Chapter Two: I’m Not Going to War, Just the Library
“I think he actually might be ‘The One!’” Piper gushed, using her latest catchphrase.
Lately, every boy she dated automatically was “The One.” Though she did have quite the reputation for going through boys like a chain smoker went through cigarettes, the girl fell too easily and let boys play her like a violin. Piper was no saint, and knew it; hell, the whole world knew it, and yet, she was still mindlessly searching for love just like any love-addicted, “normal” teen.
“Tell me that again tomorrow when you dump him,” I said sourly, crossing my legs in a way so that they didn’t reach the ground.
“Why are you in such a mood?” she questioned, propping herself up with her elbows as she lay on my gray comforter adorned bed.
“Harry gave me a one-week suspension,” I shared, as I continued to sketch my muddled emotions out on a poor piece of plain paper.
“Sushi and TV all the way!” she pumped a fist in the air, causing her to lose balance and somehow tumble onto the floor in only a way that Piper could.
“That’s what I said too!” I exclaimed, adding another bold line to the abstract drawing I was doodling.
“So, what’s the issue?”
“It’s in-house,” I shuddered, shifting in the dark, leather chair that I had claimed to be mine years ago.
“No!” she gasped, brushing herself off as if the carpeted floor hadn’t been vacuumed in days.
“I know, right? Oh, and it gets worse!” I said, the pressure I was applying to my pencil steadily increasing as I expressed myself.
“Do tell,” she said, intrigued by the information I was about to unfold.
“It’s in the library,” I said blandly.
“With Brenda?” she shivered.
“With Brenda,” I nodded in confirmation.
“When does it start?”
“Tomorrow,” I sighed. She crawled over to me, awkwardly wrapping her arms around my small frame. “Uh, Pipes, what’cha doin?”
“Giving you a hug in case I never see you again!” she said, tightening her grip around me.
“I don’t like physical contact,” I stated, as she immediately pulled back, remembering the small detail. “Oh, and I’m not going to war, just the library.”
“But it’s so scary and old!”
“You are aware that our entire school was built less than a decade ago, correct?”
“Yeah, but Brenda’s old and scary!” she attempted to defend her invalid point.
“That she is. Maybe, if I feed her, she won’t bite,” I mused mindlessly, allowing my pencil to guide my hand about the paper in a jumble of randomness.
“Don’t be ridiculous! She’s not a caged animal!” Piper laughed, crushing my senseless fantasies.
“I guess you’re right,” I admitted, as another thought popped into my head. “Hey, you know who I met today?”
“Santa Claus?” she guessed sarcastically.
“No,” I ignored her remark, “some kid named Luke. His face was kind of attractive.”
“Have I hooked up with him?" she questioned, as that was how Piper made the majority of her connections.
“I don’t think so—he’s a senior,” I returned, thinking back to those gray eyes. Generally, people I met didn’t even come close to impacting my life, but there was something about that boy that was, well, different—in an indescribable sort of way.
“Wait—you said his name was Luke? As in Luke Daniels?” she said suddenly as if she had missed the past minute of our conversation.
“Uh, yeah,” I rolled my eyes, her inattentiveness normal to me. Piper was my air-headed best friend, and I wasn’t one to deny her of her natural absentmindedness. She was Piper.
“Bitch, please, what ever you do, don’t get involved with him! I’ve heard the rumors!” she warned, sounding much like my mother ...minus the use of the somewhat offensive and irregular pronoun.
“Like what?”
“He has a rep,” her tone was barely above a whisper.
“A rep, huh?” I was now slightly more fascinated. “What else have you heard?”
“He’s been arrested, gone to jail, he smokes cigarettes and pot, he’s part of a gang, and is a total player!” she said scandalously. “Unlike Matt.”
“Who the hell is Matt?” I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion.
“This week’s boyfriend,” she replied automatically.
“What’s his last name?”
“Uh... I know this one...” she fumbled, proving to me why he surely wasn’t “The One.” Generally, when an individual was set on spending the rest of her or his life with another, they were aware of the other’s surname. Well, unless of course that said “other” happened to be a cat. Cats didn’t tend to have names. Cats that I knew, at least. Actually, I didn’t know any cats, and, even if I did, I probably wouldn’t like them. I wasn’t really an animal person. Or human person, for that matter.
“Have you two, uh, done it yet?” I gulped, already knowing the answer.
“Uh, yeah,” she replied meekly.
“Olivia! Piper!” a high-pitched voice sang, as the door that allowed entrance and exit to my fortress swung open.
“Mother, get out!” Piper demanded upon seeing her mom waltz into my room. Normally, I most likely would’ve laughed at the woman’s appearance who stood before us, but, today, I simply didn’t have it in me. I loved the lady more than I loved my own mother at times, but her wardrobe choices weren’t exactly the type of things from which I planned on drawing inspiration (figuratively and literally).
Today, she had somehow willed herself to leave the house in a pair of wide-legged pants, a fur jacket, and heels that would no doubt land her in the hospital—all pink, of course. I was almost two hundred percent sure that that woman didn’t own anything that wasn’t pink. After years of playing hide-and-seek in the Kents’ home as a child, I had seen her closet on more than one occasion. I could verify that color that most commonly induced puke among the likes of Olivia Ross consumed the majority of the clothes-filled chamber. She liked pink—no, loved pink.
“Not your house, not your rules,” said Kara, her beloved mother. “So, Livy, how’s it going?”
“Good. There’s a chance that I’ll befriend a criminal in a few weeks to bother Elle, but, otherwise, everything’s just dandy!” I said caustically, not actually intending to follow through on my empty words. Luke Daniels. He was a senior and a person. I didn’t do too well with people in general, and the addition of his age made him even less tempting to interact with.
“Yeah, she told me about the whole suspension thing. It kind of sucks,” Kara said sympathetically, approaching her daughter.
Though Piper already had a twin, Kara and she could almost pass to be sisters. Piper was a carbon copy of her mother. Both shared the same admiration for pink, a color commonly associated with the female gender, and considered the only “sport” worth partaking in to be shopping. They looked and acted so alike.
“So, what’s the plan tonight?” Piper inquired.
“Preston’s coming over soon, and then the two of you are staying here tonight so your father and I don’t have to deal with you,” Kara said, brutally as honest as always. To put it simply, Kara sucked at the whole being a “mom” thing. She wasn’t cut out for having kids. Though she was housewife, her sole task being to raise Piper and Preston, she wasn’t too good at it, and acknowledged it.
“Oh, so, you’re just dumping us with Aunty Elle and Uncle Nick?” Piper demanded defensively, as she intersected her arms over her chest.
“Uh, yeah,” Kara blinked, not seeing the fault in her ways.
“Do Elle and Nick know about this yet?” I wondered.
“No, I haven’t told them,” Kara said seriously. “I was hoping you would.”
“Elle’s home late, something about a business dinner, so Nick’s in charge of making food tonight; I’m not so sure that you want your children here,” I shared.
“Nick can cook, not well, but I’ve seen him use the microwave,” Kara said thoughtfully.
“Yo! What’s up, my peeps?” a boy I knew far too well greeted as he entered my room, and then realized that his mother was speaking to us. “Oh, uh, hi, mom.”
“Sweetie,” Kara said sharply, turning to her son, “we don’t say ‘peeps’ or ‘yo’, please, stick to proper English.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he gulped, rolling his eyes at her absurdity.
“I was just telling the girls that you three are here tonight with Nick, because your father and I need a break. Sound good?” she summed up the past few minutes of our conversing in a single sentence.
“What? Yeah, sure,” Preston nodded, probably not having a clue as to what his mother had just told him.
“Okay, I’m going to go. If Nick offers you meat again, what do you say?” Kara prompted.
“No, thanks!” the three of us chorused dully.
For some, unknown reason, Kara was currently in a war against meat. She thought it was cruel for animals to be slaughtered for food, and “forbade” (well, tried to) us from eating anything that was once breathing. My parents tried the whole “vegetarian” thing back in college, and didn’t like it, so weren’t really supporting Kara with this particular life choice.
“Good!” she praised as if we were puppies getting house-trained.
“You can leave now,” Piper stated with an innocent smile in the politest way possible.
“You two should have clothes here from last time,” Kara said, walking over to the door.
“Bye, mom!” Preston waved.
“I’ll miss you tonight!” Kara said, her hand clasping around the doorknob.
“No, you really won’t!” Piper assured her.
“You’re right, I probably won’t. Bye, kids!”
And that was that. Kara was gone and the three of us were alone in a room without any supervision. To say that we were a deadly mix would be like saying that a nuclear explosion wasn’t that big of a deal. It was an understatement to end all understatements. We got along and understood each other so well that world domination was actually plausible because of how incredible our communication skills with each other were …not that we’d ever actually pursue the intriguing challenge.
“So, Prest, where the hell were you?” Piper asked her brother in an accusing tone.
“Uh, football practice,” he answered, though he was clearly lying and both Piper and I knew it. Piper looked at me, and I shook my head, his lie not even coming close to being believable. His hair wasn’t dampened as it normally was after an intense, physical excursion and he didn’t display even an ounce of exhaustion. We waited a good twenty-two seconds until he finally caved. “I was hooking up with this chick, I think her name was, like, Amy? Or maybe it was Ally… I don’t know, it had a ‘Y’ at the end.”
Piper and Preston were similar in so many ways that it could physically boggle the mind. Aside from the looks and DNA, they both found rather intimate interactions with others to be negligible deeds. Preston was your classic player, Piper the heartbreaker of the family. At one point, they were in a competition to see who could get with more people; after a month, they were tied, and had to stop. The only major difference between the two was that one was into lip-gloss and clothes, while the other preferred football and video games. Also, Piper was searching aimlessly for “love”, while Preston couldn’t care less about emotions.
“You’re such a slut,” I exhaled in disapproval.
“I know,” he agreed. He looked over to me, assessing my position. When he spotted the writing utensil in my hand, a knowing sigh escaped his lips. “I didn’t see you in school this afternoon. Where’d you run off to this time, Livy?”
Not surprised that he’d been able to figure out my actions based solely on the objects in my possession, I smiled wryly, cryptic words exiting my mouth. “Oh, nowhere, really.”
“Was it the café again?” he questioned, not missing a beat. “Next time you go, you should really take me. They serve the best croissants there and that one barista—the one with the nice, uh, face—yeah, she’s, uh, yeah.”
“You went to the café without us?” Piper demanded, pouting in annoyance.
I yawned, simply shrugging in response to the inquiry. Though I loved the two more than my heart could contain, sometimes I needed a break. Like today, too much rage had consumed me, so I didn’t feel like bringing them into it. I needed a hiatus from the norm, so I left and took a long detour that may or may not have involved two and half of the croissants that Preston had referenced, in addition to a warm cup of tea. I liked tea. It calmed me.
“Hey, Prest, do you know Luke Daniels?” Piper asked, dropping the subject completely, as she had obtained her silent response from me.
“Uh, I think so,” he said, running a hand through his hair as he so often did. Continuing to fiddle with the strands of blonde on his head, he sat down on my bed beside his sister. “Why?”
“Olivia wants to bang him,” she replied casually.
“No, I don’t!” I objected strongly.
“Livy, please, don’t!” Preston begged, clearly concerned.
“Ugh! I never even said that!” I exclaimed in frustration.
“What didn’t you say?" another voice was added to our conversation. We all looked vacantly up as my dad entered my room. “Well, hello to you too!”
“Hi, Nick,” I greeted.
“We’re staying over here tonight,” Piper stated.
“John and Kara abandoning their kids again, are they now?” he laughed, faint glimmers of creases forming on the tanned skin of his face. The next time he looked in the mirror, which would probably be within the next half-hour, and noticed the lines, he’d surely be scorning himself for not moisturizing enough as a teen.
As men in their early forties went, my dad was about as metrosexual as they came. Seriously, this man cared about his appearance more than Piper at times. It wasn’t a bad thing, nor good, for that matter. Just a thing, really. He was a neat “freak”—an occupational hazard he had adopted after years of being a surgeon. The tidiness he was forced to exhibit during his time spent in hospitals slowly but surely evolved into him becoming the man of vanity that he now was. And, from what I had been told, he was already slightly egocentric before going down the medical route. My dad was my dad.
“Yeah, we get it, they don’t like us,” Preston huffed.
“I honestly don’t know why, I mean, you two are so much cooler than them!" my dad said.
“They’re just jealous that they were never as awesome as us,” Piper reasoned.
“Are we having steak for dinner?” Preston asked eagerly, practically salivating over even the thought of ingesting dead cow.
“We are now!” declared my male, parental figure, clapping his hands in finality. I shook my head, the idea of my dad actually making anything raw transform into an edible substance coming across as ludicrous to me.
My dad couldn’t cook. He wasn’t even the type of guy that grilled every once in while because it was still considered somewhat “manly”, because, quite simply, he could not cook. The man could barely boil water, for that matter. Thankfully, he didn’t choose to pursue an employment involving the culinary arts when in college. It was definitely a good decision on his part.
“Livy, I love your dad!” Preston exclaimed.
“I’m glad you’ve expressed your feelings. Maybe you two can go elope the next time you’re in Vegas,” I rolled my eyes dryly.
“Maybe we can send you to prison the next time you get suspended; or worse, grandma’s house!” my dad fired back, half seriously.
“Oh, so, you heard about that?” I hesitated dully.
“Yes, yes, I did. I am on the emailing list, after all. Harry said it was something about class. I don’t really care. Liv, you’re a good kid, make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said evenly, though it was really a twisted threat to not get into trouble, something that was completely out of my control.
“Whatever,” I sighed, not wanting to discuss the topic any longer. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and forget that the day had ever happened. It wasn’t that I disliked getting in trouble, in fact, it gave me a rush, but an in-house suspension was never fun. Especially when it involved Brenda.