Trophy Child (On Hold)

Chapter 18

"Andrew! What are you still doing in bed? Up!"

At the sound of her shrieking, I rolled over and burrowed myself under my blankets. That early in the morning, on a weekend, I was definitely too out of it to deal with her.

I actually did almost manage to fall back asleep. Almost. Then she finished with Andy and barged her way into my room. It wasn't really surprising, I figured that I was going to be her next victim, but it was still crazy irritating.

"Casey. Get up."

Andy was standing behind her. Or he sort of was, anyway. He was partially slouched against the doorway, still half asleep, with a blanket clutched in on hand. His free hand was violently rubbing his eyes.

"What do you want?" I spat, with as much venom as I could manage while only half conscious.

Which, to give myself some credit, is still an awful lot of venom.

"You've both slept long enough. We need to get this house ready before your cousins get here," she explained impatiently.

If she had said just about anything else, I would have ignored her and gone back to sleep. Instead, I sat up quickly.

"Which cousins?" I demanded. 

"I told you that Katherine would be coming over with the kids today," she said.

My chest tightened just thinking about seeing Josh again. But, surprisingly, I wasn't the first to protest the guests.

"Jaden's mean, mom. I don't like him," Andy whined.

Jaden was Josh's complete headache of a younger brother. Yeah. Katherine was that kind of parent. I swear, if mom had given me and Andy names that started with the same letter, I'd have called CPS and begged to be taken away.

"Josh is mean too," I said, and we shared a look of disgust.

Andy was definitely growing on me. For a little kid, he really wasn't that bad. Especially if he hated our cousins as much as I did.

One thing that I've noticed, over the years, is that mutual hate has a funny way of bringing people together.

"Both of you, knock it off. You're going to be nice to your cousins. I swear, if either one of you says or does anything to embarrass me today, you're losing everything for a month."

She kept going, but I sort of spaced out. I was sure that mom or Andy would realize that something was wrong with me if I stayed zoned out for long enough. They'd ask, and I'd finally snap. Admit everything that had happened with Josh. Maybe some part of me actually wanted that to happen, for someone to notice.

But when I tuned back into reality, no one had. Nothing had changed. And I still needed to face the day.

***

For the first hour, Josh didn't say anything to me. He just played his role as the sweet gentleman that mom and dad both adored so much.

Sure, he'd glared at me once or twice when no one was watching,  but that was fine. I'd gotten pretty used to things like that since the talent show, after all.

It wasn't until dad brought up the football game that Josh finally acknowledged me.

"Yeah, it was a great game! Right, Casey? You were there."

"Huh?"

"The last football game," Josh repeated.

Of course, I understood the double meaning. He was trying to provoke me, and I know that I shouldn't have taken the bait. My pride wouldn't let him get away with it though.