The Exchange Student ➵ phan

Chapter 8

Scrubbing away the rest of my plate I dutifully set it away in the sink, huffing out in displeasure at the scrambled eggs still evidently stuffed under my fingernails.

To celebrate the evil disease leaving my body and going off to get every kids up and down the street sick I made myself possibly the biggest breakfast one human can contain. Eggs, pancakes, toast, jam, bacon, ham, Lyda helped me make literally everything. Forcing me to use half the stuff as I thought using up all her food was way to much to ask. So I took everything, and I mean everything, Lyda's already ran out to get ingredients for dinner and Mr. Lester is sitting in the most intense food coma I've ever seen one human physically endure.

"You doing alright there Mr. Lester?" I ask kindly, moving on to scrape more food into the tubberware bins placed all around the kitchen island. The thought of the Lester's throwing away food actually made me want to laugh at this point, on the rare occasion Phil was at the house he ate like he was blazed 24/7 and carried all he could up to his room to eat over the remainder of the night. If we didn't have leftovers he accused us of throwing away food or of eating it all without thinking of him. Which we sometimes did, but nobody has the guts to say that to his face, in fear of him losing his mind and cutting us with a glass bottle or doing something 100x worse.

Phil's anger doesn't even scare me anymore, it's as common as hearing birds in the early summer mornings, or the kids biking down the road in a big group determind to knock certain emo-ly dressed boys off their feet than laugh at their expense. British kids are dicks, how did I never learn that? Probably because all the British kids in the media are basically treated like gods for their accents. In reality, bitter bitter reality, British kids were the same-maybe even worse-than American kids, and I grew up by L.A.

I finish up all the dishes, and stack the tubberware in the fridge before noticing Mr. Lester never answered my questions."Mr. Lester? Was my cooking too amazing?" I joke, knowing full well I burned two things for every one I made correctly and Lyda eventually had to bump me out of the way to avoid burning down the house.

"Yeah... yeah. I'm going upstairs to take a nap. He mumbles, standing suddenly and walking up the steps feverishly. Not much of a talker than.

I looked around, cocking my hands on my hips and wondering what the ever loving fuck I do now.

In reality that's not true, I have a million things sick me planed on finishing up but now that I'm not sick all I can think of is avoiding them.

In the end I decide Skyping my sister is my best option, she's going stir crazy without me or her friends. They all went to a beach get away and my parents stuck her at home. Probably so they have something to actually fight over instead of who left the coffee filter on the counter or left the window a fraction of the way open.

Heading up the stairs I notice the wall on my left is lined with pictures. Phil and his friends in preschool; young Lesters' wedding photo; a picture of Mrs. Lester with an 'It's a Boy!' sign hung above her and a white bundle of blankets in her arms; even a picture of Phil with his grandparents, holding their hands and smiling brightly for the camera, showing every one of his teeth. The thought of Rose hits me when I reach the top of the stairs, gaze lingering over the photos like I could decode their secrets with a single glance.

She was Phil's mum, it should be simple as that, the problem is it isn't for me. My mind is hard wired to enjoy a good mystery, normally I could watch some Sherlock or Tin Tin to shake it off but now I can't help myself but want to sift through all this information, figure it out. I've found a mystery and I need, actually need to figure out the secrets behind Rose Lester. I cannot ask anyone though, I don't know what their initail reaction would be. Sure Phil's starting to ignore me even worse now than before, actively walking from the rooms I'm in and refusing to register my sassy comments. I know he can hear them from the way he tenses easily and his fist clench if I-admittedly-go to far over the line. Phil does that all the time though so it does not make that much of a difference or put a hole of any form in my plans.