The Thing About Reece Finley

[ six ]

Evelynn Kramzer

        For some really weird and unexplainable reason, I woke up in an unusually good mood even after shifting and turning almost all night long.

        “Wake up sleepy-” Aiden barged into my room and gawked at me. I raised an eyebrow at him, and looked down at myself in the mirror. My hair was brushed neatly and put in a high ponytail, my face washed, my backpack was slung over my back, and I wore my usual clothes; t-shirt and skinny jeans.

        He gasped dramatically, glanced at the clock, then back at me.

        “Who are you and what did you do to my Evie?”

        “I transported her to the planet Mars and left her there after eating all her chocolate chip cookies, and am now pretending to be her so that I can go to school and learn about how the French second Colonial Division arrived to the battlefield drunk and without their weapons on the third of May in 1917,” I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

        “B-but,” he stuttered, “it’s only 6:10. How are you awake?”

        That was actually a very good question. Usually I sleep as much as I can- what can I say? I am definitely not a morning person –and only wake up when Aiden does something stupid, examples being him: pouring ice cold water on me, let a spider loose onto my bed, or sing, which was every bit as deadly as the previous examples.

        He might look good, but he sounds even worse than me when he tries to sing, and I almost failed Music last year. Well I got a B, but still.

        “I have no idea,” I shrugged, mystified.

        “Ah well, who cares, then. Let’s go!” He yelled, pumping his fist into the air.

        I stared at him weirdly, and he shrugged back, grinning.

        “Yeah, let’s.” 

[][][]

        “Eve.” Poke. “Eve.” Poke.

        I groaned and opened my eyes halfway groggily to see Reece staring at me, his face just centimeters from my own. My eyes flew open and I jumped back, knocking down the chair I was sitting on along the way.

        Ouch.

        “Problem, Ms. Kramzer?” Mr. Helton, who was in charge of detention again, asked with narrowed eyes. I blinked and stood up slowly, rubbing my aching head.

        “N-no,” I stuttered, sitting back down.

        “Whoa,” Reece whispered in an overly dramatic tone a while after Mr. Helton went back to scrolling his phone, “is the innocent, smart, and generally-liked-by-teachers-everywhere-good-girl Evelynn Kramzer sleeping in detention?” I turned around and glared at him.

        “Sleeping? I was not sleeping. I was just… checking to see if Mr. Helton was paying attention to his students.” Reece raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing me. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe me either, not like I would ever admit that to him. “Which he wasn’t, by the way,” I added.

        “No shit, Sherlock,” he said, an amused smile on his face.

        “Anyway,” I emphasized, desperate to change the topic, “I am not a good girl who’s ‘liked by teachers everywhere’.”