Effortless

Fourteen

"I think you should do it!" Kailey exclaimed.

I had just told my friends about the Academic Competition that Mrs. Montgomery asked me to participate in.

"I don't know." I drawled. "I'm not sure I can take the embarrassment if I lose."

My last loss had me bawling my eyes out in front of the whole damn school and some random people at the park. I didn't think I'd ever recover from that embarrassment.

"Don't think like that. If you do lose you'll lose with Javier, not to Javier." Ricky said as he put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"What does this have to do with Javier?" I asked. I hadn't brought up Javier so I didn't know what Ricky thought he had to do with this.

"You only ever seem to get upset when you lose to Javier. I mean, you get upset when you lose to anyone, but you really get upset when you lose to him." My best friend explained.

"Shut up." I mumbled. I refused to admit it but I knew he was right. I hated when my friends used logic.

"Anyway." I said, changing the subject. "We're going to a party."

"Yes!" Bella squealed as she perked up. "I already have my outfit picked out."

"Wait, party when? Where? Whose party?" Kailey asked. She seemed excited too but she was also asking the necessary questions while Bella just wanted to go to a party.

"Benji's." I said as a smile crept onto my face. I looked between my three friends who were all looking at me with disbelief.

Kailey squinted her eyes as she looked at me. "Benji? As in your brother's best friend and sister's boyfriend?"

"As in the guy who your siblings forbid you to talk to?" Ricky asked as he readjusted his legs into a criss-cross position.

I nodded before I looked at Ricky with a dull expression. "My siblings don't 'forbid' me from anything. I'm my own person."

Easton and Emerson had never let me be near their friends. It was like I had some contagious disease and being too close to their friends would spread it to them.

One time when I was in fourth grade I met a girl. We quickly became friends because she liked to share her animal crackers with me and in turn I'd let her cheat off of me during tests.

Well, our friendship lasted for about a month tops. That was because Emerson happened to be friends with the girl so when she found out the girl was friends with me, she was furious. She screamed at me and told me that her friends couldn't be my friends because it "wasn't right". The girl never shared her animal crackers with me again. Emerson was a scary girl, especially in the fourth grade, so I can see how she scared the girl into not being friends with me.

I didn't remember the girl's name, I don't think I ever actually knew it. I just knew her as the girl who shared her animal crackers with me. What I did know, however, was that she transferred schools in the middle of sixth grade for some unknown reason. It was the last time I saw the Animal Cracker Girl.

That was just one of a few times that my siblings acted like the world was ending because people they were friends with didn't automatically hate me.

That was why my friends were so shocked at the fact that I had got invited to Benji's party. Benji was probably the only one of my siblings' friends that didn't act like I was an irrelevant NPC despite my siblings' protests, but he never went so far as inviting me to things. I honestly had no idea what changed his mind.

"When is it?" Kailey asked again.

"Tonight."

"And you're just now telling us?" Kailey asked before laughing in disbelief.