Three's A Crowd

Yawning widely, I looked at the clock, and my eyes turned to saucers. “Crap. I have to get to sleep. We have school in the morning.”

Jez rolled her eyes at me dramatically, sighing. “It’s only eleven.”

“An hour after I usually go to sleep.” Standing up, I stuck my tongue out at her and started for the door. “And so I shall see you in the morning!”

I was almost halfway down the hall before I heard her screaming after me, “GOODNIGHT, EVANGELINE!”

Snickering, I called back, “’Niiight!”

“DON’T LET THE BED BUGS BITE!”

After deciding that I wasn’t going to answer her, I stepped into my room, closing the door behind me, and changed into my pajamas, a pair of loose flannel pants and an old baggy t-shirt. My bed was warm and inviting as I slipped between the covers, snuggling for a second before letting my eyelids close, falling into a deep sleep.

* * *

“I wish that I had Jesse’s girl,” my alarm clock blared in my ear in the morning. Groaning loudly, I slapped my hand over it, letting my eyes shut once again to try to get back to some sort of dream that I’d been having.

“Eva!” Mom screamed, knocking hard on my door before entering, not waiting for an allowance of entry.

“Hi,” I mumbled, rubbing my eye.

“How many times have I told you that I don’t want Jez over here unannounced?” Mom seemed really angry, but it took me a second before my brain caught up with what she was saying.

“Jez…? She’s over here all the time. And if it was announced, then you wouldn’t let her over.” For some reason…Mom and Dad hated Jez. Probably because she was just a little too crazy, a little over the top. I thought it was funny, but they didn’t seem to share the same thoughts.

“That’s kind of the point, Eva.”

“She already kind of lives in the guest room.” Covering my mouth in an attempt to stifle a loud yawn, I sneaked a peek at the clock. “Alright, I have to change and get ready for school.”

“This conversation’s not over,” she snapped before rushing out into the hallway, closing my door gently behind her, despite her anger.

What sucked is that my parents and I got along really well on almost everything, except the subject of Jez.

Shaking my head as I pulled on my jeans, I dismissed the whole subject from my mind. After all, I was running late, and I was sure that Jez was already at the kitchen table. I didn’t want to leave her there all alone for too long. Though, knowing her, she had gotten up before everyone, as was her habit.

I could still smell my Sweet Pea perfume as I sat down next to Jez at the kitchen, who was munching on bacon wrapped inside a pancake without any syrup.

“You ready for school?” Jez smirked slightly, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, sure,” I replied sarcastically, propping my elbow on the table and leaning my head against it. “Why wouldn’t I be? I just love people.”

She snickered before resuming her meal, and I got up to fetch my own breakfast, which was just a bowl of Lucky Charms with milk.

When breakfast was done, we started walking toward the school, since I didn’t have my license. Or a car. Not that a car would be much good without a license, but…

Never mind.

As I propped my bag further up my shoulder, a car passed us on the street, going over the speed limit. My mouth turned into a frown with contempt as they screamed something that I couldn’t catch out the passenger’s side window.

“FUCK YOU!” Jez yelled back, giving them the middle finger. She shook her head and blew her dark bangs out of her face. “Gotta love them.”

I let out a snort. “Oh, yeah.”

My stomach tightened as we arrived at McKinley High. There was no place in the world I hated more. The students were all cliqued-out, and they were about as fond of us as we were of them.

Which meant we were about a zero on the love-meter. If there was such a thing.

As I’d expected, we got all sorts of disgusted looks as we walked through the hallways, kids turning up their noses as if we were trash.

“Just ignore them,” Jez muttered to me, giving them hateful looks back. Jez was always good at being cool, calm, collected…and bitchy. On the other hand…I wasn’t. My looks were about as deadly as a newborn kitten, and confrontations made me blush miserably. They were just embarrassing.

And, of course, embarrassing moments had their ways of finding me, as if they had built-in Eva-detectors. Just as soon as I turned around from my locker, a freezing liquid found its way into my face, drenching my clothes and making me shudder.

“What the fuck, Karofsky?!” Jez screamed, coming out of nowhere and pinning him against a locker. “How many times have I told you to stay away from Eva, huh? You want me to rip off your dick and shove it down your throat? Though I’m sure you’ve already figured out that you like the taste.”

I knew my face was completely red, no way of hiding it, from the scene that was being made, plus the…grape (I’d licked my lips to taste) slushie that was encompassing my body.

“Miss Kerrigan,” Principal Figgins sighed in his accent, which was either from India or Pakistan…somewhere around there, “Mr. Karofsky. Get to class.”

The two of them fighting was almost a daily occurrence, since Jez was always fast to stick up for me, since she knew that I wasn’t so hot at it myself, so Figgins never tried to give either of them detention anymore. I felt badly that Jez was always getting into altercations because of me. No one ever had the stupidity to throw a slushie at her, since she would be ready to bite their heads off in a second. Me, however...not so much.

“C’mon,” Jez breathed, pulling me a tad too hard down the hallway into the bathroom. Thankfully, I’d put another outfit into my bag just in case, so it only took me a couple of minutes to change.

“I hate Karofsky,” I grumbled indignantly, running a paper towel under the faucet and blotting my face to try to get all the ice and purple stain off. “I seriously want to throw him off a cliff.”

“Then why don’t you stand up to him sometime?” Jez suggested, giving me a look. She was sitting on the sink, swinging her feet back and forth, since they didn’t quite reach the floor.

I shot a similar one right back, knowing that wasn’t likely. At all. Ever. In a thousand years. But it was nice of her to offer.

“What makes him think he’s better than anyone, anyway? He’s just a stupid football player with rocks for brains, and yet he thinks that he’s better than us? I just…don’t get it.” Closing my eyes to calm my temper a little, I threw the soaked paper towel into the rubbish barrel, watching the bag settle a bit more.

“One of these days, I’m just going to deck him so hard that his teeth fall out, and his head falls off his fat body, rolling around for a second before I stomp on it,” she promised, her hazel eyes darkening to a brown as she stared off into the distance, maybe picturing the scene unfolding on the door of the stall.

The bell sounded through the restroom, the sound reverberating off all the ceramic.

“Guess it’s time to get to class.” Jez hopped off the sink and started toward the door, ripping it open with a lot of force. It would have smashed against the opposite wall if the stopper hadn’t been there.

Jez and I went our separate ways when I got to my algebra room. For a second, I just stared at the door and swallowed harshly, always a bit nervous to face all the people who were waiting on the other side. Jez might have been a hard-assed bitch…but I wasn’t. I was just little old Eva.

Finally, I sucked up my courage and threw open the door, trying my hardest to ignore all the stares in my direction.

“Late again, Miss Cooke?” my teacher reprimanded, looking at me over her glasses, perched on her beaklike nose.

“I got a slushie thrown at me,” I told her.

She just sighed, all too used to this excuse. “Try to dodge it next time, would you?”

I nodded as I made my way to my seat, the one in the far back right corner, but we both knew that I was going to be late again…and again…and again. At least she didn’t give me detention or anything.

Though it would be nicer if she could pull some strings and get Karofsky expelled… But hey, the world’s an imperfect place.