the outsider

'𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡'

𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑒 : 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛
a scream from another room forces me to shoot up and out of bed. i rush towards the sound of kenzie's voice frantically.
"who are you?!" she screeches, sending a pillow thrashing down on the teenage boy sprawled across the spare bed.
"ouch!" the boy whines, pulling his arms around his messy curls for protection as kenzie launches another attack.
my memory of last night is quickly reinstalled and i realise i brought caleb back to kenzie's, without a warning. i launch into action, pulling her off of him.
"what the fuck was that for?" caleb seethes, rolling over into his back and rubbing his eyes as his eyesight adjusts to the sunlight beaming through the blinds.
realisation settles across kenzie's face and she drops the pillow.
"caleb, i'm so sorry" she almost gasps, a chuckle escaping instead.
"it's not funny" he scowls, only making us laugh harder.
"alright, you can leave now" he grumbles, throwing a stray pillow our way which is easily dodged.
however, we take the hint and head down stairs. kenzie begins making pancakes as i sit myself down in the kitchen isle, watching her sing along to the music we'd began playing.
"so, you and caleb are good then?" she asks, taking a break from her ridiculous singing and flipping a pancake that looks just a little undercooked now that she's flipped it.
i shrug.
"i'm guessing your shrug means that you guys didn't have much of a talk last night then?"
i shake my head. by the time i'd found caleb, it was hard for him to even string together a sentence.
"you need to talk to him, annie. this has gone on too long. he's your brother" kenzie sighs, flipping the pancake once more.
i open my mouth to reply, only for it to fall shut. she was right.
kenzie then continues to fill me in on all that happened last night, including the rumours that have been swirling around lauren and caleb. apparently, they weren't officially together but that was bitch was crazy enough that a glance at another girl had set her off. it felt weird hearing about my brother's love life from someone other than him. i missed that. i missed my brother.
with caleb upstairs, the conversation we were long overdue was bound to happen but i hadn't expected him to wonder through into the kitchen so soon.
with a pair of sunglasses sat across the bridge of his nose, he takes a seat beside me on the kitchen isle, groaning.
"looks like someone had a rough night" kenzie pokes, chuckling and earning herself a scowl. i decide seconds into the silence, it's too uncomfortable for me and i pull out my phone.
i didn't have much friends, not making it much of a surprise when i see i have little to no new notifications. i almost instantly close my phone again when i see i actually have a Instagram notification from someone other than kenzie. '𝙝𝙖𝙮𝙙𝙚𝙣.𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙮𝙤𝙪'.
my brows shoot up almost as quickly as i scramble to open the app.
before I know it, i'm knee deep in stalking his account, not that there was much to stalk. he had two photos on his account, one with his brother from last year and one of him looking wildly attractive playing football. he had a pretty basic account for a teenage boy, but i caught myself glued to the picture of him and his brother. they looked identical. his brother, who i had figured out was dylan from the tags, was taller and had a slight stubble, but apart from that, the two could have passed as twins.
based off of his brother, hayden was definitely going to have a girlfriend by collage, if not in collage. he was going to be hotter than he was now.
"earth to annie!" kenzie shouts as he slides a plate of pancakes towards me.
"do you want some or not?"
"oh yeah" i smile, closing my phone and pushing the thoughts of a older collage hayden to the back of my mind, where all of the thoughts of him belong.
the painful silence is still being dragged out between kenzie, caleb and i when she rises from her seat at the opposite side of the isle.
"you know what? this is too awkward for me" she admits, picking up her empty plate and dumping it in the sink.
"you two need to sort things out" she adds, on her way out.
"kenzie" i try, on my feet when caleb's grip meets my forearm.
"she's right. you need to come home" he says and i have no other choice than to crumble back into my seat and fix the grudge that had settled between us.