Early Bird | ✓

19 | stork

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Lizzy | JJ

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LIZZY woke up again to her brother bouncing on her mattress, his obnoxious voice, nasally from a cold, resonating through the once still air: "Lizzy, time to wake up!  Let's go, Lizzy!  Mom wants you downstairs for breakfast!  Seriously, Lizzy, do I need to dump cold water on your face?"

"No, cold water will not be necessary," Lizzy grumbled, propping herself up by the elbows and rubbing the sleepiness from her eyes with a fist.  When her brother continued to pester her in his boisterous manner, Lizzy's patience wore thin like an aged rag.  "You can leave now.  You've done your duty."

Logan wasn't disturbed by Lizzy's threatening tone; instead, he ignored her and helped himself to rifling through her overflowing closet of apparel.  "How come I've never seen you wear any of this stuff?" he asked, pointing to an outdated shirt that was obviously too small for Lizzy and not in style.

Lizzy forced herself to rise from her comfortable position on the bed, every muscle in her body protesting persistently.  "Give me that," she muttered, ripping a pair of shorts from his hands before leading him impatiently to her bedroom door.  "Please exit and next time don't touch my things.  Who knows?  You might accidently come across a bra someday and—"

Logan covered his ears at the mention of a bra, which was completely taboo for young boys.  "Shut up!  I won't touch your things again as long as you don't talk about bras around me ever again."

Lizzy grinned, her plan accomplishing its purpose with ease.  "Deal."  With that, Lizzy slammed her door shut, leaving her mentally scarred brother groaning behind it.  Lizzy leaped back onto her bed, which jiggled like jelly under her weight, and she reached for her cell phone, skimming her notifications.  Among them resided a recent text from JJ.

Fuck, I'm grounded for two weeks because I got a D in English and I got in a fight with Asher this morning.  That means no phone for two weeks.  I'm sorry, Liz.

That's okay.  Focus on your studies and be nice to your brother, for god's sake.  Win Regionals please!  And don't worry, just because you won't be able to text me doesn't mean that we have to forget about that pact we made to reveal the general places of where we live to each other.

Lizzy sighed, her lips pursed as though she accidently bit into a pickle instead of a cucumber.  Two weeks without JJ was going to be torture.  She couldn't help but feel utterly crushed at the idea of not texting him.  He had converted into her buddy, her pal, her confidant, her refuge, her haven.  Lizzy shook her head and blinked, trying to blot out the fact that she had become so reliant and wholly dependent on him.  Maybe a break from him was exactly what she needed so that she could learn how to divvy up her heart evenly and in manageable amounts instead of giving it all to him—she was well on her way to doing just that.  The more Lizzy pondered, the more she realized that JJ getting into trouble couldn't have come at a better time.  Now, she could focus on preparing for college, Mateo and Teagan, and—Reece.  Lizzy's stomach plummeted into her toes.  She had work with Reece right after school until well into the evening.  The schedule had stated that it would just be the two of them since it was prospected to be a relatively light day of customers and their boss had supposedly journeyed out of town for a couple days.  She hoped that the air between them wouldn't be too awkward or tense.  She hadn't really spoken to him since the party; in fact, if she was being completely honest with herself, she'd been avoiding him like the plague.