CHAPTER 46

The girl was removing things from her bag as she continued. Clearly, these two were not used to having the good manners of talking face to face. "Are you shitting me?! Poor girl." She grabbed her bags and went upstairs, not even noticing me.

"Who was…?" I asked Carson, gesturing to the staircase.

"Jenna, my sister." Carson explained. "Decided she'd rather hang out with mom over the Christmas break than with the rest of us. Good riddance."

"Don't like her?" I asked him humorously.

"Oh my God, have you SEEN her?" Carson asked with a renewed angry energy in his voice. "To everyone else in the fucking world, she's just another grade 11. But no, to her, she's queen of everything, and everyone else is just a piece of dirt under her foot." He scoffed. "Every once in a while, she stays at dad's for a week, to gloat about the newest mediocre thing she did in bio or something."

"She can't be that bad…" I trailed off.

"Dude. She hung out with mom instead of the whole freaking family because she figured we weren't worth her time. Seriously. Fuck her." He angrily grabbed his controller. "Are we gonna play or what?"

When Carson was angry, he found a way to complain about everything in the first twenty minutes of his tantrum. The next twenty minutes was just silence. Then the trough hit, where he wouldn't want to do anything but just sit and stare at a wall for the next half hour.

During that trough, Jenna came back downstairs, and sat down in the living room. When her eyes clapped on me, she did a double take.

"Oh. Hello." She said formally. "Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry! I'm Adam, Adam Watson." I reached forward to shake her hand. "Nice to meet you."

She made no effort to reach her hand out to meet mine. "Jenna Poursanidis. Pleasure." She said disinterestedly. "Carson, don't you have to do all of your chores before having guests over?"

"I did all of my chores, Jenna." Carson replied, his anger quickly building again.

"The dishwasher's full." Jenna replied condescendingly. "You're supposed to empty it."

"I already emptied it today!" Carson exclaimed, annoyed.

"Well, it's full again, so empty it." She replied, annoyed as well. Right in that situation, I wanted to shrink and leave under the door. I felt awkward as all fuck.

"Then I guess dad filled it twice today. It's not my job to empty it twice in one day. If it's bothering you so much, you do it." Carson replied bitterly. "Could we please not do this while I have someone over?"

"Well, at least you're not trying to have sex with this one." Jenna replied, eyeing me up and down. "As far as I know."

"Oh my God, I can't fucking deal with this." Carson said, putting his head in his hands.

I took over, a rare occurrence for me. "Dude, it's okay." I said, clapping a hand on his back. "Dishes can wait. Do you wanna watch The Avengers? I'd be down for that."

I knew Carson pretty well by this point, and knew he was never not in the mood to watch that movie. It was like his Bible. Instantly, he perked up, but not by much. "Sure, yeah, whatever. I'll go get it." He replied, still clearly upset but hopefully on the path to getting better. With that, he trudged off to his room.

As soon as he was out of eyeshot, I sighed and made my way to the kitchen. By now, I had a vague idea of where things needed to go, and hated conflict, so I opened the dishwasher and started to put stuff away. Jenna followed me.

"That's not your job, you don't have to do that! Don't just cover up for Carson because he's lazy." Jenna said. Her words were condescending, but I noted her tone reflected actual care. Did I have a gift for tone or was the rest of the world stupid? Maybe Nicole was rubbing off on me.

I turned back and smiled at her. "Yeah, but if I don't put these away, it's never going to get done. Besides, Carson forgot that last time I was here, I hid The Avengers under his bed."

She smiled back. "Well, thanks. Let me help." She went right to work, helping me put the dishes away.

"So, Poursanidis? Not Carter? If I may ask." I asked her.

She nodded. "Mom's last name. I always took after my mom more anyway." She replied. "You didn't hear this from me, but the Carter family is rude, stupid and misogynistic." She sighed, holding a plate and not moving while in thought, before continuing. "Especially my out-of-state family. I feel sorry for whatever girl Craig is dating. Unless Carson's lying, and that wouldn't be a surprise."

"Damn, you guys hate each other." I thought aloud.

Jenna was silent for a second. "Not hate." She said finally. "Carson just needs to get his shit together. He needs a major attitude shift. Then again, all grade nines do." She realized what she just said and whipped her head so her eyes could meet mine. "No offense." She quickly added.

I would have said "None taken," but that would have been a lie. Eventually, the dishwasher was done, and as Jenna closed it, I followed Carson into his room.

"You going to take forever?" I asked him as I approached his room.

"I can't find it!" He said desperately. I walked into his room, reached under his bed, and pulled out the DVD.

He looked up and noticed, and his eyebrows met in a V shape. "Oh, you just suck." He said, half-joking, half-serious.

I just laughed as I handed him the DVD. He held it in his hands for a few seconds before speaking. "Yeah, I just feel like May is the one for me. Not Natasha, not Tara, not anyone else."

Woah, where did that come from? "Those are your past flings, I assume?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Natasha is, yeah."

"…And Tara?" I asked.

He shrugged again. "I dunno. Random name I made up. Just making a point." He rolled his shoulders and started to make his way down the hallway with me in tow.

"I mean, you have to admit, on top of everything else, May is fine as hell." He added.

"Oh, trust me, dude, I know." I replied. Even now, the thought of May still gave me the warm fuzzies and made me smile. I still would have given, and was giving, everything to become the type of guy she would want.

"What does that mean?" He stopped walking and turned to me, grinning. "You got a thing for her too?"

"Well…" I said, looking down at my shoes.

"Aw, buddy!" He said excitedly, punching me in the arm. "No way! The race is on, bro!"

"Race? What race?" I asked him.

"May the best man win, dude!" He answered. He started to walk back towards the living room as he added, "It's cool you like her and all, but I'm totally going to get her first."

"Ah, great, treating a girl like property." Jenna interjected, sneering at Carson as we all entered the living room at the same time. "I'm sure she really appreciates that. Just like every other girl you pick up, bang, then never talk to again." She shot me a 'See what I mean?' look and went off up the stairs, presumably to her own room.

"Ah, screw her." Carson said, blowing her off. "We appreciate May. She just doesn't get it."

"Right." I said, but only half-heartedly.

***

Going back to school after the break was actually easier than I had thought. I was on top of all of my classes so homework wasn't an issue, and I actually enjoyed my classes and teachers.

As well, it was an opportunity to catch up with old friends. Carson and I reconnected of course, and May was in three of my classes. The one I didn't get to reconnect with was Megan. She didn't even show up for the first student council meeting of the new year, even though Matt did. Matt himself was eyeing me throughout the whole meeting. Not menacingly, but almost more so out of curiosity. It still creeped me out.

Tuesday was a much better day than that Monday. During first period, May and I continued a developing habit we shared – texting in class. It was a great way to spend boring class time as well as getting to know her, plus the little giggles she gave when I sent funny texts were priceless.

class is so boringggggg was the text she sent me about halfway through the class. Yup, her grammar was far from perfect.

Yeah, where are the interesting classes where I can just talk face-to-face with you all class and get graded on that? ;) I replied. As I had come to realize, I was totally Megan – especially with the 'competition' thing Carson had mentioned, every text was basically a disguised plea to get May to know me better.

Luckily for me, though, it actually worked. lol, im not busy lunch. :)