TIWIS

BETA: A Million Dollar Deal... 3.1

I walked into the house quietly and I went to the storage room to drop the tool-bucket. I walked out to the stairs calling out my usual ‘I’m home’, climbing up the stairs without even waiting for anyone to answer back. I hurried up the stairs and to my horror I saw my immediate elder brother, Rave, standing in front of my room obviously waiting for me to get there. On seeing me, he didn’t even wait for me to get to my room door he just asked: “Who was that you were talking to?”
Rave’s my immediate elder brother, and he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. He was fun and way too playful. Also, most times he didn’t know when to stop. Rave’s like the sister I never had. He absolutely loves gossip. And he could be really fun to be around. He considered it a crime for someone to be in his vicinity wearing a frown. Even my eldest brother, Jared, found something to be carefree about whenever Rave was around. Rave was like a ball of joy. The attitude he has to get angry with anyone around him, who wasn’t as enthusiastic as he, was just ANNOYING.
Rave is the short form of Raven, and like all my other brothers, he had this annoying beauty around him that was just so unreal. It also made me feel so out of place. I had once thought I was adopted due to this fact. However, the DNA test I had secretly taken proved me wrong. Sad.
Rave’s question was still hanging in the air, and he was obviously expecting a juicy answer, else he’ll keep bugging me.
“Hmm… he’s just a dude I decided not to ignore”, I said casually
“Huhn? Decided not to ignore? So, you made a friend?” he asked
“Nope. I made a deal”, I stated I a matter of fact manner
“Hmm. Alright tell me all about it”, he said this pulling me into my room sitting on my bed and bouncing up and down like a child who was given a new toy. I started, narrating the events from the time of the cafeteria down to today. He made me explain exactly how I was feeling at each instance of my story and also making sure I didn’t miss telling him the slightest bit of detail. When I finished, he smiled and then said, “Wow, you’re the only one who’d need a deal to make a friend. It’s cool. For a moment, I thought he was your boyfriend”
“He’s barely even a friend”, I said.
“Yea, yeah, whatever. And mom said Lykrel was in town, early holiday something like that”, he said
“Really?!” I asked excited
“Yeah h-”
“When is he getting here? Has he already left school? Where is he?” I had asked all these questions getting up from my bed hurrying to the door and going to Lykrel’s room without even waiting for Rave to answer any of the questions I had thrown at him.
It was no secret that Lykrel was my most favourite person in the whole world. He wasn’t as strict as Jared was, and he wasn’t as incredibly annoying as Rave. He was just great and very easy to talk to. And he didn’t demand one to feel a certain way whenever they were around him.
Reaching Lykrel’s room, I opened the door without an invitation and surprisingly, it was empty. I was heart-broken. I turned to find Rave with this greasy expression on his face. I frowned at him. He looked really smug for a moment before saying, “Now, if you’d let me finish, you’d know that he wasn’t going to be staying home but at a friend’s house”
After saying this, he sighed walking back down the stairs. Right at the foot of the stairs, he called out back to me, “you hungry? Mom’s experimenting again”. I groaned, clenching my fist on my stomach and pretending to be gagged. My mother did this weird experiment with food, combining and mixing unusual food types. Sometimes they were okay, and by that, I mean edible, while most times they were NOT.
I walked slowly to my room disappointed and angry at Rave for not speaking quickly enough. I got to my room avoiding the bed; I went straight to the bathroom to freshen up. The bathroom was a little brighter than usual. After a while of squinting my eyes, I realize it actually wasn’t, it just seemed that way. I sighed and submerged myself in the bath my mother had obviously made while I was outside with Axel. Under the water was peaceful. Too peaceful that I had to constantly remind myself not to fall asleep so as not to drown. After about fifteen minutes, I willed myself to get out of the bath. I got dressed, brushed my hair, and went to my bed picking up my sketch-pad from my bag on my way there.
I flipped through my sketch-pad looking for an empty page. My drawings on my sketch-pad weren’t even close to impressive. My overly active imagination made it, so I could see the craziest patterns between how different objects interacted. I spent weeks on most of them because I had this thing, that in all my drawings, every intricate detail had to be shown. I finally found a blank page, and then came the worst problem. I had finished drawing the one I was working on and adding anything to it would ruin it forever. The only problem now was that I had nothing to draw. I looked around my room trying to find patterns, but all I could see were the ones I had already drawn. If I didn’t find something to draw quickly, I’d have to listen to my thoughts; which was the last thing I wanted to do. Just as I started sulking as to how bad today was with all the events that had happened, I heard someone knocking on my room door.
Thinking it was Rave coming again to pester my soul I called out, “Don’t come in… I’m – I’m not decent.” To my horror, later relief the door opened and my mother carrying a tray walked into my room. She was smiling as she said, “Now there’s nothing we haven’t seen before”. She chuckled to her own old people joke.
“Mom!!!” I groaned
“What?” she asked almost laughing. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her smile so widely. Apparently, I had been a really bad child lately, but seeing her with this smile was amazing. Something about it made you want to see it always. She looked so young. She also had watery eyes that were the same colour as mine pale grey greenish eyes. Hers, however, was more defined on her perfectly crafted face.
My mother was the reason for my brothers’ inexplicable beauty. Don’t get me wrong, my father is gorgeous. But it is the normal kind of gorgeous. Not the inhumane kind like the others. I, on the other hand, well I was NOT.
She had gotten to the edge of my bed and was just staring at the bed and then at me and back again still smiling. She kept doing this for a few more seconds before I realized the question she was actually asking.
“You know you don’t need an invitation to sit down, right?” I asked
“Well… Don’t I… considering”, she replied sitting down.
I playfully gave her a scrutinizing look, then said, “Considering what?”
She ignored my question asking, “cookies?”
“Yeah” I took one from the tray she was still holding. Just as I was about to put it in my mouth, I remembered what Rave had said about mom experimenting. “Where did this come from?” I asked cautiously
She out-rightly laughed this time and then said, “you guys know what you do isn’t fair right? I mean it’s not even bad”
“Ye — Yeah. Where did this come from?” I asked again
“Well, in that case, I do not know”, she replied
“Mom!!!” I said
“Fine! A box. It’s a boring little cookie”, she said this raising her nose in the air and pouting.
“You’re lying,” I groaned.
“I’m not,” she said laughing at me.
“You are!!!” I argued
“Now… why would I?” she asked still laughing at me
“I dunno, you probably need feedback on your weird experiment and you couldn’t get Rave to taste it”, I replied.
She gave me a disbelieving look that was like ‘really?’, so I closed my eyes a just took a bite from the cookie. Surprisingly to me, she was right. To my best knowledge, it tasted alright.
She sighed saying, “that imagination of yours though”
“What?! That one's on you. You gave birth to me, remember?” I asked
We both chuckled at my reply, but she stopped halfway in her chuckling and then said, “You know I’m offended too, right?”
I straightened up. I might have actually hurt my mother’s feelings. I had to apologize and be sincere about it this time. “Mom — I’m sorry — I guess I should have eaten it either way without complaining… I’m sor –”, I started but she interrupted me.
“–not that!!! You really think I can’t make Rave try out one of my experiments — please”, mother said.
I smiled, and she reached her hand to my head. Running her fingers through my hair. She looked at me admirably like someone who was looking at someone they thought the world of.
“You’re really beautiful, you know that, right?” she asked
“Yeah, mom…” I said trying not to sound sarcastic.
That phrase was something my mother told me so many times since she found out the reason I had that DNA test done. She never missed an opportunity to say that to me. It was as if she was trying to console me for not being as beautiful and gorgeous as the rest of my family.
She dropped the tray on my bed stand and then stood up and started making her way out of my room. When she got to the door she turned and then said, “and by the way, the experiment is for dinner… don’t be a stranger!” after she said this she left leaving me groaning within myself. The ‘don’t be a stranger’ part was what she said when she didn’t want to say out rightly that I shouldn’t stay in my room alone. This, however, wasn’t what was making me angry. I thought the worse had passed since she brought me a harmless tray of cookies. I thought the experiment was so bad that even she knew it was bad…
After several internal tantrums and irrational bed kicking, I looked up angrily at the tray of cookies beside my bed. I took one from the tray and stuffed it in my mouth. I sat up shoving my sketch-pad off the bed. I began getting angry with myself again. It was hard enough I had to resolve to listen to my own thoughts but now I also had to anticipate for the experiment dinner. It was during this minor anguish of mine that I saw it.
The pattern wasn’t like the others and was really faint, having almost no colour at all. I had seen it. It was where the light from the hall hit my room door. Now that I had seen it, it looked huge. I realize that I’ve always seen it but probably just ignored it due to its faint colour. Still, there it was and as I was marvelling as how different this one was, a thought of joy started to creep in me. I don’t have to beat myself up anymore. I got up and picked up my sketch-pad from the floor. On picking it up, I returned to my bed, stomach-first with my sketch-pad in my front to start my new drawing that’s going to take a while that only the heavens know how long.