Despite the fact that Ezra actually hated speaking in front of the class, her teachers often liked to pick on her anyway. This was probably down to the way she faked confidence, even though she didn't have any. She could go have a mental breakdown in the bathroom later if she needed to. Her English teacher was asking her a question about a poem they had been reading about in class, and Ezra appeared to have answered it pretty well. She shouldn't have really been that worried; half of the class wasn't even listening, staring out of the windows or making faces at their friends. After answering, she stared at the desk, trying to calm herself down.
Luke was looking at her intently. "How'd you come up with that?" His voice was a whisper.
"Come up with what?" Ezra replied, her elbows on the desk.
"What you said about that poem, how'd you come up with it?" Luke said. He didn't seem frustrated to have to repeat himself. In fact, he seemed overly interested.
"I didn't," Ezra grinned, "I looked it up before the lesson."
"She told you what we were doing?" Luke picked up his pen and pretended to be writing.
Ezra feigned intense concentration as the teacher passed. "Yeah," she stole a glance at him, "they all do if you ask them at the end of the lesson before."
Luke nodded to himself, pen gripped in his hand a little oddly. Ezra tilted her head at his expression, wondering if she had said something wrong. He seemed distracted suddenly, eyes staring at the page, but not actually at the page. He didn't look like he was seeing anything.
"You okay?" Ezra asked gently.
Luke looked up with surprise, fixing a smile on his face. He ran an awkward hand through his hair, causing some of it to stuck up in tufts. "Yeah, why do you ask?"
Ezra opened her mouth and then closed it. "Uh, just wondering." I've talked to my sister enough to know when someone is lying.
When Luke didn't reply, she continued, "You just seemed down, I guess."
He glanced around as if checking no one else was listening, as if it was a secret he didn't want anyone else to know. Ezra almost blushed at the thought of him trusting her. The volume of his voice was nothing more than a quiet breath. "I might be a little sad today I guess."
She frowned at him. She recognised that expression, but she didn't understand it. It was more than a little sad. It was something Kya wore all the time, when she thought no one was looking. There was a fear in Ezra's stomach, but a hope too. If someone like Luke felt the same way as Kya, maybe there was hope for them. Something that made it seem as if it wasn't as much of an isolated problem. Then again, she could have just been misreading the situation. Ezra met eyes with Luke. "Is something wrong?"
"No, everything's pretty great actually."
Ezra had no choice but to pretend to believe him.
-
The two sisters got home to see two brown envelopes on the kitchen table, both labelled to the parents of an individual sister. Ezra felt nothing towards it. She knew it was her school report, but nothing was bad about her grades as far as she knew. Kya, on the other hand, looked like she was going to vomit. Ezra guessed Kya's grades were more important since it was her final year.
Kya didn't stop to talk to Nathan and Amelia, going straight to her room. Ezra wanted to feel some sort of frustration towards her, but she couldn't muster it up. She felt too much empathy for Kya to be mad. Nathan and Amelia clung to her legs as she put her bag down and hung up her coat on a hook in the hallway. Kya hadn't even bothered to do that.
