Beyond |Calum Hood|

Chapter 2

"Ugh, don't you hate first days?" My sister, Eva, three years younger than me, sat next to me in my run down, pathetic excuse for a sedan. It was so mishappen from accidents and weathering, you could barely tell it was a Honda. Before I got it earlier this summer and started cleaning it up, it smelled like something had died in it, and upon finding a singed family of rodents in the hood, I knew why. I spent the remainder of the summer wielding laytex gloves and some powerful car freshners. 

"Why, what happened to you?" I asked. 

"You know, just the average boring crap...stupid ice breakers, permission slips, and everything else that's insincere in this world."

"Dude, you just started high school. Give it a chance....you know who am I kidding it DOES NOT grow on you," I chuckled.

"Ok, one thing don't call me dude, and another thing, dont tell me how to live my life." 

My sister and I were notorious among family and friends for an ungoing and particularly nasty love-hate relationship. Over the years I had tried to break Eva down to a science, but anything and everything I tried to avoid arguments only resulted in bigger arguments. Of course, later when she needed someone to fangirl over One Direction with, I was the first she came to. 

We sat in silence for a while. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn't have the best first day either. "

*        *        *

I pulled into our wide driveway behind my mum's BMW. "Listen, Eva," I said, turning to her as she unbuckled and twistd around to pull her backpack from the back seat. "This is Eric's last day home before he goes off to college. So can we please try not to fight. 

"That's your call, Q." 

I sighed, locking my call door. Eva was a tough nut to crack, though the same could be said about myself. Opening the front door, we were enthusiastically greeted by Gizmy and Bay, our Bassett hounds

 I went to drop my back pack on the staricase leding to all the bedrooms, when I noticed something off. "How come this house is so freakishly clean all of a sudden?"  

"Do NOT put your backpack there." My mum emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron covered in flour. 

"Hi to you too! My first day of high school was good, thanks for asking. How was your day?" Eva challenged, grabbing an empty glass from a cupboard and filling it at the fridge. 

"Sorry, girls. Yes I want to hear about your day, but apparently we are having people for dinner tonight. Now Quin, go set that timer for 10 minutes and put those thingies in the oven."

"Uh, mum? The time has been off for five minutes..." Eva pointed out.

"And apparently," I pulled a singed tray of what might have once been some sort of desert from the oven, "the 'thingies' have been done for fifteen." 

Mum looked back and forth between Eva and I. "Takeout? Takeout's better." We nodded in relief. 

Eva snatched her bag and stomped up the staircase, escaping while she still could. I grabbed a pile of mail on the counter and began to sift through it. "So who's coming for dinner?"

"Some guy your father met at the office today and his family. I guess they moved here from Australia a couple weeks ago, and they live right next door." 

"Australia to Portland? Tha's a big commute."

"Yeah, I- oh, hi I would like to place an order for pick up..." mum walked off to the living room with a notepad and her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear. Working as a journalist, she got to sta home a lot, but the place was never, ever clean. I guessed she must've had some help earlier. 

I had cast aside more than half the envelpoes from the pile of mail on the counter, and extracted one two addressed to me (my renewed Screen Actor's Guild membership, and the other was a teen writer's magazine I really enjoyed. I took off to my room, Gizmy following close at my heels. She struggled to climb the stairs with her short legs, but managed as normal. I sat at my desk to do homework, harboring the peculiar and uncomfortable emotion of boredom mixed with wanting- knowing that I'm meant for something more. 

I stayed in my room until two hours later, the doorbell rang.