Chapter 4: 4: The Social Norm of Calling People with Pet Names is Beyond My Reach

4: The Social Norm of Calling People with Pet Names is Beyond My Reach

“Have you gotten fat?”

It was the first thing that Quentin said to me upon laying his eyes on me. My breathing halted, my gaze fearfully tore down to what was actually happening under the blanket. The big blob certainly didn’t have anything to do with my fluctuated weight, but the fact that there were two people under it.

Of course I would look big…and very probably also constipated to the boot. How could I not? Ryder Black was in an extremely close proximity to me. I could actually feel the contour of his shoulder,  and one of my feet was in between his while he curled his body into a fetal position.

It was the closest I’d been to death, I swear.

I widened my eyes as big as I could manage, hoping that Quentin would catch that there was something fishy going on. Alas, my brother was far from being observant, except when it concerned his visage, and he missed my signal entirely.

Instead, my dear twin brother was showing me all of his teeth. “Hey, Ap, do I have anything on my teeth? I’m going to have a quick meet up with Kayla in about five.”

I examined his mouth and found that there was a tiny bit of green slipped in between his incisors, but since I was afraid that I’d start screaming if I talked, I just shook my head no. I was sure that Kayla, the pretty, if not a little slow cheerleader, wouldn’t mind the tiny green bit. I knew that she had been practically drooling whenever she was around my brother.

“Cool, so what’s up with you? It’s not even the first period and the nurse said you fainted?”

Ryder’s hand suddenly tightened around the hem of my shirt and I gasped in shock.

“I…” I contemplated saying the truth: that Ryder Black had came up to me to talk, but then my fear of Ryder Black had been so overflowing that I had started talking all Yoda to him. Furthermore, he had almost brought me to the Janitor’s closet. And then, since I wasn’t prepared to do anything inside that particular place, my self-defense mechanism had taken over and had shut down my brain temporarily.

But then I also didn’t want to witness Ryder and my brother started another fight. It had happened two years ago, and it didn’t end up pretty. My brother wasn’t as strong of a fighter as Ryder, but he had the entire burly jocks behind him, and as Ryder was winning, they all went rampage on him.

I thought I had seen about three teeth scattered on the grounds after the teachers broken up the fight. Also something that suspiciously looked like a chunk of flesh.

(Later it was revealed that while it was flesh, it wasn’t human flesh, because turned out that one of the jocks vomited during the fight. It was actually just chicken.)

And thus I took the plunge and started to lie.

“Well, it was because… I was devastated…” I said, very slowly.

Quentin was nodding as slowly as the words slipped off my mouth. His brows were taut together in full concentration. “And why is that?”

“Because…” my brain whirled hard, and it didn’t help that under the blanket, Ryder was holding even tighter on my shirt. In fact, he was holding too tight that his knuckles brushed against my bare stomach for about 0.0002 milliseconds. Electrics flew violently, and it was a true miracle that my voice hadn’t left me. “Because today is Wheat Day but Mom gave my milk strawberry instead of granola.”

“Ouch,” Quentin gave me a sympathetic look. Aside from our parents, he was the only one who could understand my needs to have days in which I would only eat food with certain ingredients. Today was Wednesday so it was Wheat day. Thursday was C-lettered day. Friday was Fruit day. At Sunday, usually I’d go with either Strawberry days or Soup days, depending on my mood. “It’s okay, Ap. You can cheat on your crazy food schedule once in a while.”

I wasn’t cheating. My mother gave me the right kind of milk, and it was breaking my heart to lie to Quentin about a blunder that Mom didn’t actually do. “I’m still devastated,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. I really felt guilty about it.

“So because you’re so… devastitate? What is the word again?”

“Devastated?”

“Whatever. You fainted because of that?” there was a bit of incredulity on his voice.

I chewed on my lower lip as I nodded. Quentin got up from the seat, his eyes stared at me with even more concentration than before. It was rare to see my brother actually using the part of his body that was located inside his head. He had always been all-brawny-no-brainy type of person.

“April…” he trailed off ominously. Oh here we go. This was the part where he’d figure out everything.

Many people didn’t expect us to be close because our personalities were on the different spectrum, but they were wrong. Quentin and I had strong soul-connection. We were twins, after all. He’d notice it if something was wrong with me.

“You are so fucking weird…” my brother shook his head. “It’s a good thing you share my looks, or else people will bully you all the time.”

I only stared at him in heaps of incredulity.

Under the blanket, I could feel Ryder nodding his head in agreement.

“Anyway, I just want to let you know, sister, that my friend Andrew offered you a ride home today.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I’m having football practice so I’ll be home late. You can go home with Andrew. He’s a nice guy,” Quentin grinned. Andrew Parker was one of Quentin’s buddies, but lately, I had a suspicion that he was also trying to be my buddy. For the last two weeks, he’d been following me around and even sat with me during break, automatically silencing both of my friends. Last night, Quentin told me that Andrew was getting his first truck today so I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew offered me a ride home now. He probably wanted to show off his vehicle since I hadn’t even gotten my license.

“So, yeah. I’m running late, see ya at dinner, sister!” The moment he turned his back from me, Ryder shifted his head, his hand slid up the blanket, ready to toss it out from the picture. But right before Quentin closed the door, my brother poked his head back in.

It really was the most awkward moment when I shoved Ryder’s face back under the blanket. I thought I might have stabbed his nostrils at the process.

I just hoped that he cleaned his nose this morning.

“By the way, Ap,” Quentin’s voice became softer. “Andrew’s a good friend of mine so, you know, be nice to him?”

“I’m nice to him,” I said. “I gave him half of my PB&J yesterday and I didn’t let him bring my books in between classes because they were too heavy. I know Andrew needs to preserve his energy for football practice.”

“Poor guy.” Quentin cringed. “Anyway, just be nice to him. Don’t shoot him down as badly as you usually do.”

I was still figuring out what Quentin really mean when Ryder’s head poked from beside me.

“The blonde idiot likes you, Weirdo.”

I took a peek at my fingers, searching for booger.

“And I cleaned my nose this morning,” Ryder added when he realized what I was doing. He got out from the bed and ran his hand over his hair, creating the messy I-don’t-care-but-really-I-actually-do kind of look.

“Andrew likes me?” I questioned. “It kinda makes sense, actually. I’m Quentin’s sister.”

Ryder shot me a look so vile I started to squirm.

“You seriously need help in the romance area,” he pointed out the obvious.

“I’ve been trying to buy Harlequin books, but usually I don’t like how the cover always feature people in the middle of copulation.” I admitted.

Ryder actually laughed at this. When Ryder wasn’t all scowling and frowning, he was a really cute kid. Not Teen Wolf kind of cute, but ‘Imma gonna pinch your cheeks my sweetie dums!’ kind of cute.

“You’re really not what I was imagining about, Neighbor,” he said. I knew that his opinion of me just rose because he referred me as ‘Neighbor’ and not ‘Weirdo’ anymore. “I mean, well, you’re still as weird as fuck as your room displays, but you’re quite funny and different.”

I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot at the mention of funny. Nobody ever said to me that I was funny. And when people say ‘different’, they didn’t say it in a tone of voice that indicated it was a good thing.

“I-I’m okay about hearing your family fights. It’s a reliable alarm clock,” I tried smiling at Ryder.

“So we’re cool?”

I nodded in a way that I hoped would say ‘Yeah, we’re cool, so you don’t need to kidnap me from my friends again and make me develop an early signs of heart-attack, please.’

Fortunately, Ryder didn’t seem to catch the underlying message, because he bent down and stuck his handsome but scary face right in front of me. I had to count the distance between our noses to keep myself from fainting the second time. It was 5.5 cm give or take.

Oh God. It was so close. So close. So. Darned. Close.

“You’re still afraid of me?” At this proximity, I saw his dark brown eyes twinkled as his whole countenance lit up in amusement.

“Very afraid I am!” I cried out.

Ryder tsk-ed, but it lacked the annoyance that had been present before. He straightened his back and to my utter surprise, flicked my  nose. “We’re going to change that.”

My nose felt like it had been stabbed by fifty humongous bees. “Maybe you can start by not having skull tattoos. And not punch people.”

“I won’t ever punch girls,” he protested. “Or you, no matter how toxic you are to my self-esteem. And just so you know, but girls dig tattoed guys, so I’m keeping the skull.”

“Or maybe you can dress up as Chewbacca!” I actually became giddy at the thought. “I love Chewbacca, he’s so fluffy and cute. I’m sure other girls will share my opinion.”

“Neighbor,” Ryder put pressure on the tone. “You should know that the last thing a guy wanted to be associated with is fluffy and cute.”

“Storm Troopers, then?”

There was a tight smile as Ryder walked to the exit. “You know what you should do, Neighbor? Just treat the dumblonde Andrew like you usually do.”

“I will.”

“Good,” Ryder showed his nasalabial folds again. “Don’t let him do anything for you, yeah? Not even open the goddamn car door, not bring your books. In fact, don’t let him touch you, I heard Andrew has a contagious skin disease.”

My mind whirled back to the times when Andrew and I were together. After making sure that there was no skin contact ever happening to us, I could finally concentrate on Ryder again. “I don’t think there was ever skin contact involved in our budding friendship.”

The fact made Ryder grin. “Even better.” He strutted to the exit, his back a little squared than before and his steps a little firmer. Before he opened the door, he turned towards me and said the one thing that could potentially be my nightmare of this night. “I’ll see you later, Kitten.”

Kitten. Not Weirdo. Not Neighbor. Kitten.

An animal.

Worse, a haughty, mean-eyed animal.

Also, a sort of promise that he’d be interacting with me again.

“But I’m not a cat!” I shouted at the closing door, Ryder’s chuckle could be heard despite the thick wall separating us.

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