Just For Glory | COMPLETED

Seeing What We've Known

I made it home on Friday night, but the idea of going upstairs was just too much, so I fell asleep on the couch. For a couple of days, Mom and Jamie left me well alone. It was Monday, three days later, that I was back in my room and Jamie woke me up none too politely.

"Where were you?" It was a seemingly vague question asked by my sixteen-year-old sister, but it certainly demanded an answer, and I knew what she was asking.

Groaning and screwing my eyes shut against the change of light, I contemplated the answer. The idea of lying to her was just boring, so I shrugged, which was really a useless gesture when I was still lying down. "At a party for a little while," I muttered into the pillow.

The last thing I was expecting was a sharp slap on my shoulder. Frowning in disbelief, I rolled over and stared at Jamie.

"What's the matter with you?" Her voice was only slightly shrill—it was mostly anger, and I was surprised at the amount of said emotion.

"Jamie, I j—"

"No, Donovan, come on! What, you think that because you just realized that Piper is a smart, nice, pretty, funny, and one-of-a-kind girl, and someone else might just have realized that first—god, you think that justifies going out and getting hammered? Well, you're wrong!" She was breathing through her nostrils, and I found myself wanting to laugh at how much she looked like...well, me.

I lowered my eyebrows sharply as her words sunk in. "Hammered? Jamie, you don't know anything about that, okay? I wasn't drunk." She looked entirely too skeptical, so I conceded slightly. "Not to say that I didn't drink, because I did, but I definitely wasn't drunk. Besides, you make it sound like I'm secretly yearning for Piper."

Jamie arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms across her chest, apparently deciding to ignore the heavy sarcasm in my voice. "Gee, wherever would I get that crazy idea? Donovan, you don't even—ugh! You are so unreasonable when it comes to Piper—you and Piper."

"Jamie, I really thought you'd gotten over your little 'hope' for Piper and me. Don't be so childish," I said, my eyes narrowed. Once upon a time, that might have intimidated her.

"Oh, I was quite over it. I mean, I was over trying to make it happen. Well guess what, Donny? I'm not an idiot; I know something happened on Friday. It's written all over your face. I bet whatever it was, it was idiotic and stemmed from your resentfulness towards Oliver, though," she said easily, leaning forward. At some point, she'd sat down on the coffee table.

"I'm not jealous of Calloway," I practically spat.

She scoffed, and I once again found myself remembering the superficially bubbly Jamie from just the year before. That sister was long gone. Even if this newly sarcastic Jamie was irritating, I had to admit that she was much easier to respect. "Donovan, you should work on your believability when it comes to that topic." I scowled at her, but she just gave a tiny shrug, looking at me as if I were a little kid.

"Why couldn't you have just let me tell you?" she asked softly. There was no need for me to reply—she went on. "You've never talked to Oliver, have you? Don't answer; it's rhetorical and the answer's obvious. No, you haven't. Well, the fact of the matter is that if you talk to him for ten minutes, it takes about three before he brings up Samantha."

I swallowed slightly and looked at her levelly. "Samantha?" I asked slowly.

With a groan, Jamie ran her hands through her white-blonde hair and looked down briefly. "I knew it," she murmured before looking up at me and saying, "Donovan, as you may or may not know Oliver recently moved here from Portland. He likes it here, but he's pretty bummed that he had to leave his long-time girlfriend, the apparently unequalled Samantha, behind."