Small Town Boy

Chapter 18

It's not often that I look forward to getting back to school on a cold Monday, but after the events of Thanksgiving weekend, I was itching to get out of the house. Instead of spending the Saturday on the slopes, and the Sunday messing around with Blake until everyone had to go, we'd been stuck inside with an increasingly angry set of adults. 

On the night of the incident, there was a huge fight. Dad was angry about the videos which had ended up online. Grandpa was upset about the damage that had been done to the family while Grandma had gone off at Uncle Frank and Aunt Samantha for letting it happen. Aunt Samatha thought it was unfair that her daughter and husband had been arrested, and was posting wildly on her Facebook page, which had led to a fight between her, Flora, and my father. All this tension had spread to other activities. You could barely do anything without being yelled at, and so those not involved basically did that. 

All this, of course, had meant that we were in no position to go skiing on Saturday. I'd tried to reschedule to go and see Wyatt, but Dad told Parker and me that we had to stay at home until it all blew over when we tried to leave. That made literally no sense. We'd be back at school on Monday, while the rest of the family would be all over the country. 

He kept us inside on Saturday, too. We said goodbye to everyone in the morning as they departed, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning up the house, doing laundry, and putting the spare mattresses away. 

I slid into my seat in Ms Evan's math class, trying to act like it had been any other weekend, but it took Seb all of about half a second to break the silence. 

"So, I hear you had an eventful weekend." He probed. I knew this was a conversation I would be having all day, so I decided that I would enjoy it. 

"You think?" I scoffed. 

"Your cousin is crazy." He laughed. "We went to this stupid cabin that my Uncle owns, where there is no signal, so I saw it last night when we got home." 

"I was wondering why you hadn't said anything, this shit is exactly your kind of thing." I shook my head. 

"Are you saying I would also go full Karen in a cafe?" He asked, feigning offense.

"No stupid." I rolled my eyes. "I'm saying you enjoy drama." 

"Oh, yes, I like watching people self-destruct." He grinned. 

"Weirdo." I sighed as Ms Evans strode into the room and towards her desk. 

"Alright, class!" She clapped her hands. "I hope you all had a good weekend, even if you ended up on national TV." 

"National TV?" I blurted out, forgetting I was at school. 

"Yes." She nodded. "Your cousin's... episode was on the news at my parent's house in Chicago. Now, enough with that, we had a test last week, which I have marked, so we will go through that at the end of the class. But before that, we are starting trigonometry."

As expected, a groan echoed around the classroom. 

"Don't look so sad." She grinned evilly. "Now, has anyone seen the unit circle before?" 

The class passed slowly as we began the topic. Ms Evans kept calling on Jasmine and me to answer her questions, usually, after Madeline had answered something incorrectly. It finished soon enough and she began to hand out tests. 

Evelyn got her first. Seb and I leaned over to see how she went. 

"You guys are so nosy." She complained, but with a smile. 

"Well, you'll end up telling us eventually, so you may as well let us know now." Seb pointed out. 

"80%. Decent, I guess, but I could have done better." She sighed, shrugging.