Chapitre 2: You Think It's Funny to Scare People Out of Their Daylights? No. No.
When I walked downstairs, I was not amazed to find the whole Hales were already lurking in the kitchen for breakfast. The Hales were morning people, after all. We loved hearing the birds chirp, and adore the fresh air, ah those magical morning phenomenon.
Or so I thought.
Apparently, everyone but me was more interested in the fights that happened between the Blacks than the morning's natural occurrence. It was our 'morning table talk' topic. There were four people in the Hale family, and each of them had their own favorite at the Black household.
We were a family of weirdos, I had to admit.
"I'm disappointed that Mary didn't have anything feminist to say this morning." My mom said, as she put her hand on her cheek, and let out a depressed sigh.
It was a patented action that she always made whenever Mrs. Black didn't yell at either her husband, or her son.
"Someday, I swear I'd ask Gregory out for a couple of drinks." My father proudly announced, as he spread the butter to our bread.
It was already the seventy seventh time he told that to us.
"Count me in, Dad." Quentin, my twin brother, hit Dad's arm lightly.
Quentin and my father seemed to be having a good time. They both supported Mr. Black. Dad supported him because, well, I thought it had something to do with the similar way their gray stubble grew, and their automatic role as the breadwinner of the family.
And Quentin, well, Quentin supported Mr. Black because he secretly wished the tragic demise of Ryder. I didn't really know how, or when the implicit yet lethal rivalry started between those two boys, but I was pretty sure that the reasons involved a few punches, kicks, and the title of the school's bad boy.
Yes, my dear brother Quentin, who shared the same womb with me, had all the violent genes. Not only that, he was also vain beyond belief, especially when it came to popularity.
As much as I disliked his vanity, though, it didn't stop me from loving him, and ruffling his dark-dyed hair. He was always the one who helped me, no matter how complicated my situations was.
And believe me, I was a potent magnet for complicated situations.
For example, when I was in seventh grade, somehow a brawny ninth grader was convinced that I was head over heels for him, and wanted nothing more than his tongue inside my throat. Quentin was the one who knocked some sense to him that no, 'I didn't want his mouth or any of his friends' mouth near me, his little sister', and yes, 'nobody would lay his hand on me as long as he still breathes.'
Of course, the brave, but idiotic action led him to be the target of some older jocks afterwards, but because of that particular event, Quentin was notorious for his agonizing punches, ultra high painful kicks, and new techniques for beating people's up. (You seriously didn't want to hear how he forced a twig up someone's nostrils.) Last but not least, he became especially popular for his trademark; His bloody-teeth smirks.
FYI, chicks in my school were into the very last thing, which explained Quentin's full schedules at weekends.
Talk about peculiarities...
"I think the fight was taking the toll to Ryder." I said, and in response, nearly everyone gasped.
"Ryder is such a rude child!" My mother said.
"Did you hear how he called Gregory by his first name?" My father looked offended on Mr. Black's behalf.
"I want to beat Ryder into a pulp." Quentin said in between munching his cereal.
"But Ryder looks nice." I chewed on my lower lip.
"I mean, look at his huge eyes and his smooth baby cheeks. He looks like a kindergarten who has a weird growth spurt and is stuck in a man's body. I think there has just been misunderstanding between Ryder and his parents."
"He's a cute kid, but I still think he needed to just shut up and eat the burnt crisps." My mother deadpanned.
"Right." I said before I started gulping down my cereal.
Today was Wheat day, so the whole family prepared cereal, pasta and lots of wheat bread for me. Mom even was generous enough to have lots of granule on my milk ,so that I didn't have to cheat on my Wheat day.
And then, since Dad was meeting his client, he took us to school. Mom came along too, despite Quentin's series of protests, and gave each of us the dreaded 'bone-crushing-hug-at-unecessary-events-' that she so loved giving to her children before we stepped out of the car. We went to school all sore and stinging, because Mom really gave it all away in those hugs.
Is it twisted if I said I love my family?
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When Quentin and I reached school grounds, we separated ways. Quentin gave me a slap on the back before he strolled to the somersaulting cheerleaders and laughing jocks, and I went to my friends. Well, safe to say that I only had two friends in this whole school because most people considered me too weird to be friends with, and I agreed with them. Wholeheartedly.
"But Marcy, The Weiss Constant is used to calculate the susceptibility of Paramagnetic materials!" My friend Corinne said.
Corinne was a science lover, and nearly everything she said was related and/or forcefully dripping with Science. However, as loving she was to science, she also loved to be seen as a hipster/quirky, and thus why the black rimmed glasses (despite her not needing it) and the ever-presence of the beanie.
"Yes it's a known fact, However, at temperatures T >> Tc the expression of the Curie-Weiss law still holds, but with Tc replaced by a temperature Θ that is somewhat higher than the actual Curie temperature." Marcy said easily.
Like Corrine, Marcy was another science Genius. Both of them were on the top of the school ranking every year (surprisingly, Ryder was also on the top 10), and both had made a pact that whoever got the first rank this year would pay for the other for the annual Science convention.
Corinne was a self-proclaimed hipster but Marcy didn't even bother dressing up. Showing up with sweatpants and/or pajamas had been her niche. Sometimes I even wondered if she showered at all, because there were days when her hair looked suspiciously greasy, but then she said that it was just coconut oil, as occasional treatment.
She never believed that some people just couldn't stand the smell of it, and assumed the reason why nobody wanted to be friends with her was because her brains were bigger than the rest of the school's combined.
Well, at least she was confident.
"Oh, you're so stupid. There are differences between the two of them!" Corinne stomped.
"April! What do you think?"
I stared at both of my best friends blankly.
Even though I was very fond of them, I could never really understand what they were talking about. Sure, I studied everyday, and I thought I'd read up about Curie and Weiss or whoever their names before. But then my brain had the tendency to forget about things in order to replace old memory with new ones. I got As for my exams, but the moment I'd finished writing them, everything went into sudden and utter evaporation.
To be honest, I felt like Patrick the Star whenever I hung out with them.
"Um, I don't know? Why don't you tell me you're going to argue about this today? I could study about it last night, and join your conversation." I said, sulking.
The only thing I knew, and could talk about freely with them was Big Bang Theory, and how much Sheldon Cooper was such an adorable tall boy, with a bit of personality defect. In fact, the reason why they started talking to me at all was because I was probably the only person in school who bothered to check up all the facts that Sheldon spouted at the TV series, because everybody else was way too focused on the show's character background humor.
"Oh, I'm so sorry April. But both me and Corinne didn't know that we were going to be talking about this. I'll make sure to predict what we're going to discuss about tomorrow, and let you know, okay?" Marcy was nice enough to tell me this and I nodded at her, happily smiling.
"And now we're going to talk about Atomic Line Spectra. Gosh, my tongue is tickling to talk about all of these magical conjuring act." Corinne was bouncing up and down as she started sputtering equations.
Definitely Patrick Star.
The thing about me was, I couldn't really belong with anyone. I was dyslexic at sports, and thus cheer leading and girls-soccer were out. I wasn't good at being mean and I was disastrous at the art of hair flipping, and thus I couldn't join in with the pretty playgirls. I also wasn't Asian or Latino or even Spanish, and these people mostly liked to talk with their own people in my school. Only Corinne and Marcy were willing to speak to me, and if their only requirements to bequeath me their friendship was getting straight As, then straight As that is. Even if that means I felt like being torched at the days before exams.
All of a sudden, both Marcy and Corinne stopped talking about Science. There were only two reasons why they stopped twittering about their passion for Quantum of Psychic:
One; Natural disaster.
Two; Cute guys.
"Oh my god, April. Your hot specimen of neighbor is looking at us!" Marcy said, in what she thought was an inaudible screech.
It was audible, and everyone with good ears within ten meters was be able to hear her out.
So it was category number two. And not only a random occasion of #two. It was Ryder Black. In this case, he should have his own category, because not only he was good-looking, but he also had a reputation that preceded him, and both Marcy and Corinne were obsessed with him.
In a way, I was obsessed with him, too, but for very different reasons. While both Marcy and Corinne talked about what kind of underwear he was wearing, I was more interested in how he managed to buy alcohol without getting carded, because let's face it, he was too cute to be considered over twenty-one, even with fake IDs.
As I felt my chest clenching, I swirled around so that I was facing the wall.
"Ryder 'Heart-Stopping' Black at two o clock, approaching us in alarming velocity!" Corinne was panicking.
"Oh my God, he looks so cute." Since Corrine and Marcy were mostly associated with books and the whiteboard most of the time, the closest thing that they could count as contact with the male was when they were dissecting frogs.
They didn't know how to react around boys, especially the confident ones. Period. Marcy would sometimes resort on twiddling endlessly at her sweaters and sputtering random Tumblr quotes. Corinne, on the other hand, would go to a total frozen state, and was only capable of talking in Science lingo.
As for me, Quentin often had his hormone-crazed, rambunctious friends over so I could manage boys better than them. But Ryder Black was different. The closest I'd ever been from him was ten meters, and anything closer than that?
I went into a Yoda-mode.
"Stars, my darned." Said I.
"Hey." Ryder's voice was now behind me.
The total lack of commotion that my friends emitted confirmed me that both of them had already spiraled into temporary brain deaths.
I stared at the wall. Ryder didn't say my name, so there was still possibilities that he was trying to talk with someone else. Maybe someone a little more normal. Maybe someone who hadn't just witnessed the way he and his family bickered earlier this morning.
"Hey." He tried again.
Closer, this time, and I could practically feel his breath fanned my back.
"Neighbor."
"Idon'tknowanyneighborsIwon'ttellanyonewhatIsaw, don't kill me, please!" I was shaking all over due to fear that blossomed uncontrollably fast.
There was no record of Ryder hitting women, but everyone was talking about how good he was at transforming people's faces into unrecognizable pulps. My face quality certainly wasn't as good as Emma Watson, but I didn't want my face to turn into a blob of pulp.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Ryder put a hand on my shoulder and spun me around, so that I was facing him.
He wrinkled his nose a bit, when he saw that all ten of my fingers were inside my mouth in a sad attempt to control the quivering of my mouth.
"You can.. You can take out all of your fingers, Neighbor. I'm not going to bite." He said, mildly amused and mildly disgusted at the same time.
I took out all of my fingers, slowly.
"Now, we need to talk." He said again, slower this time, as if he was trying to communicate with a starfish.
And boy, I did feel like a starfish at this very moment.
"Oh-uh." I shook my head.
"No. Please? Scared I am. Talk we never." I hated myself for letting my Yoda-mode take over me like that.
"It's about this morning." He took a glance at my friends, both were gaping at him and in the verge of drooling.
"Can I kidnap your friend for five minutes? It's kinda important." Neither Marcy or Corinne looked like they were capable of answering.
"Cool." Ryder said, before then, he once again shocked me to the oblivion by grabbing my elbow, and dragging me with him.
It was even worse than I imagined. I thought that we were going to talk in the corner, but he went deeper than that. When I thought we were going to have audience for our talking at the stairs, he went even deeper than that.
A few minutes, lots of tugging, and three near-death-experiences by heart failure later, the word 'Janitor' was approximately one meter above my head, and I stared at the door with aghast horror.
We were going to talk in the Janitor's closet. As the realization was sinking in, I felt every hair on my body falling out. This place was legendary, not because of the smell, but because of the history that it preserved. This was where a lot of relationship was made. This was where a lot of virginities were lost. This was where women turned insane, and men showed their demons.
And Ryder wanted me to talk with him here.
"Let's talk here." Ryder said. "We'll have privacy."
My whole existence wasn't built for this.
In my whole sixteen years of living, I hadn't spent even one second preparing myself for this kind of experience. Talking with boys was a chore. Talking with bad boys was a torture. Talking with bad boys in a very secluded, very historical area, was... Well, it was pandemonium.
And so my defense-mechanism took over, and I did something I never thought I would.
I fell into Ryder's arms, and the moment my head crashed against his chest, I lost consciousness.
So much for talking to the Bad Boy for the first time.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone