Going the Distance ✔️

Chapter three.

I sat in the dining room, looking over what we did in History. It was fascinating. I loved reading about American History and how black people didn't have the rights back then. I kept reading the textbook our teacher gave us as Liam walked through the door and into the kitchen.

He chuckled while opening the fridge to grab the orange juice and once he closed it, he stared at me with a smug look on his face. I glanced up and glared at him. "Can I help you?"

He shook his head and took a sip of juice from the carton. "I just find it funny that straight after school you decide to study."

I rolled my eyes at his idiotic comment. "And I find it funny that you can drink that out of the carton."

Liam really got on my nerves. The fact that he could skip school and laugh about it annoyed me. He was careless and stupid and he thought he so smug that he could do anything he wanted. He placed the carton back into the refrigerator and slammed it shut with that smug look still on his face. "Does it freak you out?"

"No, it's just really gross. You have cups right there." I pointed to the shelf above him, he looked up and shrugged.

Liam strolled over and took a seat across from me. I never knew guys like this existed. I only read it in books and saw it in movies. Liam leaned back into his chair like he did in class and crossed his arms over his chest. "You need to live, Lou. Life isn't about drinking from a glass."

I grew even madder. "Stop calling me Lou! It's Louisa, please stop calling me that."

He smirked and it grew wider by the second. He knew it was getting on my nerves and he was enjoying it. "Touched a nerve?" He asked with a chuckle just as the front door slammed shut and Xanthe walked into the dining room.

She grunted, looking at Liam. "Stop annoying the exchange student, Liam. If she wants to study, then let her study."

I smiled at Xanthe and she returned it. Liam scraped the chair on the wooden floor and got up from his chair. "Oh, piss off, Xanthe. I can have some fun, can't I?"

"Find your own fun someplace else," Xanthe growled at her twin brother, "find somebody else to ditch with you."

She stormed off into her bedroom in anger and I raised my eyebrows at Liam who stood in the kitchen. He shrugged it off like it was no big deal. "Forget about what she said," he told me, "I'm going to get you to ditch with me, Lou. You will eventually."

He walked off towards his bedroom upstairs and I dropped my pen and closed my History textbook. I would eventually, what did that even mean? Did he think I was just going to ditch class with him? I left my textbook on the table and raced upstairs to Xanthe's bedroom. I knocked and waited for a reply. "If it's Liam then go away!"

"It's Louisa," I told her, "can I come in?" After a few seconds, she opened the door and smiled brightly at me. She let me in and we both sat on her bed. "Why is your brother like that? I've never met anyone like him."

She sighed and looked straight ahead to an empty hallway. "We've had five exchange students in the last year. They've all been girls and from different parts of the world. Russia, Germany, France, you name it. Liam always tries to convince them to ditch school with him. I don't know why, he likes the company I guess," she took a deep breath, "they never do because they are here to learn and Liam kept annoying them about it to the point where they left to go to another home. You are probably going to be our last exchange student for a while but you're different. You study really hard, harder than the other exchange students we've had and you don't ditch. You make it pretty clear so I think Liam is having a hard time with that."