Paul flashes a what-are-you-going-to-do-to-me grin. I used to like Paul. Back when he was cute and had baby fat rolls. Middle school has morphed him into a demon that even Satan can’t control.
Baby brother wants to test me, then I’ll call his bluff. “Showers and baths need to start. You can take yours.”
His grin fades. “Make the babies go first.”
“Maybe next time you won’t call me names.” I shove a glass harder than I should into the top rack and it clanks against the others. If I were at private school, I’d be eating crappy cafeteria food that I didn’t cook and didn’t have to clean up and I wouldn’t be arguing with the demon child. That is my version of heaven.
The pure hate radiating from his glare bothers me more than I wish it would. Back when he had the baby fat and dimples, I was his favorite.
“Do you know why we call her Encyclopedia-freak?” he taunts me by asking Addison.
Because that’s what Clara calls me? I’m five foot six and right now I’m feeling two feet tall. I watch the water falling out the faucet and hold a plate in my hand. Addison’s heard them call me the name. She knows bits and pieces of how my mind works and she’s also aware of how it makes me feel so...different.
“What’s the capital of Russia?” he says.
Moscow. Population of Russia: 143,025,000. Area: 6,592,850 square miles.
“Look at the freak go,” Paul sings. “Her eyes dart when she’s listing facts in her messed-up head, but she acts like she ain’t weird.”
A lump forms in my throat. Paul gives everyone a hard time, but with Clara home for the summer, it’s middle school on repeat.
I slam the plate into the bottom rack. “Go take a shower or I’ll tell Mom you didn’t come straight home from school today.”
He mumbles something not twelve-year-old appropriate, but he leaves. I hold on to the counter with both hands. This is the reason why I keep my little Jedi mind tricks to myself.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Addison offers. “He’s an evil troll that will never get a date when he hits high school.”
“He makes me feel like I’m reliving bad stuff.”
“We aren’t in middle school anymore,” Addison says in a soft tone.
“I know.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you do.” But she moves on before I can answer. “Jesse is following me again.”
This is the reason we’re friends—she doesn’t dwell. Like when I told her Mom and Dad nixed my plans to leave. She shrugged an “I’m sorry” and then she painted my nails.
I continue with the dishes and run the spaghetti-sauce-stained bowl through the warm water. “I’m lost. Are we happy or sad or annoyed over this?”
It’s Thursday and tomorrow is the first day of school. It’s weird to start on a Friday, but the district thought that we, the high school students, would be better readjusted into the school year with this schedule. Because of this, Addison and I are completing our night-before-school-begins ritual of freaking out. This year, our worries about how the year will go are complicated by Addison’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jesse, and their social media drama.
He unfollows her. She unfollows him back. He posts a picture of him and another girl and tags Addison. She cries. He follows her again, then tags her in some heartfelt message of how he’s sorry. I was over it from the moment he unfollowed her.
Addison wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to get back together.”
“Then don’t.”
She sighs, and her pain is so palpable there’s an ache within me. I’m not sure she liked being with Jesse as much as she liked that Jesse whisked her away from her house. Whenever, to wherever, with no questions asked.
There’s a fresh bruise on her forearm that I’d bet is retaliation for my family forgetting us. I focus on how the water washes the crumbs from a plate. “Did your dad do that?”
“How is it possible that every time I visit there are a million dishes stacked up and you’re forever doing them? It’s like we’re living in some strange sci-fi movie and your life is on an endless loop.”
She switches subjects and I let her. Addison’s mom won’t leave her father or throw him out and Addison won’t call the police because she’s terrified they’ll put her and her sister in foster care. Doesn’t help that none of her relatives are willing to help. In other words, Addison’s stuck.
“Look at me,” Addison says.
I do and she snaps a photo from less than a foot away.
Her lips tilt up in a mischievous way. “Perfect.”
“For what?”
“Your profile picture.” She flips my cell to me and the blood drains out of my face when I spot my name, my age, my info and my picture.
Addison and I have had several intense conversations involving opening an account for me on Bragger. I agreed to it when she explained how people use social media to impress colleges and universities. She showed me articles on how colleges were dazzled when prospective students worked what the colleges shared on social media into their essays and when the students could make intelligent conversation online. And emotionally, I agreed that maybe this could help in my quest to break out of my shell. But now that it’s here and I’m deciphering the hundreds of ways this could go wrong...
I lunge for the phone and she’s off the counter and on the other side of the breakfast island before I can reach her. We stand on either side and each time I inch one way, she edges in the opposite direction.