Trouble Times Two

Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday

The packet says that we have to spend time with our partners, even those who are spending the exchange without a partner in their exchange house, still have someone who they're assigned to go around with and work with at school.

I get back to my house and just sit there, I'm miserable and annoyed.

Why couldn't my stupid brain just accept it and move on.

Even if I was alone on my exchange, I'd still have to be Donovan but that would still be better than rooming with him.

Arthur walks in and sits down on the chair across from me.

"Howlett let me go home, said you might need some support after the whole news about you being paired with Donovan."

"Yeah. Who are you with?" He blushes at my question.

"Courtney." He likes Courtney? The same Courtney who probably hates him?

"You like Courtney, she thinks you're mean and I agree, you are mean!" I say laughing.

"I know I've been mean but this exchange, I'm going to make it up to her. I'll show her that while I might be mean, I care about certain people. Also don't change the subject, let's get back to your exchange partner." Arthur knows me a little too well sometimes.

"Yeah, the reason they put us together is because we're both delinquents. Can you believe that?" I throw my hands up in annoyance, making Arthur laugh.

"I can believe that. The reason we've all been put with such fitting partners is because Howlett put us together after he interviewed all of us in those sessions. He must've gone through compatibility, similarities, differences, relationship, the whole jazz. He's had some of us since we started at the school, he knows who we like and dislike and he knows people in general. He's good and he knows stuff we don't and that's the reason why he's put us with who he put us with. He's not a teacher, he's a Doctor and a damn good one who's been reduced to being a counsellor. He's having a little fun, I respect it. So sure, the reason at face value is that your both delinquents but he knows something and we just have to wait and see what that is." Arthur also knows something that I'm missing.

I usually am clued up when it comes to academics, with a little struggle when it comes to english, which I still comprehend once I get past the reading and writing, and sometimes I can spot lies or clues but sometimes I can't make the connections or fully comprehend why I feel the way I feel.

"You always manage to say what I'm thinking, it's a scary talent." We both laugh as we talk about other things.

"So, how are we feeling for the announcement." I ask him and he stops for a second.

"I wish I could be as happy as I should be in regards to the pregnancy, when I saw it, I was like 'nice' and didn't do a thing. I wish I could be the kind of brother that is just bursting with emotion and elated." I asked a deep question, I'm now realising that.

"You are elated though and it doesn't take a whole lot to see that. I wish that too though but since... everything, it's kind of hard for me to be genuinely emotional. It's always the other person."

"The other person, yeah." We say the other person at the same time.

The door opens and Jess walks through the door.

"I got the job.' Jess says as she walks in, stopping to get a snack from the fridge, when she turns around and looks at Arthur, it's like she's seen a ghost.

"Hi, I'm Jess Akerly, Gigi's best friend." She says and puts her hand out to shake his hand. "You must be Arthur Rosling?"

Arthur nods and shakes her hand.

"Wow. I'm just realising that your mother must look exactly like Gigi's father because you look exactly like Vi-Giana." She's been shaking his hand for thirty seconds before she realises and takes her hand out of his. "Sorry."

"Yeah that makes a lot of sense, considering my mom and her dad were twins." Arthur says but I can tell that he knows what's spooked her.

Impossible.

I don't pry, it's not my place.

We all go to the TV room and sit down and watch some TV before we all have stuff to do.

I go up to my room and go through the balcony and unlock and enter Donovan's room with the key his mom gave me and sit at his desk.

I look at nothing but my phone and just sit there.

Donovan comes home eventually and he sits on his bed and doesn't notice me until I swivel around in his chair.

"What the fuck." He says and he clutches his chest. "Why are you in my room?"

"Mandatory time." I watch as he sits up and again that stupid smirk.

"Stop pulling that face or it'll get stuck like that and you'll be left looking like the moronic idiot you are for the rest of your life." I state before open a notebook.

I throw him one with a pen.

"Let's get to know each other." His smile is a little evil when he says it but I push past it.

"Stop doing that stupid smile. Makes you look like some villain with a stupid reason for being one." He is a villain sometimes. Well his actions are villainous but I couldn't help but be curious in the years that I didn't see him.

Five years, for five years I wasn't here and he changed a whole lot. A whole fucking lot.

As I ask sensible questions and receive stupid answers, I start to realise that he wasn't serious about a thing and that wasn't the kind of person I could be around anymore.

He was stuck in his little bad boy world where he was a delinquent and being a delinquent meant that his social status went up.

To me, being a delinquent was a result of me being a failure and so before I can tolerate anymore, which isn't much, I get up and leave, locking the door.

He can keep the stupid notebook and pen.