Chapter 14

All their eyes are the same. It's almost frightening.

"Guys, this is Lily. She's here to work on a project with me." Alex walks in front of me and heads to the fridge. He pulls out a water and looks towards me as if to ask if I want one. I nod.

"Well way to introduce everyone." His mother says. She looks to her husband and gives him a look that screams, go ahead.

"Hello, my name is Peter and I'm Alex's father." He's tall, maybe 6'2". He looks thin, but muscular. His hair is a bright blonde with curls. He looks very professional but also very kind. His eyes are the only different ones in the room, they're like mine. Green.

"My name is Jessica." A blonde girl that looks to be the oldest. She has a kind smile but I can tell she's been out in the world. I can just see it on her face.

"I'm Emma." A girl with brown hair like Peter's and glasses says. She's holding a book while she's sitting at the kitchen island.

"I'm Allison, but you can call me Ally." The girl that is the shortest in the mix says. She has short dirty blonde hair and has high cheek bones. I think she may be the second oldest.

"And this is Katie. She doesn't talk much." Peter says walking behind the youngest member and gently placing his hands on her shoulders. She has long, wavy dirty blonde hair. She's gorgeous.

I smile at them. They all look kind. I think I'll be able to get along with them just fine.

"Well, dinner is ready anyway so let's all head to the table. Shall we?" Alex's mom says, guiding us all into the dinning room. It's gorgeous. The table is long and has white padded chairs surrounding it. Peter takes a seat at the head of the table after setting down a bowl.

The sisters, as I've decided to call them, all bring in the plates and bowls. Alex follows them and sits down in front of Emma. I sit to his right. Victoria sits to Peter's right, next to Allison who is next to Alex. To Peter's left, Jessica, Katie and Emma.

Whatever Victoria made for dinner, it smells and looks fantastic. It has cheese all over the top and looks to have chicken and noodles inside. Alex must see me looking it over because he simply says, "Chicken tetrazzini."

I nod in response. Peter says the blessing over the meal and tells us to dig in. I get a generous amount and taste it. It tastes like heaven. I think I might groan a little because Victoria slightly laughs. I turn red in the cheeks.

We finish dinner and just sit around the table talking and laughing.

"So Lily, what do you plan to study in university?" Peter asks me, taking a sip of his wine.

"I want to be a surgeon." I say. Alex whips his head in my direction.

"Really? I figured you the type that's faint at the sight of blood." He shakes his head slightly and turns back to look at his father.

"Do you have a specialty in mind?" Victoria asks me, ignoring her son's comment.

"Cardiothoracic." I simply state.

"That's a good area. It's difficult and takes a lot of work to get into, but you seem smart. Dedicated. I just wish Alex knew what he wants to do." He gives a pointes look at his son, yet he doesn't shrink away.

"I want to go into medicine, I just don't know what I want to do in medicine." His patients is running out. He's getting annoyed as if this conversation happens too often.

"You still have a good start as to what you want to do." I say. Silence falls over the room.

I look over at Emma. She's reading "The Hunger Games." I loved that book. I still do to this day.

"The first twelve chapters are slow. It gets better in the latter parts." I say looking at her.

She looks up at me and studies me for a moment, then just looks back down like I never said a word. I can't tell if she's rude or just not a talkative person.

___

After dinner, me and Alex head up stairs to his room to finish our project. I'm sitting at his desk with my lap top out, he is sitting on his bed coloring something. This project is really taking a toll on me. We have to have a written report, a visual aid, and an entire speech written out and ready to perform from memory. I don't know how we're going to get it done.

Me and Alex set up a plan when we first got here, he would do the visual aid and I would do the written report. We would work on the speech together. It's worked well up until this point.

"How long is this?" He asks coming up behind me. He leans down and puts his hands on the back of my chair and leans around my head to look at my work.

"It's a 2,500 word essay like he asked for. And technically I'm not done. He said it had to be this length but I always add at least 250 more words than required." He reaches his hand down to the computer mouse and I slap his hand away, never once moving my eyes away from the screen.

"Why do you always have to go so above and beyond? Why can't you just do the bare minimum sometimes?" He asks sitting on a small stool I hadn't noticed earlier. He's looking me over like he's trying to solve a puzzle.

"Why is it so wrong for me to want to go above and beyond? I enjoy doing more than asked." I try to turn and look back at the screen but he puts out a hand and stops the chair from turning.

"Lie. You hate doing more. I can tell."

"How? How can you tell? You don't even know me." I give up trying to turn around and look him dead in the face.

"I don't have to know you to tell. A stranger could see it a mile away. You act like you dread it. Your eyes turn glassy when you zone out, which you do all the time in class."

I stay silent a moment. Has he been watching me? I wait another moment before I respond.

"Some of us only have one thing to be good at and mine just happens to be school." I turn back around and he lets me.

Many minutes pass by until he finally says, "You are good at something other than school, you just don't realize it yet."

And with that, we finish in silence.