Chapter One // hot line #1

_"Welcome to our customer helpline. This is

Nadene-"_

"You're a girl... And this is a customer helpline and not a hotline."

_"Excuse me, but wha-"_

I end the phone call, cutting off Nadene'so fake saccharine voice off and look at Daniel. "Hmmph. I should have known it wouldn't have been this easy to find a hot guy to talk to me on the first number I called."

"Remind me again. Why are you doing this?" Daniel asks.

"This, Daniel, is the way I will meet that one hawt, hotline dude. Who I will then save from the terrifying clutches of depression."

"Are you sure you're not the one who is depressed, Lil Li Li?"

I wag my finger at him. "You are so damn lucky that you are in a wheelchair and that you are my brother. Otherwise I would have so killed you by now for even uttering that horrible nickname," I say, shoving my unruly hair off of my face.

"Besides, I was five when you started calling me Li Li. And you were eight, so shut it, Big Dane!" I hop off my bed and start collecting the crumpled pages littering my bedroom floor. I walk past a chuckling Daniel to throw them all away. I quickly run to the kitchen bin and empty out my bin into it.

"You are so full of it, Lilah!" I can't see Daniel's face but I can definitely hear the smile in his voice. "You were the one who came up with those horrible nicknames last year. You were sixteen not five and I was nineteen, doofus," he says with a huff of laughter.

"Sshhh," I hiss, flapping my hands at him as I walk back into my room. I continue cleaning up my room. "But... if anyone asks we were very, very, very young when those nicknames were given."

I move to the front of my room so I can see everything. Pieces of paper picked off the floor. _Check_. Bin is empty. _Check_. Bed made. Uhhh, might as well not make it. I'll be getting into it sooner rather than later anyway.

Almost as though Daniel can hear my thoughts, he starts shaking his head at me. "One day, Lilah. One day, I am going to make you clean this entire room properly," he warns.

"Now, don't stay up too late, Li Li," he drawls as he wheels himself out of my bedroom.

"Sir, yes, sir," I salute with a smirk and close the door after him. I grab my notebook off my nightstand and cross off the number I had called earlier from my Hotline Checklist that my best friend Silena had made for me.

One down and many more until I find a "Hawt" guy to talk to me to go.