Six Like the Number

*Six's POV*It’s pitch black in my room when I feel the bed moving and I know that it’s my little brother crawling in with me. He has his own room but he finds his way into mine whenever he has a nightmare, which is many nights. Theo is only 3 years old and has seen way too much fucked up shit already. I try to shield him from it, but I can only do so much. “Hey buddy, did you have another bad dream?” He nods and snuggles his little head into my side as I pull the covers over him. “Alright, try and go back to sleep okay?” “Okay, Mommy” he says softly. Sometimes he calls me that when he’s really tired. The line is so blurred at this point considering how little of his upbringing my mother has actually been involved in. I used to try and correct him, bu

*Axle's POV*It’s my third first day of senior year and I know we’re not going to be doing any real work, so  take it upon myself to skip the morning classes. I’ll show up at lunch to scope everything out. I text the guys to tell them my plan and they say they’ll do the same.When we walk into the cafeteria, conversation comes to a halt and I can’t lie, I love the feeling. People at this school, especially the girls, will go pretty far to get us to pay attention to them. None of them are interesting enough to keep it for very long though. We walk over towards an empty table and as we head over, I’m surprised to see that the cheerleader's usual table is occupied by a group of people I vaguely recognize and Liz is over at a different table with her minions.

*Axle's POV*After school, Cam and Ethan come back to our place with us. The driveway is empty, indicating that neither of our parents is home. Shocker. I don’t even know why they bothered having children to be honest. It’s not like they’re ever around. And when they are around, they’re too busy fighting with each other to acknowledge our presence anyway. We stop by the kitchen to grab beers before heading into the living room to play some video games. “So Axle, did you figure out how to get in the new girl’s pants yet?’” Ethan asks. “Maybe. Mrs. Murphy paired us together for English Lit.”“Lucky bastard,” Ethan says.

*Six's POV*After a few rounds of flip cup, I get frustrated by it because, though I’ll never admit it out loud, I am an extremely competitive person so watching my own team drop the cup that many times was not a good time at all. As I’m making my way back to the keg for a refill, I see Axle holding a pitcher underneath it. I walk up and say, “What, the cups weren’t big enough for you?”He looks up at me and says, “It’s actually for the beer pong table, but maybe I'll take that idea for future parties.”“Oh, no that wasn’t a suggestion. It’s clearly a terrible idea.The already lack of carbonation from the shitty keg beer would disappear much too fast for you to be able to drink it and then the last h

*Six's POV*When I walk down the hall and see Axle coming out of the closet with that girl from the party, my heart clenches, but I just keep walking. I knew what he was like before I even met him, so this doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is how much it stings. The walk to class gives me enough time to place a mask of cool indifference on my face that I use whenever shit seems to be going downhill in my life. Thanks to my mother, I've had lots of practice with it. When he sits down beside me, I say, “Supply closet. Classy,” before I can stop myself. Using sarcasm as a defense mechanism is also something I do often.“Are you jealous?”I laugh and say, “No.” I can&