Anonymous

This idea is so original! I wish I could have come up with it myself! But I didn’t…so I guess it’s good that you did. ;) lol Anyway, KEEP UP THE BRILLIANT WORK. I seriously can’t wait to read more of this beauty.

I grinned at the comment before answering it excitedly. I’d always been a fairly popular author on my writing website, but attention like the kind that was pouring about the new Louis story was unprecedented. How was it possible that people could flock over my story like that? Only three chapters in, and I was closing in on a hundred fifty people who bookmarked my page. Not to mention the thirty-seven comments.

The joy that I felt was almost more than I could bear. The enthusiastic response made me want to do nothing but write the story all day.

But no. Life had different plans.

“Jess!” Mum yelled, banging on my bedroom door. “Take your nose out of your computer and come downstairs. Your cousins are here.”

I groaned inwardly as I closed the top of my laptop. There were about five million things I would prefer to do over hanging out with my cousins. Among the list were Chinese Water Torture, hanging upside down in my backyard by my toes until my head exploded, and having to spend the day bathing old people.

It was probably horrible of me, but I just really hated my cousins. Maybe it was just because we were polar opposites, personality-wise.

As I got to my feet, I shot Elena a text message. SOS SEND HELP ASAP.

Sorry, her answer came ten seconds later, at my grandparents' house.

Ugh. Lucky duck. Her grandparents were the awesome kind that gave her money just for existing and took her shopping at awesome stores. My grandparents just cooked all day and shoved food down our throats until we were about to puke. And then we were forced to eat more.

“Jessica!” my aunt gushed the second I showed my face downstairs, her accent far thicker than necessary. After moving to England, everyone loved the way she talked, so she got used to milking it for all it was worth so people would pay more attention to her.

“Hi,” I responded shyly.

My cousins sat on the couch, whispering back and forth to each other. From the looks on their faces, it didn’t look like they were saying nice things. Probably talking about what a loser I was.

“Frankie!” my aunt snapped. “Bella! Say hello to your cousin.”

“Hey,” they mumbled. They were about as fond of me as I was of them.

“Where’s Maria?” I questioned, turning to my mother, desperate for an out.

She gave me a disapproving look, deciphering my true motives from my facial expression. “She’s downstairs, playing that Game Cube of hers.”

“Xbox,” I corrected as kindly as I could. “Alright, I’ll go see what she’s doing.”

“Why don’t you bring your cousins with you?” Mum suggested. “They might like videogames.”

“Oh, yes!” My aunt clapped excitedly. “Frankie just loves computer games.”

“Wonderful!” Mum cheered. “Jess, bring them downstairs to show them the Xbox.”

“Sure,” I muttered, not even bothering to wait for them before making my way to the basement door.

I made it down to the game room a few seconds before my cousins. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mouthed to my little sister right before they entered.

She groaned and threw her head back. “Really, Jess? I was totally whooping this loser’s ass.”

I opened my mouth to apologize more emphatically, but Frankie and Bella were already coming in behind me.

They helped themselves to the seats next to Maria. She just turned up her lip in disgust before turning her game back on.

I sat down on the couch, opposite from my cousins, and tried to focus on Maria’s game. I didn’t know who she was playing, but she was definitely way better than him. She landed quite a few more punches and, in the end, shot off his face.

“Hell yeah!” she cheered, punching the air in her victory. “I love being awesome.”

“How long have you been playing him?” I questioned in awe.

Maria shrugged. “I kind of played him all night, starting at, like, four or something. Then he got a little better, probably from me beating him all the time. Around noon or so, he disappeared for a while, but he came back about a half hour ago and sent me a request to play. Clearly, he enjoys getting the smack-down from me. And he’s not really trying that hard, since he’s just gotten bad again.” She cackled a laugh before turning back to the game, her eyes darting back and forth across the screen as she battled her opponent.

“Did you hear about what happened at the party last week?” Bella asked Frankie quietly.

He shook his head.

“Apparently, Ronnie ended up getting massively trashed, and she tried to walk home, since she figured it was safer than walking, but she ended up walking into a telephone pole and getting picked up by the cops.”

Frankie snickered, which was probably an appropriate response, but I burst out laughing as loudly as I could.

Two sets of dark eyes turned to me, shooting painful daggers, marking me a hopeless loser.

I coughed uncomfortably as I scrambled to my feet. “I’m going to go use the computer,” I announced as I walked away, down the hallway that was covered in fuchsia paint.

The computer room was a room that no one ever used, demonstrated by the fact that there were cobwebs in every corner, yet one would have to be super lucky to find even a speck of dust anywhere else in the house.

I booted up the dinosaur and sat back to wait. On my right, there was a picture of my mum and daddy on their wedding day. Mum was a lot thinner, her hair in that big 80s poof, and Daddy had a clean-shaven, unlined face.

A melody sounded from the speakers, loud as all hell, scaring the shit out of me. I typed in the password (which was just my last name to make sure that no one ever forgot it) and settled down to wait for the desktop to load.

My phone went off as I was waiting, so I dragged it out of my pocket and opened the text. Elena.

How’re you doing?

Fine, I replied quickly. I managed to escape. :D

You go, girl. You can make it.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket instead of answering her and logged onto my writing website.

“Three more comments,” I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief.

I clicked on the feedback and gasped as I saw the all-time nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.