I flip through the channels on the TV in front of me, mindlessly reading what's on. I finally settle on some NASA channel and pull out my phone. The NASA channel serves as my background noise as I scroll through Instagram. I see photos of Ana and press the like button, but my thumb hovers over it.

Do I need to give her the satisfaction of liking her selfies? I press the like button again to unlike it.

On down in my feed in a picture of Sawyer and Travis standing outside, holding onto each other for dear life. I secretly love the picture, but make sure to comment a puking face emoji just let them know I'm thinking about them.

My phone is suddenly ripped out of my hands and I look up to see the culprit. Jordan stands over me with my phone in her hands and her eyes on the TV, an eyebrow raised with curiosity. I grab my phone out of her hands and give her a threatening look.

"What are you watching?" She asks, her attitude in full swing.

"What's it matter? I'm not actually watching it."

"Sure you aren't, you nerd." She plops down too close beside me on the couch and I shift to the side so we aren't so close.

"I'm bored," Jordan says after a second of looking at the NASA people checking some kind of robot.

"Go do something," I tell her.

The past two weeks have been the longest of my life. I've flown through school, earning a short glance from Layla every time I show up with my tie crooked. I always dive into the bathroom to rig it up to look normal. I've managed to avoid Layla the past two weeks and all her owl-likeness.

"Don't you think if I knew there was something to do, I would?" Jordan argues.

I don't say anything for a few minutes as I scroll through my Instagram again. A picture of Casey's pops up and I tap on her name. I'm interested to see what she's like when she isn't hanging out with Shane and dreaming up whatever smartass comment she can next. I scroll down through her pictures and end up years-deep in her life.

One picture catches my eye and I tap on it, surprised by what I see. A picture with one of those old Instagram filters is displayed with Casey and Layla posing in the middle of it. They look happy to be with each other. I know they used to be friends according to what Casey has told me, but they went separate ways when Layla started trying to judge Casey on her life decisions.

Can't say I wouldn't have left, too.

I close my phone and set it aside before pulling a pillow onto my chest and holding onto it.

"Have you made any friends yet? Your charming attitude should have brought them in waves." I smile, satisfied with my comment.

Jordan scoffs. "For your information, I have. I just need to hang out with them somewhere other than that uptight school."

"Sounds like a personal problem to me," I say as I shrug my shoulders.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" I ignore her but soon get a pillow to my face.

"Quit being a brat," I demand as I toss the pillow back at her.

"I wouldn't be if you'd do something with me. You get to go hang out with all your friends anytime you want. I just want do something with mine."

I think about suggesting the little shops that Casey and Shane brought me to those weeks back, but I don't say anything about it. Not only would I not want her to walk around by herself after what happened before, but I don't know how she would even handle talking about it. Jordan has always been tougher than most girls, though.

"I have an idea," I tell her, a hint of excitement racing through me. Not only would my idea give Jordan something to do, but also myself. "There's this place I found when we first moved here. It's a little hard to get to, but it's cool."

"What is it?"

"You'll see. Get a hold of your friends and we'll text them where to meet us." I wonder briefly if this is a good idea, but then I remember that I can pretty well talk myself out of anything if trouble were to come. Besides, I don't see Layla getting mad at me. And if she did, it would show me the more human side of her.

*

"What the hell is this?" Jordan exclaims as we climb the dark steps that lead to Layla's hideout. I decided that 11 PM would be the best time to come here since Layla would most likely be praying or doing homework or whatever it is that good Christian girls do.

"Chill out. You'll be impressed, trust me." I shine my light down so Jordan and her group of friends can get up the steps. There's almost ten of them and they each have bags with them. I don't ask what's in them.

I have a feeling I'm going to find out exactly what 14- and 15-year-olds are up to these days.

Once I reach the room, I find it dark just as expected. I quickly question how Layla usually has lights on in here when the building has no electricity. But, after looking for a few minutes for the plug-ins, I realize they are battery powered lights. I plug them in, the room lights up in a way I did not expect.

The pictures she's taken are surrounded by the tiny twinkly lights, making them stand out against the dark wall. Jordan steps into the room and makes circles as she looks at all the tiny details of the room.

Seeing the look on her and her friends' faces takes any regret away from me.

"What is this place?" Jordan asks me while her friends begin to look at the pictures all around the room.

I shrug my shoulders. "It's this girl's that... I happened to come up here one day and she was here. She... said I could come whenever. It's no big deal. Just have fun, okay?"

Jordan smiles widely and turns to her friends before declaring, "Let the games begin!"

There are about five other kids in the room with Jordan when I leave. I go back the hallway and start to look in the other rooms along the hallway. Most of them are piled with old things like I saw the first day I came up here, and others are empty, their only occupants being dust bunnies and a few mice.

I can hear music playing on the stereo Layla uses. It's only loud enough to wake the next-door neighbors if there are any, so I leave it be and it goes on for at least an hour. If Jordan needed a cool way to get her friends to like her, this was the way. At the end of the hallway there is a locked door. The knob won't budge, and I dismiss the idea of breaking the door down when I smell something. It's not something – it's weed.

Once I slowly travel back to the room, I peek inside just to see what they're doing. The last thing Jordan probably wants is to have her brother watching her while she has all her friends around.

I look up and see several kids surrounded by clouds of smoke, goofy grins on their faces. I don't have a problem with it – kids will be kids. I remember the nights I used to have and... well, they weren't this calm. I look around for Jordan and see her messing with one of her friends in the opposite corner of the room.

"Jordan," I call out. She doesn't hear me until I walk over and grab her arm, pulling her to the side. I'm about to tell her that she should probably tell these kids to slow down on the smoke so I can air the room out at least a little before I leave. But then I see the bottle of something in her friend's hand and want nothing more but to grab it and chuck it out the window. I fight the overwhelming urge to do so, so instead, I just grab it.

"Hey!" The girl says as she jumps up.

I read the bottle to see that it's some sort of pills that I've never heard of. Whatever it is, there's no way it could be any good. Jaw clenched, I turn to look at Jordan.

Her face is stoic, and I know she knows what I'm thinking. I'm about to open my mouth and remind her of what we're both thinking when someone appears behind her. I look up and at first think it may be another one of Jordan's friends. Or worse – a cop.

Behind me, there's a loud crash and I turn to find two red-eyed guys looking down at the pictures and lights they just tore down.

"Sorry dude," one says as he steps over it to move on.

I turn back around to see that Jordan isn't standing there anymore, but Layla is.

"Um..." I trail off under my breath. "Layla."

"Jonah." Her eyes widen as she looks around her. She coughs when a cloud of smoke surrounds her and she backs away from it, coughing as she waves it away. Finally, she backs into the hallway and I join her.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her. I realize the bottle of pills is still in my hand, so I quickly shove it into my back pocket.

"What?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. "Why are you here? And who are all these people?" For the first time since I met her, Layla's green eyes are filled with frustration. For some reason, I had been waiting for this. I was waiting for her to show me that she isn't perfect, and I'm finally getting it. But it doesn't make me feel like I should.

"I, uh," I hesitate for a second before I get myself together. "Well, you said I could hang out here, right? My sister just wanted to bring her friends here. She was having trouble making friends and..." I look behind me into the room and see them passing around a joint. It takes me a moment to remember that it's legal here – but not for kids their ages.

"I never-" She stops herself from finishing her sentence. "Just please get them out. I don't understand why you thought this was okay, but... Get them out. Now."

With that, she steps inside the door, grabs a book of some sort, and leaves. I watch her retreat down the hallway, but then she stops and turns around to look at me again. She acts like she's going to say something but thinks otherwise before disappearing down the stairs.

I head back into the room and I look around, my head spinning with questions. Why did I do this? Who are these kids my sister is hanging out with?

"Alright, everyone pack up. Get out," I shout over the music. It takes almost ten minutes to finally get everyone out, but the mess and the smell stays behind. Jordan is nowhere to be found in the midst of it all, so as soon as every kid is gone, I turn off the lights and leave.

"Jordan?" I call as I leave, making sure she didn't just dive into a room just to get away from me.

There isn't a sound to be heard in the building. Once I get out through the door, I see my sister perched on the bottom step. Once she turns to see it's me coming towards her, she stands up and starts walking before I can reach her.

"Jordan," I say as I jog to catch up with her. "What was that?"

"What do you mean?" She asks, annoyance rising in her voice as we march down the street. I grab her arm and make her stop, turning her around to look at me. I pull the bottle of pills out of my back pocket and show them to her.

"Are these drugs?" I demand, shaking the bottle in front of her.

"Stop, Jonah!" She jerks her arm out of my grip. "I don't know what they are. I don't care."

"You know where Mom's at, right? Because of this stuff right here, we can't see her anymore. She ruined her life on this crap." I want to toss the bottle on the ground, but I don't. Jordan doesn't say anything but just looks at the ground. "What kind of people are you trying to impress? Why do you want to be friends with them so badly?"

"You didn't seem to mind until that girl came. Were you even allowed to be there?"

"I should have minded. That's the thing. I wouldn't be your brother if I didn't care about this stuff, and it changes now. No more of those kids." I walk past her and start down the sidewalk.

"You don't have perfect friends either. I've seen that Casey girl around school and I've seen how she acts and treats other people. Why do you get to tell me who I'm friends with?" I stop and wait for her to come up to me but she doesn't stop as she walks past me, not turning around to even wait like she normally would.

"For the record," Jordan turns abruptly to me. "Those friends of mine are just like me. Not everyone has such a problem with stuff like that like we do."

"Maybe they should. It's nothing cool to be involved in, Jordan. And you're not like those kids. You're better."

She stares at me. "No I'm not. They get me. Unlike you, apparently. So just stop trying to protect me. I don't need it anymore."

Once we get back to the house, I go up to my room and take out the bottle of pills. I take the lid off of them and head into the bathroom where I dump them in the toilet and flush them.

I won't let time repeat itself. No matter what's working against me.

____________

Song: Happier by Marshmello ft. Bastille!

So I just wanted to put this in here: I was and still am really hesitant about what is discussed in this chapter. Jonah's and Jordan's points of views on these topics are kind of obvious but are very different at the same time. I just wanted to make it so that there are differences in them. Not like any other book where the characters are strictly right or left.

Please keep negative comments to yourself, but if you feel the need to say something, please keep it constructively and respectful :). In future chapters, I know this may come up again, and I want to be respectful and accurate for you and expect the same from you, my lovely readers.

Thanks so much for your patience and time! I hope you enjoyed the chapter!