I numbly picked up the bucket of tools, bracing myself for whatever awaited me inside the house. I entered quietly, headed to the storage room to drop off the bucket, and then walked to the stairs.
I'm home," I called out, climbing the steps without waiting for a response. As I reached the landing, I froze. Rave, my immediate elder brother, was leaning against my bedroom door, obviously waiting for me.
"Who was that you were talking to?" he asked, skipping any pretence of small talk.
Rave, my immediate elder brother could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Fun and playful, sure, but he never knew when to stop. He loved gossip so much he practically embodied it. He is like the sister I never had. Rave was like a ball of joy. He had this infuriating habit of expecting everyone to match his enthusiasm, and if you didn't, he'd pester you until you did. Even my oldest brother, Jared, found something to be carefree about whenever Rave was around.
Rave is the short form of Raven, and like everyone else in my family, he was also ridiculously gorgeous. It was unfair. Once I convinced myself I had to be adopted, however, a secret DNA test had unfortunately proven me wrong. Sad.
Rave's question still hung in the air, his face practically begging for something juicy.
"Hmm... He's just someone I decided not to ignore," I said flatly, hoping to shut him down.
"Huhn? Decided not to ignore? So... you made a friend?" he asked
"Nope. I made a deal." I stated it in a matter-of-fact manner.
Rave's eyes lit up as he grabbed my wrist, pulling me into my room. He plopped onto my bed, bouncing like an overexcited child. "Alright, spill. Tell me everything."
I sighed but gave in, recounting everything from the cafeteria to today. He made me explain how I felt at every moment, pressing for every little detail. When I finished, he grinned.
"Wow. You're the only one who'd need a deal to make a friend. It's cool. For a second, I thought he was your boyfriend."
"He's barely even a friend," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Yea, yeah… Whatever." He shrugged. "By the way, Mom said Lykrel's in town—early holiday or something like that."
"Really?!" I asked excitedly, jumping to my feet. "When's he getting here? Has he already left school? Where is he?"
"Yeah h-"
Without waiting for answers, I rushed to Lykrel's room, only to find it empty. My heart sank. It was no secret that Lykrel was my most favourite person in the whole world. He wasn't as serious as Jared was, and he wasn't as incredibly annoying as Rave. He was just amazing and comfortable to talk to. And he didn't demand one to feel a certain way whenever they were around him. I turned to see Rave smirking behind me.
"If you'd let me finish," he said smugly, "he's not staying here. He's at a friend's house." He sighed, walking back down the stairs.
I groaned, trudging back toward my room, disappointed and upset with Rave for not speaking quickly enough. From downstairs, Rave called out, "Hungry? Mom's experimenting again."
Right at the foot of the stairs, he called out back to me, "You hungry? Mom's experimenting again." I gagged dramatically, clutching my stomach. Mom's "experiments" with food were legendary disasters. Some were edible; most were NOT.
In my room, I avoided the bed and headed straight to the bathroom to freshen up. The light seemed unusually bright, making me squint. After a while, I realised it wasn't brighter—it just felt that way. I sighed, sinking into the warm bath Mom must've prepared earlier. Beneath the water, everything was peaceful. Too peaceful. I had to remind myself not to fall asleep and risk drowning.
After about fifteen minutes, I dragged myself out, dressed, and brushed my hair. Grabbing my sketchpad from my bag, I flopped onto my bed.
Flipping through the pages, I frowned. My drawings weren't even close to impressive, but that wasn't what made me frown. My overly active imagination allowed me to see the craziest patterns in the interactions of objects. Once I saw them, I couldn't unsee them, even if I wanted to. And they came with splitting headaches that only eased when I started drawing. The image stays in my head constantly, so I usually spend weeks or sometimes months on most of them because I had this thing that in all my drawings, every intricate detail had to be shown.
The problem now was that I had finished everything I'd been working on, and adding anything would ruin them forever. I looked around the room for new patterns but only saw the ones I'd already drawn. If I didn't find something soon, I'd have to sit with my thoughts—something I desperately wanted to avoid.
A knock interrupted my sulking.
"Don't come in! I'm—not decent!" I called out, assuming it was Rave.
To my horror—and eventual relief—Mom walked in, holding a tray of cookies. "Now, there's nothing we haven't seen before," she said with a chuckle.
"Mom!" I groaned.
"What?" she asked, her smile wide and teasing. It had been a while since I'd seen her this happy. Apparently, I had been a really bad child lately, but seeing her with this smile was amazing. Something about it made you want to see it always. She looked so young.
She stood at the edge of my bed, still smiling, and for a moment, her warmth made me forget how frustrating she could be. Her watery, pale green eyes—so much like mine—sparkled on her flawless face. If I ever needed a reason as to why my brothers were absurdly good-looking, here it was. I definitely took after my father's more humane kind of gorgeousness.
"You don't need an invitation to sit, you know," I said.
"Well… Don't I?… considering," she teased sitting down.
I gave her a mock glare. "Considering what?"
"Cookies?" she asked, offering the tray.
I eyed them warily, remembering Rave's warning. "Where did these come from?"
She outrightly laughed this time and then said, "You guys know what you do isn't fair, right? I mean, it's not even bad."
"Ye — Yeah. Where did this come from?" I asked again
"Well, in that case, I do not know", she replied
"Mom!!!" I groaned.
"Fine! A box. They're boring little cookies," she said, feigning offence.
"You're lying," I accused.
"I'm not," she insisted, laughing.
"You are!!!" I argued
"Now, why would I?" she asked, still laughing at me
"I dunno, you probably need feedback on your weird experiment, and you couldn't get Rave to taste it," I replied.
She gave me a disbelieving look that was like 'really?', so I closed my eyes and just took a bite from the cookie. Surprisingly to me, she was right. To my best knowledge, it tasted alright.
"See? That imagination of yours," she said, shaking her head.
"That's on you. You gave birth to me," I shot back.
We both chuckled at my reply, but she stopped halfway in her chuckling and then said, "You know I'm offended too, right?"
I straightened up. I might have actually hurt my mother's feelings. I had to apologise and be sincere about it this time. "Mom, I'm sorry. I guess I should have eaten it either way without complaining... I'm sor –", I started but she interrupted me.
"–not that!!! You really think I can't make Rave try out one of my experiments—please," mom stated.
I smiled, and she reached her hand to my head. Running her fingers through my hair. She looked at me admirably, like someone who was looking at someone they thought the world of.
"You're really beautiful, you know that, right?" she asked
"Yeah, mom…" I said trying not to sound sarcastic, as she only said this when she was trying to get me to do something I obviously didn't want to do.
"So why wont you share your beauty with the world… You're always in your room and you wont even go shopping with me," she complained.
"That's because Rave loves going shopping with you." I countered
"Still, I have an actual daughter... do mommy-daughter things with me," she said, tugging at my arm.
Feigning irritation, I looked at her sighing. 'Mommy-daughter', 'shopping', this was definitely a party she was trying to drag me to... I decided to just let her have this one. If she's acting this cute, she surely needs the win. "Fine!" I groaned, "When's the party?"
She smiled sheepishly, "It's on Sunday, so we have to go shopping on Saturday."
She stood up, dropping the tray of cookies on my nightstand. "By the way, the experiment is for dinner... Don't be a stranger!" She said, making her way out of my room, leaving me groaning within myself.
The 'don't be a stranger' part was what she said when she didn't want to say out loud that I shouldn't stay all day in my room alone. This, however, wasn't what was making me angry. I thought the worst had passed since she brought me a harmless tray of cookies. I thought the experiment was so bad that even she knew it was bad.
After several internal tantrums, I groaned, throwing myself back onto the bed after she left. I stared at the tray of cookies and grabbed another, stuffing it into my mouth. As I did, something caught my eye.
A faint, almost colourless pattern shimmered from where the light from the hall hit my door. It was huge and intricate, different from anything I'd drawn before. I realised that I've probably always seen it but just ignored it due to its faint colour. Still, there it was and as I was marvelling as how different this one was, a thought of joy started to creep in me My heart raced with excitement.
Grabbing my sketchpad, I flopped onto my stomach and started sketching. For the first time all day, the chaos in my mind quieted.