Second Shot

Chapter Three: Brother Sister day

"Ryder wake up, we're gonna be late for classes!" A familiar voice yelled practically in his ear. His eyes opened groggily and he took in the scene around him. "What, can you not hear all a sudden? Get up!" The person yelled.

"Nina?" Ryder asked, his eyes squinting because of the light in the room. "Is that you?" He slowly got up from his bed.

"Who else would it be?" Nina rolled her eyes. "Of course it's me. Now get dressed you're gonna make us late for both of our classes." She went to turn away, but Ryder quickly followed behind her and pulled her into a tight hug and wouldn't let her go. "What is going on with you?" Nina struggled to get free of her brother's tight grip. He finally let go after a few minutes, but held her by the shoulders.

"How about we skip school today?" Ryder asked once he was able to form understandable sentences. "We'll go to Paula's and both get our own plate of short stacks." He had a glint of hope in his eyes. He thought that maybe if he kept her busy all day doing things they used to do when they were younger, it would possibly change the events that were originally going to happen later that day.

"Why, what's wrong?" Nina raised an eyebrow. "Do you need a witness for something?" She asked, pulling away from her brother's embrace. "What did you do? You're trying to sweeten me up to get me on your side to help you get away with something you did, aren't you?"

"No, an older brother can't take his baby sister out to get pancakes?" Ryder smirked, wiggling his eyebrows in the way he knew would make her smile. A smile he hadn't seen in five years.

"You must've really fucked up something to be offering to pay for my food, but okay. I'll just go call us in." She laughed slightly, walking away to grab her phone to call both of them in sick. When she came back into the room he couldn't help but stare at her. "Dude, what's the eyeball stalking? You're looking at me like you haven't seen me in months."

"More like years." Ryder mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Nina looked up from her phone.

"Nothing, let's go." He half smiled, offering her his arm which she took. They walked out to the van, parked in front of the house with his band's logo painted in crappy hand writing across the door.

"I still can't believe you let Grayson write the band's name on the van." Nina snickered, little did she know how iconic that logo would be to the band's fame in the oncoming years.

"It's not that bad." Ryder rolled his eyes jokingly, opening the door for her. "What's wrong with it?" He smirked, walking around the car to get into the driver's seat.

"You let the most illiterate one write the name." She laughed, another thing he hadn't heard in a long time.

"He's not illiterate!" Ryder snorted. "He just has dyslexia." Ryder shook his head, looking over at Nina who clasped a hand over her mouth in surprise. "What?" His smiled faded.

"... I didn't know that he was dyslexic. I feel bad now." She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her head against the window as Ryder pulled away from the curb.

"No, no, no, no. None of that missy." He nudged her arm gently. " I will have none of that teen angst and pouting in my van while we're on our way to get pancakes." He fiddled with the radio buttons and plugged his phone into the radio. "Come on Nina beana, smile, you know you want to." He turned the volume up on the radio, remembering the song he wrote for her.

"She smiles her million dollar smile, for all to see." Ryder's voice was heard from the speakers of the van. "But no one seems to see that she is breaking, no one see's it, not even me."  He continued. "I wanna hold her, let her know she'll be alright. See her one more time before she goes."

Nina looked at the speakers by her feet, confused that Ryder's voice was coming from an already downloaded song from ITunes, and the only gigs his band had were in the family's garage. She then looked back up at her brother, whose eyes were focused on the road, as if determined not to make eye contact with her.

"I want her to know that she can tell me, the feeling's she'd rather not share." The song continued, followed by a guitar solo.

"Ryder, did you get a record deal or something? Is that why we're skipping school and going out for pancakes?" Nina turned the song down, and looked at Ryder. "To celebrate?" She half smiled.

"No, I just thought it's be fun. Do you actually want to go to school? What are you going to do today that you won't do tomorrow?" He seemed tense, nice to see that the mood swings he suffered from five years from know were still prominent.

"Nothing, it's just not like you to take me out randomly for no reason. I mean you used to when you were in high school, but that stopped after you dropped out." She leaned her chin on the palm of her hand as her elbow rested on an arm rest. A moment of silence stirred between them. "You totally knocked Jess, didn't you?"

"What?? No!" Ryder sighed in aggravation. In all honesty he forgot he even dated Jessica, she dumped him a year after Nina died because he became too distant and lacked the empathy he used to have when they started dating. "I'll have you know I'm a child of God and I don't appreciate such sinful talk baby sister."

"Oh please, screaming 'Oh God!' in bed does not make you a good child of God." Nina mimicked his voice in a slight moan and laughed at the reaction on his face.

"Remind me to wash your mouth out with soap when we get home." Ryder shook his head as he pulled into the parking lot of the diner.