"Alice." I turned around from the mirror to look back at Nina, my twin. It was the first day of Junior year in high school, at 17 I was a little awkward if not just down right depressing.
"What?" I raised my one finished brow, I was still holding my pencil to work on the second. Eyebrows take a lot of work, okay? I had a thing about stuff being even and right now my left was a little longer than my right.
"I need to pee some day soon." She grinned back at me. She was always happy and I wasn't sure how she was. I wasn't all that confident outside of the fact that I was getting through high school and I hadn't done jail time...those were pretty good, right? Yeah.
"You can hold it." I dismissed as I turned back around to drag the charcoal over my brown brow. The pencil was the same colour as my hair now, most of my hair anyways, which gave me some amount of comfort.
I heard the door close and the sound of... Oh. Oh great, she was just peeing anyways. We'd been together for 18 years in one house with one bathroom. The comfort lines that most families had were gone here, long gone. Our mother worked long hours leaving us with the Clearwaters often enough that Seth walked in the house whenever he was hungry or their TV went out.
"What happens if I just...bump you?" She asked as she tapped my elbow causing the line to sudden jerk up.
"Great." I glared at her in the mirror as she washed her hands.
"It's alright, suits your personality anyways." She shrugged with her sass and left the bathroom as I rubbed off the line on my forehead and continued to fill it in.
It was misty and dreary as usual when Nina and I started to walk to school, Seth was tagging along behind us, bickering with Leah. She'd gone through a hard spot when Sam broke up with her only to date Emily but we all pulled her through it. At the time Nina was dealing with a bit of her constant illnesses, that time it was just the flu.
Nina was sunny through the whole thing which always threw me off. Ever since we were children she'd had a weakened immune system which lead to random things like pneumonia from what was a cold or the flu from a bus ride with an older sick lady. She took a round of meds in the morning to help combat it but it'd been better than before.
"Leah. Just let him not wear the hoodie. He'll be fine." I yelled back after I heard a yell from Seth about him not being 9 anymore.
"Hey!" She responded, I looked back to see her flipping me off. I rolled my eyes and looked forward again as we crossed the road to the reservation's high-school. I had English first but we started with an assembly for the entire school to 'welcome' us back from break which meant I'd miss most of the class. I sat down next to Nina in the second to last row of the auditorium.
"Holy crap.." I muttered as Jared, Paul, Embry, I mean almost all of the little guys of last school year came in. They were ripped. My first thought was between growth hormones or just straight up steroids.
My mother used to say there was something in the water here that caused all the men to jump heights and sizes suddenly, I was starting to believe her when Jacob Black came in...though she also used to say it made them disappear one day and she was right about that with dad anyways. They all ducked their heads and sat in the row behind us, I forced myself to stop staring. With my curiousity, I'd see at least one of them in a class this year...could ask them then if they were shooting up some how.
"Don't you dare ask them." Nina flicked me, I glared at her as she shook her head. She always knew. I didn't know how she knew, but she did.
"But what if the-" I whispered back and she cut me off with a finger pushed against my lips.
"No." She stated with finality.
"Fine. I'll leave the potential body builder nuts alone." I huffed in my seat and sat back again, waiting for it to be over.
The little assembly was over in the next half hour and the mad dash to get out of an auditorium with only two exits was on. It was always a push and shove session to get out of your row and get out of the room. Often I'd roll into a ball and force people to move around me but Nina was determined that I wasn't going to be late this year.
"Nina?" I tried to shout for her over the crowd of highschoolers and found I couldn't see her past chests and shoulders. She'd gotten me out of the seat and row to disappear into a crowd. Damn.
I was sort of moved along with the power of the crowd and decided I'd see her after. Someone elbowed me in the shoulder and I tried to elbow them back to find that it just hurt.
"Sorry." A deep voice resonated behind me, I looked back to see Jake. We weren't close last year but I'd said hey to him every once in a while.
"Its all good." I waved his apology and stepped off to the side until I saw familiar brown hair.
"NINA!" I screamed and saw her jump. She looked over at me with wide eyes...as did a few other people.
"Jesus..." She shook her head as she started to walk with me. I shrugged it off, I wanted to get her attention and I got it. Mission accomplished on my part.
"Hey." I looked over from the window to see hulk-Jake. I nodded in greeting. It was a weird history class that was focused on the tribe's history in particular. It was something that only Juniors had to deal with...wait a second here.
"Aren't you younger? Like a sophomore?" I whispered as I pointed at Jake.
"I'm only like a year younger, Alice." He nodded and then shrugged.
"Then why are you...in here?" I slowly nodded as I took in his overall size.
"I'm Billy's son, it kinda makes sense that I'd be taking the tribe's history the most." He explained with what had been a boyish grin at one point. Now it was more...large and teethy. I paused a second, staring at his newly tatted arm before deciding to ask. He was pretty chill, right?
"Hey Jake...Can I ask you something?" I asked slowly looking at his eyes. They were rather warm feeling to look into if not a little focused.
"You just did but yeah. Totally, Ali." He laughed softly as I rolled my eyes. Okay now they were kinda creepy.
"Ali?" I asked with some curiousity. Not even Nina had ever called me that. He froze for a second before shrugging.
"Bad nickname?" His head tilted much like a dogs would.
"Alice EVERS." I looked away from him to the angry teacher. He was standing there with his arms crossed, one hand still holding the book open.
"We're sorry, sir." I opened my mouth to apologize when Jake apparently decided to do it for me. I watched as he was automatically pardoned in indignation. My mouth slid open with shock as he went right back to teaching and Jake just turned back around to me to give me a thumbs up.
I huffed and grumbled in my seat for the rest of the class while Jake tried to whisper then went to writing notes and sliding them to me. I slid them right back and looked out the window. I would have gotten a detention, at least. Pretty sure it was residual hate from my freshman year's prank of TPing the school...I couldn't blame them honestly.
I got up and started to walk down the hall, texting Nina to ask where she was at for lunch. I bumped into something large and the phone fell out of my hand. I leaned down to find there was already a hand on it.
"Oh...Hey, Jake." I greeted awkwardly as I stood and took the phone when he handed it to me. He grinned at me and fell into step with me as we walked.
"Anyways, I was just wondering. What were you wanting to ask?" Jake sounded curious. I paused wondering if I should really ask then said screw it.
"By any chance...are you shooting yourself up with steroids?" As soon as I got the question out I felt a light smack across my shoulder.
"Ah! Nina!" I spun to see my twin glaring at me with her arms crossed. She looked at Jake as she pulled me away from the guy.
"Sorry, Jacoby. She doesn't know what shes saying a lot of the time." I looked back to see Jake starting to grin as she pulled me away, apologizing.
"Jake."
"His names Jake." I corrected her right as he did. I made a hand gesture as if to say 'see?'. She waved us both and pulled me into the cafeteria as she scolded me for asking him that. I shrugged it off, like always she was right but I didn't really mind. We sat down outside under a tree as she sighed and shook her head.
"For a girl that dresses so girly, you need to learn some kind of manners when you talk to random people." She decided as I looked down. I was wearing a dress made out of brass fabrics. It had a short flared skirt with a gathered waist and flower-like sleeves, it felt nice under the tree. My nails were painted as usual, this time with a holographic top coat over a dark blue shimmer. I hadn't done any designs today.
"Hey!" Jake came out of the school almost jogging, the other weirdly muscly guys were following him and laughing between each other.
"Good god." I heard Nina mumble under her breath as I snorted at her reaction.
"Seeee?" I demonstrated with my hands as he got closer. She narrowed her eyes at me and faded into a friendly face as Jake was only like a foot or two away.
"Is it okay if we sit with you?" He asked quickly as he motioned to the guys behind him. Their faces had turned serious instead of the carefree look they had before.
"Of course! Have a seat." Nina was always ready to make new friends but I wasn't sure if I wanted to make friends with these guys. I was only 5"4, Nina was a little taller but I was still a little intimidated.