finally bring out my decent cups. No offence but with the chaos of the house I never want to bring out the nice stuff." We continue to dicuss our plans for the evening, it even lasts until all our classes end.
We get home expecting to have peace and quiet as the house should be empty but we're welcomed back to pure chaos.