I hate the way he looks at me. Which is not at all. I live in a house with people that ignore me. I can't blame Melissa, though, she has her reasons. She's always at the hospital. But Scott. He has no excuse. We're in the same class for god's sake. I'm the older sibling, I should be the one he looks up to. Isn't that how it's supposed to go? The younger sibling aspires to be the older one and bothers them to death? I guess not.
I'm standing at the door waiting for him to finish scarfing down his second bowl of cereal. Melissa gave me the car because I wasn't the one who crashed hers into the garage door when we were learning to drive. He grabs his backpack and walks right past me blowing hairs in my face.
"Good morning." I say to the empty foyer.
We usually don't talk in the car. Whenever I'd try he'd have something more important to do on his phone then say "Huh?" a few seconds after I'd fall silent. After a few attempts I just gave up. I just drive him to and from school and repeat. Sometimes he'll ask to copy my math homework. Stiles will ask for me to sit with them but I usually pass. I did join them once and it was more awkward than just ignoring the offer.
Something today has him nervous. He's sitting in the passenger seat fidgeting with his hoodie strings.
"Are you okay?" I ask as he taps on his knees to a song that's not playing.
"What? Oh, yeah. I'm great. How are you?"
I give him a quizzical look. He smiles and turns back to center. He's on drugs. When Melissa finds out she's going to knock his head into the wall. I laugh at the thought. I haven't seen that since he dumped paint on Lydia Martin in the third grade.
The second we get out of the car Scott smiles and says, "Thanks, Y/N, see you after tryouts?"
Oh, that's why he was being weird. "Yeah." I reply curtly.
"Scotty!" The bubbling Stilinski boy screams from across the yard. He threw a quick, "Hey, Y/N," at me as they walked off to class like I don't sit in front of them in homeroom.
After school I sat on the bleachers to watch the boys practice. Mostly to just laugh at Stiles and Scott attempting to not get ran over. But that doesn't happen today. For some reason, Scott does pretty well. Great even. He's not good at lacrosse. He's clumsy and runs out of breath after running down the field once. Coach Finstock grabs Scott by the back of the neck and smacks his helmet.
"You've been holding back on me, McCall!" He booms to the whole stadium.
Scott braces himself for his position to be called. Every year it's the same benchwarmer spot right next to Stiles. So, when coach yells, "First line!" Scott hangs his mouth wide open.
Stiles jumps up and exclaims, "Whoo! That's my baby!" and starts doing the running man dance with his lacrosse stick. He's such an idiot I feel embarrassed for him, but I can't help and laugh.
"Y/N," Scott runs up to me after practice. "I got first line."
"I heard, congrats. How'd you get so good anyway?" I inquire.
"Uh, just practiced with Stiles a lot."
"It doesn't seem like Stiles took much away from it." He laughs. He never laughs at what I say. Maybe him getting first line is better than I thought...
Not long after tryouts, Scott started dating Allison, and we were back to square one. He must have forgotten every name he knows besides 'Allison'. She was nice, from what I could gather from our thirty second conversations.
"So you've known Scott since...?" She asks.
"Since I was seven and he was six." I should've lied.
"Wait you're a year older than us?" And that's why.
"Yeah. I was held back in second grade."
"Oh? We're you just one of those kids who were born a little too late for the next grade?"
"No, I mentally checked out after my mom died. I guess my seven-year-old brain couldn't handle seeing a dead body. So I fell back on my AP classes and it all went downhill from there. " I say more casually than I probably should've for someone meeting me for the first time. I was trying to be funny, but that backfired.
She looks at her hands uncomfortably. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"
"Oh, it's all good. I don't remember her much. She was a good mom from what I remember and what Melissa tells me, but other than that I don't think about it much." She gives me a sad smile.
"I was held back too," she says finally.
"Really?" I feel my lips pull into a smile. Finally someone who gets it.
"Yeah. My family moves around a lot, so I couldn't keep up. What class did you in? Mine was AP alphabetics." She laughs. I notice her cheeks get a little red when she laughs.
"Coloring. There's more to it than you'd think."
"Oh, I'm sure." We laugh together on the couch.
"Allison," Scott says halfway down the stairs cutting off our levity. "I didn't know you were here."
"Yeah I was just saying hi to your sister."
"She's technically not my sister." He says with a hint of indignation. "Let's go," he nods his head towards the door.
"See ya later, Y/N." She calls as he shuffles her out of the door.
"Glad you made that clear." I say to our empty living room.