Effortless

Ten

"I just wish things were different, y'know?" I said to Lily as I ate a scoop of my Cookie-Two-Step ice cream.

Eating ice cream and being lactose intolerant wasn't a good combination, but who was I to pass up the opportunity on free ice cream?

Lily nodded as she ate a spoonful of Mint Chocolate Chip.

I continued, "Easton and Emerson are twins so they're connected. They always have each other's backs no matter what. But me? Who do I have?"

"You have me." Lily said as she nudged my shoulder with a smile. "But I do think that your siblings have your back whether you realize it or not."

"They make my life a living hell." I drawled.

My cousin smiled at me sympathetically. She reached her hand out and patted my head, causing me to swat her hand away. She laughed, showing off her pink and yellow braces.

She put her cup of ice cream on the counter, leaned back in her chair and rested her hands behind her head. "So what's happening with you and your arch nemesis?"

I blushed when she mentioned my 'arch nemesis', though I didn't know why I was blushing. She continued to smile at me with a look that said that she knew something. Whatever she knew was unknown to me.

"He got a 97 on the Spanish test while I got a 94." I said with a sigh. "But it isn't fair because he's fluent in Spanish."

"If he's fluent in Spanish, then why is he in Spanish class?" Lily asked.

I shrugged. "Who knows? All I know is that I hate him and that I have to beat him. I can't let him win and become sophomore class president. He already beat me last year."

I was brought back into reality when I heard my papers falling on the floor. I had accidentally knocked over the worksheets that I was working on. As I got down to pick them up I tried not to be saddened about thinking of Lily. I tried to forget about it all and focus on my homework.

"Clearly I did not end up becoming sophomore class president." I mumbled to myself as I shook my head.

My aunt had grounded me for two weeks. One week for leaving school in the middle of the day and another week for leaving the house in the middle of the night. It was like it was her duty to make my life miserable. She ignored me half of the time so she shouldn't have cared where I was or what I was doing during the day.

The school went easy on me and decided that since I was such a good student, I didn't deserve after school detention for having one fuck up. I guess that was one good thing that came out of the mess.

I came home to find my phone shattered on the ground. I did not know how it happened, as the phone was fine before I stormed out of the house that night. My siblings insisted that it had nothing to do with them.

Speaking of my siblings, they were pretending like nothing had happened. They went back to their usual way of only speaking to me when necessary. We did not acknowledge the fight. That was fine by me because the only way I would have tolerated us talking about it would be with them apologizing. Otherwise, we would just get into another pointless fight.

I was studying. I opted to study in my bedroom instead of the living room because my siblings were in the living room. My shared bedroom was empty at that moment so I wanted to take advantage of that.

"Hey dumbass." My brother called me as he stood in the doorway of our room, staring at me. He continued, "Your weirdo friends are here."

Ricky, Kailey, and Bella entered the room. Easton earned a scowl from Bella before he left. My friends' faces were a mix of shock and concern when they saw me.