The Life Of A Crazy Girl And Her 10 Brothers

The Elephant In The Room

Ember and Calix had english together, Milo had physics and I was stuck in French. By myself? No, of course not. Life would never grant me that favor.

I had Carter and Seth, who were shooting glances at me every thirty seconds, thinking I wouldn't notice.

Doing a full body stretch, the type that leaves you making a weird sigh groan sound, I decided to stare back until they were as uncomfortable as I was.

Seth was the first to glance my way and looked away almost immediately when he saw me staring back.

Cautiously, his eyes rose to look again and finding that my eyes hadn't moved, he looked back down, a slight blush on his face.

That was surprisingly cute, I thought, smirking as amusement welled in my chest.

Carter glanced at me and I shifted my eyes to his, staring back at the same Ryder eyes.

After three seconds of intense and uncomfortable staring, he made a face at me and I made one in return. He flipped me off, sticking his tongue out at me.

Tryna one up me, are you? I thought, flipping him off with both hands.

His eyebrows rose, and I could practically read his thoughts. Oh? Frowning, he shoved a hand into his pocket and ruffled around before pulling out his middle finger out, a smug expression on his face.

I held up a finger. I can do you one better. Holding up a fist, I moved my hand like I was winding something up and my middle finger slowly popped out.

Carter shifted to the side and put his hand under his butt and I got what he was about to do instantly, shaking my head in panic.

Stop, stop! I mouthed, grinning.

He grinned back and turned back to the front, where the teacher was calling the class's attention. "Alright, so you guys can get into your groups and work on the packet that's being passed out. This packet is due in two class periods," Mrs. Jutich said.

Earlier in the year, Mrs. Jutich had us get into groups of three and I was stuck with Seth and Carter because I was in the bathroom when this was announced. For some reason, they'd declined everyone who'd asked to join them and saved a spot for me. Everyone was already paired up when I came back, so I didn't have a choice. They were our groups for the rest of year and we worked together almost every class.

Mrs. Jutich left the room to talk to another teacher and everybody else migrated to their groups.

Seth grabbed his stuff and made his way over to my area, prompting Carter to do the same and grabbing three packets on the way.

I quickly got to work, hoping they were going to ignore the elephant in the room and work as well.

We worked in silence and I'd made it all the way to question six when Seth spoke up, startling me and causing my pencil to run off the page.

"So are we just not going to talk about them?" he asked.

I cursed lowly as I erased the line.

"I mean, I was going to wait until I was finished with my page," Carter said, "but sure, let's talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," I grunted, still trying to erase the very noticeable line.

"You're right," Carter agreed cheerfully, "because you're going to stay away from them. Right?"

Putting more pressure onto the eraser, I noticed that it was finally fading.

"Right?" he pressed.