All Along
Story by MessengeroftheSea
Chapter 1
Do you ever get that feeling that no matter what you do or say, no one ever believes you're telling the truth? Well, I'm in that situation now; where no one believes me when I'm saying I don't feel like going out with my brother's group of friends. We just aren't compatible; they're all popular, stuck-up and arrogant (except for my brother, and maybe a few others), and I'm just… not. I'm not unhappy about this arrangement because it suits me just fine. I don't want to be like they are. I'm perfectly happy just being me; out of the way, not in the centre of attention, and reading.
"Come on Annie, please?" Malcolm, my brother, whines, "It'll be fun!"
I sigh. "Malcolm, I can't. You know I don't fit in with your friends."
"But you'll never know if you don't try," His voice holds onto the 'y' on 'try', giving me his best if-you-don't-come-you'll-regret-it-later looks.
"I'll see you at home, okay? Don't be too late, and text me if you'll be back after 10." I hated sounding like mom, but since we didn't have one, I didn't really have much of a choice. Plus, even if he's the older sibling, someone had to be responsible all the time, and it wasn't going to be Malcolm.
"Fine," He pouted, "but at least let me drive you home; we're going past the house anyway," He compromises. I sigh again. I guess I don't really have a choice.
"Hey guys, this is my sister Annie," Annabeth I correct in my head, "Most of you should've met her before, but I have to drop her home on the way."
"Why doesn't she just come with us?" One of the guys asks.
"Yeah, she's hot enough." Another guys says.
"No. She's got homework to do," And there's Malcolm's older-brother-protective side coming out. I nod mutely, agreeing with his answer. Even if I did want to go, I had homework to complete which I actually cared about. These guys didn't care about homework, so it didn't really make any difference for them.
"Screw homework," The guy muttered, proving my point, but didn't argue with Malcolm. I smiled. It was nice to know that even if I didn't, my brother had power in the school. Sure it was stuffed up, and I would probably do a better job running it than he and his best friend Percy, I wouldn't want to be the centre of attention. Yup, that's my brother: king of the whole school (well, except for Percy. He was second best to Percy).
"Come on guys, let's go!" Malcolm shouted at the group. Since Percy wasn't here to lead the group, the honour was passed onto Malcolm. He started splitting the guys into different car groups, "Nico, Travis, Connor, you can come in my car. Jason, you take Chris, Leo, Frank and Will. Annie, you're with me," Malcolm said the last part to me. Usually some of the guy's girlfriends would be here: Travis' girlfriend Katie, Jason's girlfriend Piper, Chris' girlfriend Clarisse, and even Frank's girlfriend Hazel, probably the only tomboy out of all of them. Then again, that was probably because Frank was a sucker for sweethearts like Hazel. That left Nico, Connor, Leo, Will and Malcolm without girlfriends. Oh, and I shouldn't forget Percy. Well, I knew Nico and Percy, if not more, both had many admirers. Hell, even my best friend Thalia liked Nico.
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After being dropped at home, I didn't really know what to do. I was going to do my homework, but I really didn't feel like it after I started getting a headache in the car from the guys' loud voices. Sometimes, I swear they're worse than girls! Anyway, along with having a headache, I really just didn't feel like doing homework. Usually I have no problem doing it as soon as I got home, but something wasn't right this time. I shrugged it off. Might as well start getting dinner ready, I thought to myself.
Dinner, you ask? Why would Annabeth be cooking dinner? Well, if you must know, Malcolm and my mum left home just after I was born, leaving our father to look after us. But then why do you have to cook dinner? Can't your dad cook dinner, you ask? Well, our dad is never home. He always has one business trip or another, leaving Malcolm and I to look after ourselves at home. Well, more me looking after myself and Malcolm.
Oh great, there I go; talking to myself. I must really be feeling lonely. Usually I just text Thalia or something. But she's not here, remember? She's on a holiday to Europe. I chide myself. How I wish I could be the one going to Europe, I know it's not possible because a) Malcolm needs looking after, b) if I did go, Malcolm would have to come, then he would fail all his subjects, and he's already damn near to failing, and c) although dad could afford it, he would never let us have such a good time. I swear he lives to ruin our lives.
Plus, it's not really Thalia's fault she's going; I know she was really excited, and I'm sure she's having a great time, but her parents forced her to go. She didn't want to leave me alone. But that was okay, because I had other friends; like, umm, actually no, I didn't have any other friends except Malcolm (but I would never sit with him). I could just go to the library and read, or study.
Anyway, back to cooking dinner. I really didn't mind cooking dinner; I liked to think of it as a good experience for when I went to college, or when I got married and had kids. That's if I did end up getting married. Tonight, we were having creamy chicken risotto. It took a while to make, so I decided to start right away. It was already 4:45 and I would probably finish at about 6:45. Malcolm would probably get home at about 7:45 ish, so I could just put it in the Thermo Server, which kept meals hot for hours. It also gave me time to do my homework if I felt up to it.
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"Hey Annie I'm home!" Malcolm called from the front door. As I predicted, it was 7:55, "What's for dinner?" Although he may not like that I had to cook dinner all the time, and he didn't really do much, he still appreciated it.
"Creamy chicken risotto," I called back, "We'll probably have enough for another night or two as well, so we can save some for in a couple of days." I always tend to cook too much (well, I might as well, since we'll use it), but Malcolm hates having the same dinner two nights in a row. We usually end up having 2-3 different meals in a week.
"Ooh yum! We haven't had it for ages!" He called back through the massive house. I made my way down the stairs from my room to find him opening the Thermo Server and smelling the meal. In the end, I got some homework done. Maybe not as much as I would've liked, because I couldn't concentrate properly, but it was better than nothing.
"That's because it takes so long to cook," I laughed, "but I couldn't really concentrate on my homework before, so I thought some cooking might help." I started serving up two dishes, piling about triple what I was having onto Malcolm's plate. Trust footballers to eat so much.
"Did you get much homework done?" He asked, genuinely concerned. He may not care about homework for himself much, but he knew how much I liked to keep up with it so I didn't have to catch up later, and it made studying easier for when we had a test on the topic later.
"A bit," I said, placing the plates on the table, and sitting down. "How 'bout you, did you have fun?" He merely nods, since his mouth is full of food. He keeps shovelling down more food until he's done. We finished at about the same time, and he had three times what I had! Footballers these days, I shook my head in amusement.
"What's so funny?" He asked as I shook my head.
"Just that you had about three times more than me, yet still managed to finish dinner at the same time as me."
He shrugged, "I'm a footballer." I laughed and nodded.
"Okay, well I'm going to bed, see you in the morning!" I yawned. I had showered before I did my homework, so I could just go straight to bed.
"Night!" He called up the stairs as I made my way to my room.
There's chapter 1! Please review and tell me if you think I should continue with this story!
~MessengeroftheSea~