Not the Same

Chapter two

"You've got to be kidding me, you're taking this class?" I snap my head up in the direction of the voice to see Adam glaring at me while he walks through the door and into the classroom. "As if I don't see you enough."

"What on Earth are you doing in a marine biology class?" I ask him skeptically. Adam is a business major while I'm on a pre-vet track. Our classes usually don't cross over into each other's.

"I have to fulfill the science requirement," he grumbles while walking past me. "If I knew you were taking this class, there's no way I would have signed up."

"Then drop the class" I respond coldly. There's not much my brother and I agree on, but one thing we definitely have mutual feelings about is wanting to spend as little time together as possible.

I look back to see that he is temporarily distracted by the pretty blonde that just walked in and took a seat near him. "I don't know, this class just became a whole lot more interesting" he cockily replies.

Before I can reply with a snarky comeback, the professor walks in and starts distributing the syllabus. He begins to go over it and tells us how he teaches his class. I glance through it as he reads it out loud and can't contain the squeal that comes out of me when he says that we're going to have trips to the local aquariums and get the opportunity to sit in on procedures done by professional veterinarians! People in the seats around me turn to me and laugh at my small outburst. Usually, people focusing their attention on me makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, but I completely ignore it and I look back to see Adam looking at me and snickering with his best friend, Kevin, but I don't even care; I'm too excited.

Once the professor finishes going over the syllabus, he dives into the fascinating lesson about studying marine biology. The rest of the hour goes by quickly and he ends the class reminding us to look at our homework on the syllabus, which in tonight's case is to read chapters one and two of the textbook. I hear Adam audibly groan, which only makes me smile. Textbook reading is not one of his strengths.

"There's still time to drop the class" I say to him in a singsong voice.

"That's not happening" he responds as he shoves past me.

After Marine biology, I went to my sociology class. I'm a little nervous for this class; one of our assignments is to go out in public and act in ways that society doesn't define as normal. Like going up to strangers and sitting on their laps in public or breaking out into dance and song in public randomly.

Okay, well I already break out into song randomly sometimes, so maybe not that, but we have to do something along those lines, which is a little hard for me because I'm not someone who does well with a lot of attention on me.

After sociology, I check my phone to see a text from Hailie asking if I wanted to get lunch. As I head into the food court, I see Hailie waving at me from one of the tables. I make my way over to her and drop my bag off so we can grab food. We start to tell each other about our day and our classes so far.

"Your brother is in my world literature class" Hailie comments as she picks up a cup of fries and puts it on her tray. "It's really annoying though because the girls in my class are all more excited by his presence than they are for the class."

Hailie is an English major and takes her courses very seriously so I can see why this frustrates her.

"Ugh, I'm sorry for you. Unfortunately, I know how horrible it is to take a class with my brother" I reply. At least it's just the class, I tell myself. Originally, my parents wanted my brother and I to commute to school because we only live about an hour away, but we both begged them to let us live on campus and they finally agreed. I don't think I could take living with my brother and going to school with him again for another four years; high school was bad enough.

Hailie and I make our way back to our table and dig into our food. We continue to make light conversation, but stop when the rest of the room becomes strangely silent and everyone is looking towards the center of the food court.

I look up and can't contain the groan that leaves my mouth. Of course my brother is involved in this; I'm not even surprised.

What does surprises me is who he's in a fight with.

Standing across from him with a menacing glare on his face is Cameron Owens.

Everyone on campus knows that Adam and Cameron do not get along. Every once in awhile my brother brings his friends home from college, usually Kevin and Tyler, and I bring home Hailie. When my brother has brought his friends home from college for the weekend, I've heard them talk about Cameron and his friends. They despise each other. Something happened between them, but I could never figure what.

The rest of the food court becomes silent too as they watch my brother and Cameron try to intimidate one other. Sensing everyone's eyes on them, they drop their voices so Hailie, as well as most of the food court can no longer hear them.

"Dang it" Hailie whines, "It was getting good!"

Some people nearby shush her, obviously trying to hear what Adam and Cameron were saying.

"Fight me" Hailie says to them with an annoyed look on her face.

This is weird. Adam and Cameron definitely do not like each other, but they usually don't interact with each other. Like at all. They try to avoid one another as much as possible. I think it's because they know no good can come out of them interacting.

What I don't expect to happen is for Cameron to look over at me, turn to my brother and then back to me with a smirk on his face, making my physically gulp, which only widens Cameron's smirk.

What did I do to get dragged into this?

"Avery" Hailie says slowly, with a look of shock on her face. "Did he just-"

"Uh huh" I say while nodding in disbelief.

I don't really know what's happening, but I feel like it's pretty safe to say my life is about to become a whole lot more complicated.