Half an hour later, Grady, Luke, Ethan, and I were all telling idiotic jokes back and forth. Grady sat to my left on the floor, Luke to his left, and Ethan to my right.
"That's probably the most stupid-" I began to say as we all heard the basement door open.
"Michelle! It's time for dinner! Are Luke and Grady's friend staying?" No, probably not.
I looked at Luke, who was pulling out his phone while in the middle of standing up. "We've got to get home, let's go." Ethan, understanding, waved a goodbye to both my brother and I. He went to stand next to his brother.
"No, they're not." I yell back up to her, and I hear her say an okay and close the door.
Now that they were standing next to each other I realized how much they look alike, almost as if they could've been twins. Luke had the most blue eyes I'd ever seen on a boy, while Ethan's were pretty much the same, just a shade darker.
'Tomorrow?' Grady asked me.
"Tomorrow what?" I replied, having an idea of what he meant but needing reasurrance.
'Can we walk home with them again?'
"If that's okay with them." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ethan nod, followed by Luke agreeing. "Go up and tell mom I'll be there in a minute." I sign to Grady.
After he's ran up the stairs, I lead the two brothers up them aswell, figuring that if I let them up there themselves my mother would find this the perfect opportunity to talk to them.
They silently followed as we reached the front door. I stood still, not sure what to do now. Is this where I open the door for them? Do I just sit there until they decide to move? I don't know how this works.
"Yeah, we'll see you guys tomorrow, maybe?" I tell them, opening the door and awkwardly looking down to the soda-stained carpet of the living area.
"Well, if you decide to not be sick again," Luke chuckles lowly, looking over his shoulder while him and Ethan walk down the porch steps.
† † † † † † †
I sat at the dinner table, something my family never does unless it's a holiday. And it's not a holiday. "We're eating at the table?" I question my mom, also signing so my brother could understand what was going on.
"I just thought we could talk about who you guys had over today. You barely gave me a chance to speak to them," she replied, picking up a piece of green bean with her fork. "Did you meet them at school?"
"Grady did, actually." A smile had appeared on my face, my eyes looking over to Grady, who wasn't paying attention. I swatted his arm lightly to have him look at me. "Isn't that right, Grady?"
'What?' his hands moved, his expression confused.
"You met Ethan at school."
My mom looked at him expectantly. When he nodded, a tooth-filled smile showed up on her slightly wrinkled, tan face. "That's good! Why did you start talking to him?"
'He had a Zelda shirt on.'
"Good to know me telling you to didn't help, nerd!" My eyes rolled and I picked up my fork to fly a green bean into his face as he laughed.
"What about Luke?" My mom interrupted with a clear of her throat.
"Oh, that's his brother. He goes to my school."
"Maybe you could start hanging out with this boy instead of Michael."
"Mom, don't." Grady had gone back to eating the rest of his food, not interested in what we were talking about now. We didn't need to sign.
She moved her hands up in surrender, still holding a fork in her left hand. "I'm just saying. Does he go to your school?"
I tucked a messy piece of dark brown hair behind my ear. "Yes."
"Is he a smart kid? Maybe he could-," I interrupted her.
"I don't need to be tutored, mom." I just met the boy today, I didn't know anything about him other than his ability to come up with jokes so lame they become funny.
She sighed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Either that or you're going to your dad's."
I don't understand why she ever used that as a threat, as if being over there was some kind of good influence that could change my negative attitude. If anything it would put me in an even worse mood when I got back due to the fact that my dad never really did anything for himself anymore. Everything there had to be done by me and Grady, most of the time it was me.
Finished with dinner, Grady pushed his chair back and stood up to walk his plate to the sink. Telling us he'd be in his room, he signed goodnight and headed upstairs.
I followed behind him after a few minutes of silence, not wanting to be in this situation any longer than I had to be.
School isn't something I particularly thrived at, I don't know why my mother is all of a sudden taking notice of my grades. I'm kind of glad I took most of my characteristics and personality from my father, because if I was as uptight and hard on people as she was I surely would've been strangled by now.
My mother and I didn't get along for the most part, though there were few things we actually did agree on and share in common. I liked my music so loud that I recieved annoyed glances, she didn't listen to music at all. When she was younger she wanted to be exactly what she is now; a nurse. I want to be an artist, I want to impact people's lives and opinions and give them such mind-boggling art they don't know what to make of it.
We barely looked alike, too. Where she had a perfect complexion and light brown, always perfect hair, I had the darkest brown hair I'd ever seen and quite possibly the palest skin. There were freckles aligning every inch of my face, even some on the rest of my body, and she was clear of them.
At one point I truly believed I was adopted, only to look closer at my father on one of the rare visits to his house and saw I was practically a carbon copy of him. The only thing I hadn't inherited from him were the color of my eyes, thankfully. He had the weirdest mix of colors in his, blue and green and mostly brown. It would've looked completely out of place on me.
I felt my phone buzz repeatedly from its place beside me on my bed.
"Hi, Michael," I sighed into the speaker.
"Are you able to go out tonight?" I could picture Michael lying on his bed, with his feet dangling off of the edge and his head toward the sky while trying to keep track of the cracks on his ceiling. He did that a lot.
"I don't really feel up for it. Meet me after school tomorrow, though."
My life wasn't horrible, not at all. I've never had to deal with anything completely life altering other than my parents' divorce and Grady's hearing loss. Though something in my head was always there to keep me thinking that everything was, in some way, unsatisfying and unnessicary and going to end up quite horribly. Another thing I've inherited from my father.
"Why? What happened?"
"Nothing. I'm just tired." I was tired a lot. Mostly of having to fend off my mother's worrying and nagging and negativity toward the only friend I've ever known.
He chuckled quietly. "You're always tired."
"And I wish I knew how not to be, Michael."
"You could sleep."
"Well I can't really do that if I have a certain red haired boy telling me to hang out with him at-," I strain my neck to look at the cable box, "almost eleven at night."
I could hear him shuffling and a door open through the phone, probably to get something to eat with the phone held in between his ear and shoulder. "I wonder who that could be?"
"Asshole," I muttered under my breath.
"I heard that. Anyway, tomorrow's Friday, right? We still watching Beetlejuice?" It was a tradition Michael and I had developed over the years of our friendship; every other Friday, we'd take turns choosing a movie to watch and we'd decide where to watch it, my house or his. This Friday it was my choice, and I had chosen Beetlejuice.
"Yeah, yeah. We'll walk to my place tomorrow."
I sat up from my place on my bed, walking over to the television to turn it on. The titlescreen for some low-budget movie I'd bought showed up.
If you couldn't tell already, I'm a huge movie junkie.
"I'll see you, okay?"
"See you, too, Michael."
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three chapters in and already a filler wow caitlyn new record
anyway yes this was basically a giant information filler idk man just to give you all an idea of everything kind of
AM I DOING GOOD SO FAR PLS LET ME KNOW I NEED REASSURANCE BYe