Orange December

Chapter 4

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of all our relatives who stayed over packing and chatting about their Black Friday finds, which reminded me about the application's due date. I got out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and opening my laptop with a yawn. I tapped the spacebar to get it to turn back on, then turned my mouse on as it started up. I logged in and revisited the application, filling in the last few bits before clicking submit. I sat there motionless for a few moments, taking it in that I could be making it to a nationwide mathematics competition if the regionals went well. This was so insane.

I'd been reading up on the logistics of the competition, and it seemed like the winning school would have to have participated in a lot less rounds than I thought. It turned out that only a select number of schools participated each year to keep the participants from dying of boredom while they waited around for their turns to compete. Only one or two schools from each state competed, and some schools were even dropped without a competition if they seemed to barely survive a round. It seemed like such a harsh way to hold a competition, but I supposed that this would make it more interesting to a regular viewer. After I finished the application, I surfed the web for a few minutes, checking my social media accounts before it was time to talk to Luke.

Around mid morning, Luke knocked on the door and Lexie let him in. "Hey, Lex," he greeted her, and she nodded, gesturing in my general direction where I was eating breakfast alone.

"You hungry?" she asked politely. "We have chocolate chip pancakes but also leftover turkey and a lot of other stuff."

"I'll take you up on the pancakes, but I think I'm gonna have to wait a while before I eat another bite of turkey. I ate like half of ours last night, I swear." She nodded with a smile, going to the kitchen and ladling two circles of pancake batter onto the still-hot griddle. I poured him some orange juice while he waited.

There was a silence for a few moments that I didn't like. I knew one of us had to say something to start, but I didn't know how to. I was so nervous, because we hardly ever fought like this, and he was my best friend. I was scared to start, not wanting to cause even more of a rift between us. After a few moments of sitting like that, Lex put a plate down in front of Luke that had two pancakes on it, a single strawberry adorning the top. He thanked her quietly and started to eat.

"Listen, Robby," he started between bites of pancake, "I overreacted. Mostly. I mean, we both did, but I wanted to apologize first. I should never have told Anne anything, because that's your business to share, not mine. Regardless of if I was telling the truth, I spilled a secret of yours, and that's not cool."

"You're right, it's not," I replied, a hint of a smile on my face, "but I get why you did it."

"Really?"

"Of course," I said with a nod. "She's like your sister. I know you don't have one, since you're the only child, but I see the relationship you guys have and it's stronger than a cousin-cousin relationship. It seems a lot more brother-sister to me. I know I tell Lexie a lot, too, even if she is a huge brat-"

"I heard that, jerk-jerk-Robby," her voice came from the other room.

"I meant for you to hear it, nerd-nerd-Lexie," I answered before continuing, "but she's honestly a better friend than anyone else will ever be. Of course I don't mean that offensively, but, like, we've literally been there for each other our whole lives. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her, you know?"

"Except, like, laundry," she chimed in from the other room. "Sometimes I ask him to put my clothes in the dryer and he never helps me out with it. But he's right about everything else." Luke laughed.

"Yeah, you're right. I've actually never thought about it like that, but Anne really is like a sister to me. We fight over random stuff all the time, just like you and Lexie, I guess. She's also like my best friend. I don't remember a time where I didn't have semi-immediate access to her ever since she moved from New York... Even so, it doesn't excuse what I did."