[𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒]

𝐈 𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑

London. My mother came in the dining room and placed the dish with salmon in it in the middle of the table, right under the crystal chandelier. She placed the dish of yellow rice next to the salmon.

I gagged looking at the cooked sea creature.

My mom called my father and London to come and eat. I took my usual spot next to my mother, my dad sat at the head of the table, and mother sat next to him, in between my father and I. London sat across from me in Brooke's spot.

"Uh, that's Brooklyn's chair," I said when he sat.

"Well, is Brooklyn here?" He looked up at me.

"No."

"Okay, so, for tonight, I'm sitting here. And when Brooklyn comes back, she can have her seat. Sound good?" There was a dash of a arrogance in his voice.

I just turned around and took my seat. We began eating.

"Diane, this is really good. Thank you."

"It's actually Mrs. Haven," I told London.

London's eyes went to my dad, he then smiled to himself. I turned to my dad who gave me a reprimanding look.

"It's okay," Mom muttered to me.

I poked and prodded at my salmon, wondering why the hell I put it on my plate, all while my parents and London were making small talk I did not listen to.

"P, tell London about about your school," my dad insisted.

I looked up from my plate at London who was staring at me with 'waiting eyes'. One of his eyebrows raised slightly but quickly went back to its old position.

"It's an okay school, I guess. If you have a good friend group then you're going to be okay. Umm, but the teachers are pretty annoying, they give you hella assignments and then they tell us to make sure our mental health is okay. As if they're not the reason some kids' mental health isn't fucked up . . . They also get on students about dress code, like, this senior came to school wearing thongs, I honestly thought she looked good, plus her hair was done nice. Anyways, the principal gave her ISS for it. But it's like, she's a senior, she's an adult, leave that girl alone . . ."

London nodded a few times. "Hm," he murmured.

"Paris, when I said tell him about your school, I meant clubs, sport, things like that," Dad said.

"Oh, well. There are sports. You should join them." I didn't know what my mom wanted me to say.

Dinner went on with just Mom and London making small talk, again, I didn't listen. He offered to help Mom wash the dishes, in which she politely declined. After dinner I took a long shower and changed into a big a tee-shirt that covered my most of my thighs. No shorts, no bra (I had panties on obviously.)

On the way to my room I passed the extra bedroom which was London's room, his door was ajar.

"Finally done?" I did a 360° turn and the door to his room all the way.

"Did you say something?" I stubbornly crossed my arms over my chest.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing a tank top and sweatpants. His big suitcase was sprawled out on the floor.

"You spend a lot of time in the shower," he commented.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Nothing, but can you be considerate and remember that I have to shower, too?"

"If you wanted to shower so badly then you should've gotten in the bathroom first." I then muttered, "This isn't even your house."

He muttered something about 'not doing this,' and stood up.

"Bye, Paris," he abruptly said.

"Don't–"

"Bye, Paris." His voice rose a little.

I left, went to my room, and called my sister.

"Hello?"

"Brookiee?"

"Paris?

"Yeah."

"My gremlin sister, how are you?"

"Oh my god, I'm good. How come you didn't know it was me calling."

"Oh, I got the new IPhone because my other one was acting up. All my pictures and contacts are gone. All gone."

"That sucks. How's school? You still being an antisocial bitch?"

"I kind of hate everyone here, and, I don't know why. Like, this white girl came into class with her hair wet and that just set me off inside because if I came in with a bonnet and scarf, you know my teacher would have a fit. So I started making wet dog jokes to my one friend."

"Girl, I hope you can fight with all the shit talking you're doing."

"Well, then, I hope these bitches gotta lawyer, 'cause I press charges if you lay a finger on me."

"I know that's right."

"Oh! Mommy said something about a somebody staying at the house, someone your age."

"Yeah, it's a boy."

"Oh, tell me about him."

I shrugged. "He's a boy. The fuck?"

"Tell me about his personality, how he looks, dumbass!"

"Oh . . . Bitch, don't yell at me. Anyways, he's dark-skin, tall, he has nice teeth, not gonna lie. . . . I don't know about his personality. Maybe he's arrogant, I don't know, he gives off that vibe." I lied down on my bed sideways.

"Well, you know, you can be mean sometimes, too, Paris."

"Nah-uh."

"Yeah-huh. I'm your sister, so I can take it with a grain of salt because that's just how we joke with each other. However, other people won't, so maybe you were being a little rude to him and didn't even notice."

I still wasn't over the fact that she called me mean. Okay, maybe I was a little mean.

"Anyways . . ." I disregarded her words.

"Anyways, I have to get to sleep before the annoying bed check lady comes in."

"'Kay, love you, goodnight."

"Night, love you, ugly." I hung up the phone with a smile. I absolutely loved (with a capital L) my little troll—I mean, sister.

I wished she was here, instead of England—London.

[𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍]

"𝑵𝑶, 𝑩𝑼𝑻, 𝑺𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑶𝑼𝑺𝑳𝒀, 𝑺𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑶𝑵. 𝑰 𝑴𝑰𝑺𝑺

Brooke, she needs to be here, not London."

The walls in the house weren't even really thin. Paris, Diane and Ezra's daughter, just talked loud. I heard her previous conversation about me while she was talking to her sister.

She thought I was arrogant. And that was fine, I thought she was arrogant, too.

The next day at school, I had a feeling that she would just ignore me or pretend to not know me. I made a mental bet with myself.