Chapter Five
It had been a few weeks and I was finally getting use to my schedule. Not that my schedule was particularly hard or anything, I was just feeling out of it. In these last few weeks I had probably hung out with Tyler
Cooper and Andrew had definitely overstayed their welcome and were seriously getting on my last nerves. Cooper felt as if he owned my house and would constantly go into my room when I wasn’t there and Andrew ate all the food my mom had bought for me especially; like my muffin tops and Red Bull. This made me so mad that I made a sign for my door that said “Jorden hates Andrew and Cooper!” Maybe hate was a strong word, but I hoped it would get my point across; that they should leave me alone.
I found that Avery went to a lot of the same places I did and had always caught me doing something embarrassing; like falling on my face. Every time he saw me doing something he would make some sarcastic remark; One time when I was taking my dog, Mollie, out for a walk in the park she happened to come across a squirrel and started chasing it, she’s a big dog so when she started running I fell down and she dragged me behind her until I let go of her leash and called her back. When I got her back he was standing there with the same smirk on his face that he saves for me especially and then made some comment about how she was taking me for a walk. He made me so mad that day that I added to the bottom of my sign “and Avery!!” It’s not like he would ever see it anyways.
It was getting close to Halloween and that meant planning our costumes. I called Mika and Letty over for a brainstorming session.
“Nice sign.” Mika said laughing as she pointed to the sign on my door.
“They don’t seem that bad.” Juliet said looking down the hall. She just thought that because they weren’t on her bed eating all her lemon poppy seed muffin tops.
“Believe me; they are.” I said closing the door behind them. I pulled out my sketch book and laid it in the middle of my bed. We all sat down around it so it was positioned in the middle of our circle. The sketchbook was where we brainstormed all our ideas and made lists. I got out our special gel pens. Mine was pink, Mika’s was blue and Juliet had purple. I picked up the sketch book and flipped it to a clean page. We all began writing ideas down and after half and hour of writing and a pitcher of homemade lemonade we had it narrowed down to three ideas.
“Fairies, Superheroes or Go-Go dancers.” Mika read out loud.
“They all sound really fun.” Letty said as she twirled her hair around her finger.
“They do,” I agreed “but I think my favorite is Superheroes.”
“Seth would be very helpful with that.” Mika said contemplating this. Seth was a bit of a comic book nerd and his favorite hero was Superman. He would be able to tell us which heroes to be.
“It would be fun. We could use glitter!” Juliet gushed; she loved all shiny things.
“So superheroes?” I asked for clarification.
“I think so.” Mika said.
“Sweet.” Letty agreed. So it was settled. We were now super.
Sadly my mom said we were supposed to have a week of only family activities. My mom grew up on the farm with our uncle Austin. Living on a farm the family stayed close and I guess she missed all the interactions. So she made a week for our family to do the things she did when she was our age. We weren’t allowed to have friends over and were only allowed on the internet for an hour unless it was for school. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, unless Mike started to lose. He was kind of a sore loser.
It was 5pm on a Sunday night and we were all sitting in the living room waiting for my mom to bring out the first family night activity. Alex had never done this before, being from the Connelly side of the family rather than the Howard side, they weren’t as big on family activities. I looked over at her and she had a wary expression upon her face. My mom had taken everyone’s cell phone and put it in a box in some secret hiding place, also known as under the loose floorboard in the back of her closet.
“It’s not as horrible as it sounds Alex.” Jamie said noticing Alex’s guarded posture.
“My parents never did this.” She stated.
“Well your father was never the fun one. That was me.” My dad said pointing to himself. Alex’s dad, James, was my dad’s younger brother and he was stupid in high school and got a girl pregnant when he was 17. This turned out to be Alex’s mom and hence how Alex was brought into our lives, it also explains why she’s the same age as us when her father was younger. Her dad was 5 years younger than my dad to be exact and was far more irresponsible. Alex’s mom had to drop out to take care of her, James proposed to her and they got married when Alex was two. Her dad became a big business guy and had to travel a lot. They lived in New York for 10 years and then when he got transferred to England Cheyenne
“Okay tonight we start with Apples to Apples. I was thinking about playing Life and Scrabble but since its Alex’s first time I thought we would ease her into it.” She smiled as she put the boxes on our coffee table and began shuffling the cards. We played for a couple hours and Alex was really getting into it and having fun. She even won the first round. Mike always announced his cards out loud so I purposely never picked his. I won the next round and then my mom won. She was usually the game queen and won the round after that. Jamie won the last round and Mike got so fed up that he threw his cards onto the table and went upstairs.
After game night I went upstairs to check my computer and sign on to messenger. I noticed Avery was on. Aqua had come to me the other day and told me I wasn’t being very nice and I actually agreed, so I had been making a point to be more civil to him. Since then I had found out we had some things in common and he wasn’t as horrible as I had thought, although I still didn’t like him. I turned behind me and hit play on my iHome, “A Little More You” by Little Big Town began to play and I started to sing along when I heard a ping come from my computer.
ThatAussieKid: Hello there Miss Connelly.
It was Avery; I could tell from his name which Luke had helped him pick out. We had IMed a few times and joked around about it. It said he was listening to “What I’m Looking For” by Brendan Benson. I updated mine and then replied to him.
Jordylynn: Hi
ThatAussieKid: What are you doing?
Jordylynn: Just finished family game night. Now I’m listening to music, checking my e-mail. The usual Sunday night stuff. How bout you?
ThatAussieKid: Trying to write lyrics, but I’m taking a break. I have writers block again.
Avery I had come to find was very musical and played guitar better than anyone I knew. He even wrote his own stuff, kind of like Taylor Swift, so I found I had to respect him for that.
ThatAussieKid: Hey can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.
I had no idea what he would want to ask me. He never really asked me things except why I was so clumsy.
Jordylynn: Shoot
ThatAussieKid: Why do you hate me? Did I do something to you?
I was so taken aback by this that I had to re-read it a few times to comprehend it. Then I began to laugh. I couldn’t explain why, but I did.
Jordylynn: Haha why do you think I hate you?
I had been told not to hate people, but sometimes I let the rage get to me, like with Cooper and Andrew, but Avery had never angered me that much, more of just a constant annoyance; I added him to my sign spur of the moment.
ThatAussieKid: Well... to be quite honest with you I saw that paper on your door that said “Jorden hates Cooper and Andrew! And Avery!!”
ThatAussieKid: I wasn’t going to ask but I couldn’t get that sign out of my head and couldn’t figure out what I had done to make you hate me.
ThatAussieKid: So I want to apologize to you. I was going to today at lunch, but I lost my nerve so I had to resort to the internet. I’m sorry Jorden.
He was apologizing to me? He didn’t even have to do that. I only made that sign out of rage and added his name because yet again he saw me fall and always had some comment to make about it. Come to think of it, he always agitated me, but not at the moment. I really was trying to be nicer to him though.
Jordylynn: Haha the sign? I only made that because you always catch me doing the most embarrassing stuff then make some comment on it.
Jordylynn: I thought you were pompous and a bit arrogant.
Jordylynn: But now that I know you a bit more I don’t think you are anymore. Just sarcastic.
Jordylynn: Honestly if I hated you I wouldn’t bother talking to you.
ThatAussieKid: Well that’s good to know. I’m pleased to know that you don’t hate me.
ThatAussieKid: Hey I hope this is not too forward, but I was wondering if you would care to hang out sometime.
ThatAussieKid: With me?
He wanted to hang out with me? After I was a bitch to him? What would we do? I barely knew him, but I decided to give it a try; for Aqua.
Jordylynn: Haha you’re not being too forward. We can hang out. We can listen to music and play truths!
ThatAussieKid: Truths? What’s that?
Jordylynn: You have never heard of Truths? Read the book The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen.
Jordylynn: It one of my favorites and will definitely inform you on the game of Truths.
ThatAussieKid: Okay I will. I’ll have it finished by the time we hang out.
ThatAussieKid: I’m sorry Jorden; Autumn has just gotten here and is taking us out for Hailey’s birthday. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.
Jordylynn: Alright Avery. Have fun and tell her Happy Birthday for me.
ThatAussieKid: I will. Goodnight Jorden.
Jordylynn: Thanks. Night Avery
ThatAussieKid has just signed off.
I just sat there looking over the conversation I had just had with the guy I thought I had hated I looked behind me to see Jamie standing in my doorway.
“I don’t mean to sound rude,” she started looking a little nervous, “But why do you look so weird?” She was playing with her hair then looked me in the eyes. I knew I couldn’t lie to her.
“Apparently I have a date to hang out with Avery.” I said, even the words sounded weird to me.
“You mean Luke’s cousin who last time I checked you hated?” She said pointing at my door. I got up and ripped the sign off my door. She looked at me quizzically.
“He’s really not that bad, I just misjudged him I guess.” I said feeling some heat rush to my cheeks.”But that doesn’t mean I like him or anything! He’s still annoying.” I added in attempt to redeem my last comment. Jamie was about to comment on this when my phone rang. I looked down and saw it was Tyler
“Hello?” I answered. I don’t know why, but he wasn’t the one I was expecting to call.
“Hey babe,” he always sounded cocky on the phone. “Just calling to see how it’s going.” He never called to see how things were going, something was up.
“Uhh...” I stammered. “Nothing really. Just family game week. No friends.” I hoped that didn’t sound rude.
“Yeah Mike told me,” he said with a somewhat harsh tone. What was up with him? “So who’s Avery?” He sounded accusing and jealous.
“Luke’s cousin, why do you ask?”
“He sent you a friend request on Facebook and on Myspace.” He said sounding irritated. This made me mad. I only gave him my password for emergencies and it turns out he looks through my stuff.
“Why were you on my Facebook and Myspace?” I asked annoyed. I could feel the rage boiling at the surface.
“Just looking.” He said very vaguely. I felt like my space had been violated. This was definitely not okay with me.
“That’s not a good enough reason Tyler Tyler
“Hello? Babe? Do you forgive me?” He asked. I thought about it. I was still really mad.
“No. Not now.”I hung up the phone and tossed it on the floor.
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