KEEPING UP WITH THE VOSS BROTHERS

Apparently, I had used a ritual from my dead mother to engineer the triple bond; said Lyra Thorne in the rumour she started

I got called into three separate offices. I got interviewed by three teachers. I had to do three spiritual examinations. I answered so many questions my jaw hurt. But I made sure I answered with complete composure every single time. 

“I didn't do it. I can't prove I didn't do it. Neither can you. Have a good afternoon,” walked out of all three rooms 

Fucking Lyra!

I got home at half seven. Grandma's light was still on.

I made tea and sat on the edge of her mattress. She reached up and touched my face, palm against my cheek

"You eat today?"

"Yes," I said.

She rolled her eyes before moving her hand to my hair and smoothed it once and said "Good," she knew I was lying and she loved me anyway.

I stayed until she fell asleep. Then I sat at the kitchen table with The Ledger open in front of me.

Lyra Thorne. Youngest Thorne sister. Long blonde hair with loose curls, wide blue eyes, soft freckled face. The quiet ones were always the most dangerous.

I opened a fresh page. Wrote her name at the top in my neatest handwriting. Drew one empty column and titled it carefully.

Then I closed The Ledger and went to bed.

***

The tasks were running and the brothers were furious about it and I was enjoying every second.

Zade went first every morning. All eight bags, full width of campus, complete hockey gear. I enjoyed watching his chest and shoulders flex as he moved. 

He looked like he wanted to commit a crime every single morning. But instead he cursed my body. “Piggy…” he’d often mutter 

“Shit, I can feel you coming before I see you”

“One day, your weight will cause an earthquake”

On the third day he dropped the bags at my feet with force and said, "Happy?"

"Ecstatic," I said, without looking up from my clipboard.

"You know this is humiliating."

"I know. Why else would I ask you to do it?

"I am the hockey captain of this school."

"I know that too." I finally looked up. "You've got mud on your face."

He stared at me. I went back to my clipboard. He picked up the bags and left. I listened to him curse under his breath all the way down the corridor and smiled at my inventory sheet.

He still threw comments about my size in between. I wrote every single one down. Date, time, exact words. The Ledger was getting full in his column.

Rook was a different kind of awful.

He showed up outside my first period classroom every morning and I will say this, the boy was committed even when he was suffering. He stood there with his hands in his pockets and delivered the compliment loud and sincere in front of whoever was watching, and he was good at it, which somehow made the whole thing worse.

"You look really nice today, Wren," he said that morning, loud enough for the entire hallway.

"Thank you, Rook," I said.

"The grey sweater is a good colour on you."

"Thank you, Rook."

"Your hair looks …"

"You can stop at two," I said, and walked into class, basking in the ‘what the fuck stares,’ I always get after Rook’s declarations 

He was fine. Objectively. Annoyingly. Green eyes, that easy grin. But was also a man who had referred to himself in third person while panicking and I had not forgotten that. Not even slightly.

I watched him from the classroom window pull out his phone the second my back was turned. I already knew what he was going to do: he was going to talk trash about me in the class group as usual

I had a whole folder for him in the ledger now.

Cal was the problem I hadn't anticipated.

He sat at the table in the equipment room every morning, journal open in front of me, and did not move. This one made me cringe sometimes. He was so quiet, I often wondered what went on in his head. He watched me read without reaching for the journal once. No comments. No complaints.

His journal was full of analytical writing like morse code, I could barely read anything; I just spent my time trying to figure it out. 

On the fourth day I looked up and said, "You can sit somewhere else. You don't have to watch me."

"I know," he said.

He didn't move.

I went back to reading. "This is weird."

"Probably," he said.

That was it. That was the whole conversation. He sat there for the full hour and I felt his eyes on the side of my face the entire time and it bothered me more than Zade's insults did, which I was not going to think about.

Cal’s page on my Ledger was empty. Well, for now

***

A new boy arrived on a Wednesday and sat two seats from me in Thursday statistics class. His name, Eli Silverlake

LakeDale transfer. Six foot three, frail the way basketball players sometimes were. Pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. He looked at my match data before he looked at me. No one at WhiteWood had ever once asked to see it. 

"You're doing these mad ratings," he said. "And the coaches have no idea."

I checked over my shoulder. He was definitely talking to me. That was disorienting enough that I didn't answer immediately.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because they'd use it and take credit for it."

He thought about this for. "Fair," he said, and went back to his own work.

I thought about that conversation for the rest of the class. 

He came back for the next class rambling with questions. 

Okay… maybe this one is a real one. I turned and spoke to him. At some point I said something he found funny and he laughed and then I laughed and I almost covered my mouth from the shock of it. I genuinely could not remember the last time I had laughed with someone at this school who wasn't trying to get something from me.

I was mid-sentence when a hand closed around my arm.

Eli stood up immediately. "Hey…"

"I’ll handle it," I stopped Eli. He looked at my face and sat back down. "I'll be back."

Zade pulled me to a quiet place and let go. He stood there in that composed public face, jaw tight, amber eyes running over me angrily 

"Who is that," he said.

"A classmate."

"He's LakeDale."

"Most people here are one or the other," I said. "Hello, that’s how the school works."

"You were laughing with him."

"Okay…?"

"Wren." His voice dropped. "You were laughing. With a LakeDale male. In front of …"

"In front of what? People?" I crossed my arms. "I'm allowed to laugh, Zade."

"You're my mate."

"I'm nobody's mate yet," I said. "I have twenty-nine weeks left to decide that. Keep up."

His jaw shifted. "You're disrespecting the bond by…"

"Oh… shut up! " I snapped, staring at him. "You called me a fat slob in front of your entire team on Monday. Eleven fifteen, main corridor, at least six people. I wrote it down." I tilted my head. "You want to talk to me about respect?"

"That's normal …"

"Normal!?" I stepped back. "Normal for you to shame me?” I felt my eyebrows arc angrily. “Say what you actually mean or let me go back to class."

He looked away, jaw working, nose flaring. I was paying attention.

"Are you jealous?" I asked.

“Fuck you mean jealous….” he spat, his eyes refusing to look at me

“Ouuuuu…” I started to laugh. “This mother fucking wolf is jealous…”

I saw his face go red. 

Now that was hilarious