Hello everyone! This is my first story on Wattpad. Please read, rate, and review!
Be warned there is mention of self-harm, eating disorders, and sexual assault in this chapter and story.
I twirled my pencil aimlessly as I waited for class to end. There was only one more class today and I was eager to get home. Well, eager may not exactly be the right word. I would've been eager to go to the dentist if it meant the school day was over. Don't get me wrong, I love school, but today had been rough.
I copied down the homework assignment as the bell rang. I raced to my last class and settled in. AP US History, one of my easiest classes. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I always do very well in school. I am a shoe-in for valedictorian next year. Everyone knows it, but I'm not conceited about it. In fact, I can't help but think I've got everybody fooled. I'm not really as smart as they believe I am.
Instead of taking notes, I did my calculus homework. I'd already written the paper they were talking about. For the most part, my teachers pretty much let me do whatever I wanted as long as I turned my homework in on time and didn't disrupt the class. By the time the bell rang, I'd finished Calc and moved on to my English senior thesis.
The bus ride home was quiet and uneventful, as always. No one talked to me on the bus, since the person nearest my age was my older--by one minute-- sister and she tended to spend the bus ride either sleeping or listening to music.
Mom was working on dinner when we got home, as usual. Dad got home typically within half an hour of us. We had a routine for weeknights--homework until dinner, then Jourdan and I did the dishes and we watched a family movie. Of course, this was subject to change and didn't ever work on the weekends. Jourdan was something of a party animal.
"Hey Mom," Jourdan shouted cheerfully. "No homework for me today!" She dropped her bag and headed straight for the computer.
"Aren't seniors supposed to be drowning in homework?" I muttered under my breath, but Mom heard me and laughed. I was taking advanced classes, so my senior thesis was probably further along than Jourdan's. She tended to coast along in school on easy classes, majoring in boys. She was definitely the prettier and more popular twin, but I didn't resent that. We were best friends and I actually sort of liked being known for my grades. Too bad no boy would ever want to be with a class A 100 percent nerd.
I headed for my room. "Dinner smells great, Mom," I said as I passed the kitchen. Upon reaching my room, I set my homework out on my desk, although I barely had any left. Once I was finished, I opened my laptop and checked my email. The laptop was a point of contention with Jourdan. She had one too, but it had been removed from her possession and she'd been relegated to the family computer when our parents discovered she was chatting with unknown persons late at night online. I went to a few of my favorite sites, thankful I always cleared the history and my parents didn't know anything about computers. I wasn't chatting with random people online, though. I just liked my privacy and anyway my web searches were none of their business.
I heard Dad come in the front door from work. That meant dinner would be ready within fifteen minutes. I sighed and moved my eyes back to the screen. I shut the computer down and picked up the laundry I'd left lying out that morning. Mom liked our rooms to be neat and orderly, and the only way to keep her from coming in our rooms was to do it ourselves. I was something of a slob--thank goodness Mom never opened my drawers or checked my closet-- so I'd had to force myself into a cleaning routine every day. It was better than Mom coming in my room. Nowadays the furthest she went was to lay our clean clothes on our beds. We'd set out the laundry baskets on Mondays, just outside our doors, and she'd wash and fold the clothes for us and lay them on our beds. Other than that, she only ventured into our rooms if they were supremely messy or if there were funny smells emanating from within. That was a hard-fought battle. We'd won it back when we were fourteen, after we'd gotten fed up with coming home and finding our diaries had been read. Fortunately, Dad had taken our side and now we could even lock our doors at night.
