Stuck Between Bad Brothers

Chapter 1

You might think that straight A's, being an astronomy geek, and placing in the top ten percent of high school sophomores for standardized tests would count for being smart. But because I don't know The Dolan Twins, Lindsay diagnoses me as a failure to the modern teenage era. It earns me a rant about the twins, Ethan and Grayson, and their killer smiles, deathlier bodies, and the way they can make her laugh until she cries.

I don't really listen. Not for a few reasons.

1. Lindsay falls in love with every hot guy she finds on the internet.

2. These twins don't seem to do anything. When I asked if they danced or sang, she said only on dares and not well.

3. Youtube is warrant for any hot people to jet to stardom and most of the few people I've seen, either from Lindsay or from videos popping up with clickbait titles, they're mostly all self-righteous, entitled, arrogant assholes.

We're on the floor of her bedroom, sprawled out on the gray carpet, along with trashy magazines and my textbooks that have been flung to the side. Lindsay's given up on trying to educate me on the world according to Youtube, and has started on reading her horoscope. I'm educating myself with a celebrity-crush quiz, and even I have to admit, it's fun imagining Channing Tatum getting down on one knee for me.

"Apparently, I'm going to have to let go of my demons and open up my heart this week, because a new lover is headed my way," Lindsay chirps, sitting up and running her fingers through her short blonde bob cut, with hen applying chapstick like she's getting ready for that "lover" right now.

"You too," she adds. We're both July birthdays, me on the third, and her on the fifteeth. That makes both of our zodiac signs Cancer.

Lindsay rips out the weekly horoscope page and nails it to her cork board, then comes over and braids my hair. I don't complain since she's goos at braiding and it's kind of a mess form the bun I slept in

"You shouldn't believe in that stuff. It's not accurate, and the proof is in every week it's wrong for us."

"Jeese, Vee. For someone who believes in everything that's out there, all the stars and multiple galaxies, and that freaking alien mumbo-jumbo, you suck the fun right out of anything else."

"There's no evidence in it," I argue. Most of my decision making comes from Pro and Con lists on legal pads, and I keep the largest column for evidence of my arguments. I did it for emancipating myself, for not going to that pool party Greg Middleton threw freshman year, the one where the cops showed up, and for not getting the paige-boy haircut when I was on my period. All of which were good decisions.

Lindsay strokes my finished braid, her hand at the middle of my back. She keeps begging me to let her dye it. Something bright and vibrant, maybe blue or purple or both! But it's a delicate, rich brown and healthy. "I'm not saying never, I told her, "just not right now."

At a quarter to ten, I gather my stuff. The sleeping bag and toothbrush can stay—I'm a common creature in the Levitt household, staying four or five nights a week—but the clothes need washing and my textbooks need to be at my disposal at all times.

"Are you coming back tonight?" Lindsay asks. She can already tell I'm leaving and I wrap my arms around her, tackling her so the ground until we're hugging and rolling and laughing. She's my best friend and has been for over seven years. She's the only one who knows my peptides and my insecurities, and my strange love of the sky. She's the only one who came to hand in my emancipation papers and then again, to receive them signed. She lets me stay at her house whenever I want, eat her food, and borrow her clothes. She's the true definition of a best friend.