Winter break came and went fairly quickly, hanging out lots with friends and Noah, celebrating Christmas, then my personal favorite holiday, New Year's Eve. Overall, we had tons of fun.

Grady and Edaline let me invite all my friends over to celebrate, which I only made it to midnight before promptly collapsing asleep. Before I get any teasing, Linh, Marella, Wylie, and Fitz were out before me, those four barely made it past eleven. And only Fitz had been drawn on, so I considered it a good night.

We had a couple more weeks until school started, and in all honesty, I was dreading it. Our schedules were switching, and while mine stayed the same besides switching PE to health, Jensi's didn't so I didn't know who I'd be sharing fifth period with. That definitely stressed me out more than I cared to admit, and in my haze of panic, school was starting again before I knew it.

I always had this habit of needing to wear a really cute and nice outfit when going to school after break, so I threw on a maroon long sleeved cropped top, straight legged jeans, and converse, with my hair in a half-up-half-down messy bun.

Dex threw himself through my window while I was finishing my mascara. I jumped in surprise, accidentally stabbing myself in the eye with the brush.

"Ow." I muttered, furiously blinking in hopes to subdue the pain and tears.

"Oh, are you okay?" Dex asked me. No, you little gremlin, I'm not okay but thank you for asking. Obviously I didn't actually say that to him, he's a crybaby and would've ran to his mom if I called him little, but I figured a one-eyed glare sufficed.

A few minutes later I was able to keep my eye open with minimal pain, but was shooketh to my core when I saw it.

I had black tears dripping all down my face, along with a bunch of mascara smudged under my eye. The eye itself was bright red, I was pretty sure I popped a few blood vessels. It was harder to find the white at that point.

I glared at Dex again before washing off my makeup and quickly redoing it. My eye still didn't look okay, given all the red, but it looked better without the smudged mascara.

I left my room when I finished getting ready, going downstairs to eat my breakfast then leave (I brush my teeth before eating, sue me). Dex skipped along after me, without a care in the world. That'd be changing very quickly after what just happened to me.

It was my day to drive us, and Dex was taking his passenger princess responsibilities very seriously. He had his legs criss-crossed on the seat, Taylor Swift music blaring (he has very good taste), and he was loudly munching on a bag of chips—sorry, crisps. When reaching a stop sign, I hardly slowed before reaching it, instead hitting on the brakes with all my might (don't worry, there were no cars behind us. I may want to hurt my cousin, but not other people), causing him to slam forwards and backwards into the seat.

I made a few more... choices before we reached the school, and it's safe to say he was shaking more than he did after weight lifting. Mission accomplished. 

Sadly, I had to suffer through the first period because of Dex, we both had History together with the schedule change. The rest of the day went fairly the same though. I still had band and spanish with Wylie, Jensi, and Noah, then had english with the latter two after that.

Then it was time for the class I had been dreading the most. Health. I walked into the classroom right when the minute bell rang, and most of the seats were already taken. As I scanned the room, I didn't see any familiar faces. Until, of course, a loud voice shouted at me.

"Sophie! Over here!" I turned to see Audric, the boy from when Dex and I visited Foxfire for the first time, waving me over. I tried to hide my smile and act all cool while walking over and taking the empty seat next to him. Sadly, he wasn't alone.

"What the heck, man? Why'd you invite her over here?" The ugliest man alive asked. If you guess Carter, you are correct!

"Because she's cooler than you." He held his hand up for a high five, which I gratefully reciprocated. Getting the chance to finally look at them, I saw the obvious similarities. Both boys had the same extremely chiseled jawline, warm brown skin, big brown eyes, and both had their hair down and curly, although Audric's went right above his eyes while Carter's was slightly shorter. They were obviously siblings, and since they were in the same grade, twins.

Also yes, I know I said during my trip to the office that Audric had a baby fat filled face and no chin... that may have been a lie. Dating Noah, I hated to admit it, but both the boys next to me were FINE. Like, fine fine. Fine fine fine fine.

I swear, every single person in the kingdom was hot as can be. I know I'm not ugly by any means, in fact most would say I'm drop dead gorgeous (people have definitely said that, it's definitely not just me telling myself that), but my insecurities were coming out full force with all of these people.

"I'm so glad you're in this class." Audric told me. "Now I won't be stuck here with my lame excuse for a brother." Carter glared at him before moodily going back to his phone.

"For realsies." I agreed. "How'd your suspension go?"

"Pretty good I'd say. My parents took away my phone for a while and really buckled down on me going to the synagogue with them. Thankfully, the good little Jewish boy over here," he ruffled Carter's hair, "already goes every week so I wasn't alone." I was shocked. Carter actually goes to synagogue? He did not strike me as the type. I wondered how much repenting he did every week.

"That doesn't sound too bad." I responded. "My parents have pretty much given up on grounding me, I still get in trouble after everything they try." He laughed.

"Why do you sound so proud of that?" He asked.

"It's an accomplishment."

"That's one word for it." Carter muttered. Audric and I turned to him, shocked he actually joined our conversation. He just glared. Before we could talk anymore, class started.

It turned out that Marella and Linh were in my alchemy class this semester, Linh having failed the class last year and needing to redo it. The two girls, Jensi and I sat at the same lab table, and thankfully they caught my mistakes before I could cause more explosions.

The only bad part was the fact that the two girls wouldn't stop flirting. Wait no, that sounds bad. It's not bad that they were flirting! Just, you know, how dare they not pay attention to me. Shoot, that's sounds conceded. I swear it was a joke! Darn writing, can never hear sarcasm. Insert my sobs-

I was kind of shocked that Linh and Marella weren't dating with the way they were flirting. But I didn't think they had even come out yet. And before I get judged, it was not the way friends flirt. It was definitely crush-flirting.

I pulled Linh aside after class ended. It was the end of the day so I didn't have to worry about making her late to her next class.

"What's going on with you and Marella?" I asked her. I immediately regretted it when I saw her worry, granted that just confirmed my suspicions.

"What do you mean?" Her voice wobbled.

"I'm sorry, don't worry. If you're not comfortable, I'll completely forget this, okay? I was just wondering, because you both seem to be into each other." I lowered my voice so others wouldn't notice.

"You think she's... you think she's into me?" I could hear the tilt in her voice, hope overcoming fear.

"Definitely."

"Can you not tell anyone about this?" Her smile started to drop. "Eternalia really isn't the most inclusive, about anything. Nobody knows yet. I really have to hide it, especially from my parents. If they knew, they'd kick me out. They never even wanted twins in the first place, so if they knew I was... you know, it'd be the final straw for them." I gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And if you ever need to talk to me about anything, I'm here. America was very inclusive, and my parents brought me up to love anyone no matter what. And also, I don't know if this helps or not, but I'm sure any single one of our friends would still love you, no matter who you loved. Especially Marella." I winked, making her laugh.

"Thank you, Sophie. I'm so glad you moved here, you and Dex are great friends." She gave me a big hug, squishing my nose into her collar bone. "Jeez, you really are as small as Marella." She laughed again. I wanted to glare at her, but just hugged her back instead.

Dex had texted me, letting me know he was in the car and ready to go home whenever I was done with 'whatever slow poke' thing I was doing. I rolled my eyes and sent him a thumbs up emoji.

I gave Linh another hug goodbye at the school doors, ready to leave after the long day. Until I heard the shouting. There was a big group of people to the left of the doors, in the parking lot. I walked over to see what it was about.

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" Everyone was chanting. Now this was something I needed to see.

I pushed in between people, even crawled under someone's legs, getting to the middle. I even got an elbow to the nose, but it wasn't bleeding or broken so I was all good.

I got to the innermost layer of the circle, surrounding the two very familiar boys fighting. They were saying something to each other, though no one could hear it with the volume of the shouting. I watched as Keefe shoved Noah away from him, into the people on the other side of the circle, before walking away.

I chased him across the parking lot, his long legs speed walking much faster than I was jogging. He was at his car by the time I caught up, and I was out of breath.

"Keefe!" I wheezed out before he could get in. He turned around, shocked.

"Sophie? Are you good? You sound like you're dying." Probably looked like it too, with my hands on my knees, taking big, gasping breaths of air.

"Yeah... I'm fine..." I took a second to reign in my wheezing, then spoke again. "What was that back there? I thought you and Noah were friends."

"We were. He just... didn't turn out to be the guy I thought he was." He sounded angry, but also a little sad. I wondered what he meant by that, and if Noah had done something to him. Then I wondered if I should be more worried about myself, the one dating Noah.

But, the entire time I've known him, he'd been nothing but sweet, gentlemanly, charming, all of it. It could've just been a fallout between friends or a misunderstanding. Either way, I didn't think it was Keefe's fault, and if it came down to it, I'd pick him over Noah.

I really hoped it wouldn't come down to that, but I knew it was true. He always acted like he saw me as a sister, so I would be. I'd do the same if it was Dex. Except with Dex, there weren't underlying feelings on my part. That... would be pretty gross.

Shoutout on that last part to the crush cuffs!!! Bc y'all definitely needed that reminder. Anyways, hope you liked the chapter, especially some certain people in the fandom, not saying who (cough cough marelinh shippers cough cough) but you should be very happy with me. And also we're back to Audric and Carter, don't know if you remember them, but I'm kinda happy to have them back ngl. Anyways, please vote and comment to boost my ego!!!!

Avery, out ->

🫳

🎤