A rap rap disrupts my focus on my bedroom door before it’s rudely pushed open, and Dane stands in the open space looking at me at my desk by the veranda.“Monique says to come down for food. You aren’t to eat in your room.” He tells me blankly and then pushes off from my door frame to walk off. Not waiting for a response or to see if I even heard him.I get up, drop my pen beside my notebook and laptop, and follow him out the door. Glad for the food break as I was starting to see double while working on my essay. Seeing him loitering ahead of me in the hallways as he walks at the speed of a snail back to wherever he came from, I hurry to catch up.“Move, slow ass.” I nudge him to one side with my shoulder, barely budging him as I power march up beside him to get by. Seeing as he’s taking up the center of the walkway. Thrusting myself forward to cut in front of him, yet I'm hauled mid-step with a hand on my upper arm and tugged back again, so I stumble into him.“Losers come last.” He

“Quiet now, please.” Our class professor raises his hands to bring quiet back to the chatter of our English lesson. “We have one week before break, and I know it’s agonizingly close… but you still have to work.” He turns and taps the board, highlighting random topics with his torch pen that are laid out in a numbered list. “One assignment before then… due on the last day. I want you paired off in groups of four, and we will make this a team deal where I assign you guys one topic each. A full week on nothing but this, so a little seating reshuffle before we end for the weekend. Let’s make this fun and relaxed, guys.”There’s a chorus of groans from everyone in the room, including Elisa next to me, as no one ever likes to group in for projects. Especially not pre-holiday ‘fun’ ones where the assignments are always lame. It’s always unequal pairings where certain people get stuck with the majority of work. I personally do not care, as my control freak self likes the be the one researchin

It’s past midnight, long past it, and I’m standing in the kitchen drinking some water to take an aspirin before I finish up on some of my notes from school all week. I have my one full day I do monthly at the shelter tomorrow as it’s Saturday, so I want all my homework to be up to date because I’ll be too tired later. Sunday, I have plans with Elisa for a much-needed break.I’m hiding away from my parents in their room after hearing them fight again. I heard the name Dane so many times I wanted to rip my ears off and came down here to escape it instead. It sounded bad this time.My mum was yelling like a banshee, which she rarely does, and Bryan was reacting to it, which he never does. He’s such a solid, push-over guy that he normally lets my mom vent and takes it, but I could hear him shouting back.Over the past few months, it’s become a regular occurrence. It’s like it builds up, my mom finds fault in everything that Dane does, and Bryan’s lack of controlling him gets attacked. Sh

“Don’t even think about getting up,” I warn Dane with a sinister glare as he shifts in his seat and then moves back down. Knowing better than to rile me today. I’m still sore at him for what he did last night, and soon as I get him alone, we will be talking about the damn racing. I barely slept from nightmares about him crashing his stupid bike.“My head is killing me.” He implores my sweet side with a pathetic pout, but the mood today is vile. Suffering from lack of sleep due to emotional fragility, exasperated by my mom getting up at 5 am and informing me she was heading off for a weekend spa and Bryan taking off on some business trip. So obviously, they aren’t talking and taking time apart. We have been left alone with our housekeeper.I blame Dane for all of it and how hellish I feel today.“Whose fault is that?” I snort, picking up the notebook from the table in the middle of the four of us. I start jotting down notes as Elisa picks out key points from an article she is reading w

“What was that?” I pull Dane aside with a hushed hiss when he comes inside to help dump the plates in the kitchen behind me, turning on him with bubbling anger. Finally able to get him alone and have this out with him.We just spent the last half hour working in weird, strained silence taking down notes from websites after Tyler’s joke about porn, and it’s been simmering and ruining my calm. I don’t know why such a dumb thing has me so mad, but it does, and I feel like he should have said something other than brushing it off earlier. All he did was change the subject. It was hanging over me like this deafening arrow pointing at us and making me uncomfortable sitting with him. It was icky, and I couldn’t stop looking at him and thinking about why he would watch that smut.“What was what?” Dane slides past me, yawning and so beat he looks ready to fall over. Seemingly not tense and mulling over anything like I was. He seems oblivious, and it somehow triggers more rage in me.He eyes me