When i got home my mother was still up. She was sitting at the table sipping a mug of tea. "I hope you're not mad." I said to her. "Oh yes a little i don't like you staying out this late even if it is the weekend." She said. "I know I'm sorry, when you miss a week of school you have a lot to make up. I got him started he can finish the rest. I yawned. See you in the morning sorry for making you worry." She smiled. "It's okay, see you in the morning dear." She said getting up to rinse her mug in the sink.

        Monday at school Tyler was back and he looked much better. He handed Ms. Vale his assignment. "I cant help but notice that the queen resembles Brooke." She said noticing. "What wonderful inspiration." She said. "What!? No no i don't think so." He said trying to get her to stop talking about it. 

       Here look. She held it out to him. "Maybe a little bit but that was never my intention." He said. "It's ok this is great." She said taking out a pen and marking an A on it. He came and took a seat. 

       "Ok guys so we are going to be doing a lot of partner work in this class so whoever you had for the Romeo and Juliet assignment will be your partner from now on." I groaned inwardly what else could possibly happen to me I thought. "Ok guys take out your books now were going to read Macbeth. Last one of Shakespeare's plays. I want you to spend today tomorrow and Wednesday reading it in class. If you don't think you'll have time to finish it read it outside of class i want you to get with your partner and make up a costume that will resemble the characters you get and you will act out a small scene from the play. I have all of your assignments up here in these envelopes and i will give them to you Wednesday." 

       Great now we had to find stupid costumes. Somebody raised their hand. "A lot of these scenes have two guys in them. I do not want to play a guy." Said Julie "Don't worry in Shakespeare's plays all the actors where guys anyways. Just be glad you weren't Juliet back in the day." She said laughing.

       When Tyler and i had finally finished reading the book we got our envelope from Ms. Vale. We had the scene where lady Macbeth convinces her husband that in order to be king they needed to kill the new king. 

       She said to make it our own and don't copy exactly from the book. That is how she will know we grasp the material. So it was Wednesday afternoon and we had to get our costumes for the set. 

       We went to the props room at school. They had tons of stuff in there. We had gotten permission to borrow some of the stuff. "Well it looks like this is the only Elizabethan dress in here. Is that the right word?" I asked pulling the dress off the rack. "I guess so you're the brain you tell me?" He shrugged. "I think, well let me go try this on." I said stepping behind the screen. I pulled my shirt and pants off and slipped it over my head. "Great." I said. "What is it let me see?" "No." "Come on you have to wear it so you might as well let me see." "It doesn't fit?" "If its too big we can use pins come on let me see." He said.

        "It's definitely not to big." I said looking down. "Well so its a little tight in the waist come out." He urged. I stepped out from behind the screen. "Woah yea I'd say that's a tight fit." I folded my arms over my chest. "Well what are we going to do?" "I don't know anywhere else to find another dress like that one. It really looks fine. I think Macbeth probably wore something like that back in the day anyways. Well at least she did in the movie. It's really not that bad." He said.

        "Oh yea then why are you turning red?" I asked. "Cause they're just kind of out there." He nodding. "Not my fault!! I cannot wear this." I said a bit winy. "We don't have a choice just like wear another shirt under it." "Do you know how stupid that will look? I'm so embarrassed." I groaned.

        "I think you look fine just the way you are." He said. He bent down and dug around for the pants he needed. "Do you see the shirt anywhere?" "No it's very cluttered in here." I said rummaging around. "Ok I'll slip these on and you find the shirt." He said stepping behind the screen he got the pants on and came out to help me. He had already taken his shirt off. I felt so weird walking around in this dress and him shirtless. I cast my eyes over his chest. I couldn't help but notice how muscular he was. He might not of been my favorite person but his muscles, i didn't mind so much.

        "Found it." He said picking up a shirt that matched his pants. He slipped it on and came over to stand next to me. We looked in the mirror. "How do we look?" He asked. "Well lets see that shirt is about two sizes too small for your muscular frame and my boobs are popping out I'd say we look great." I laughed bitterly.

       "Look you're taking a gamble on this stuff it's like they tailored this to fit whoever wore it and we can't really alter there stuff so you just have to wear that dress. Just don't lean down and you will be fine." "Thanks I'll try to remember that." I said sarcastically.

         I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a quick photo. I sent it to Kaitlynn. She texted back "Omg you and him are so cute together. Love that dress!" I sent a puking emoji and slipped the phone back into my pants pockets that were laying on the floor. "Well shall we get changed and take this stuff back with us?" I asked. "Yea we need to work on our lines." He said. I went behind the screen and changed then it was his turn. When we got done we rode back to my house to work on the lines

       "Ok so..." He started, looking down at a blank sheet of paper. "You're lady Macbeth and you are trying to convince me that in order for me to be king we need to kill the other king." "Right." "Why?" He asked. "I don't know maybe she wanted to be queen? Or maybe she just loved her husband so much she just wanted to support him no matter what? I don't know" I said. "Does that make any sense to you?" I asked. "No not really ok so the story says that he wrote a letter to her to tell her about the witches prophecy and becoming king. Do you think we should put that in here?" I said.

       "I don't know i think it would take up to much time to have that i think we should have me sitting in a chair in the castle and have you and i whispering about what we should do." I suggested. "Ok i like that, so how about you have me tell you uhm...I love you and i will support you no matter what, and i think killing Duncan really is our best bet at securing the throne for you." He says. "And i could like not want too, and say something along the lines...i love you too and i am so grateful to you for that but there must be another way." He wrote the two lines down.

        "And if there's not, look you can get away with this nobody will know about it." "Maybe you could add on that we can just blame the servants or something." "Yea yea i like that." I said and He wrote it down. "Ok so we don't need to make this too long maybe you could just agree right there or something." He suggested. "Ok yea so how about i look at you and say, were in this together? And you say...?" He fished for the right ending. "Always" i finished for him. "Yes." He pointed the pen at me. 

        "This is sounding great." He said giving me a high five. I was caught a bit off guard. "Ok so now we just need to lay out the plan." "Ok so uhm you can say Duncan will be arriving tonight and after dinner he'll return to his room and that's when we can make the kill." I said. He wrote that down. "Yes, i will do it when he's out cold nobody will suspect a thing." He said writing it down. "To being king." I joked. "No i like that. We could like get some goblets and toast or something like to my sweet victory." He said getting excited.

        "Ok hold on we have some in the storage room, like those really tacky gold ones with the jewels around them." I said thinking. I wasn't sure why my mom had them though actually. "Oh that's great, let's get them." I pushed my chair back and got up. 

       We walked down the hall so we could go out the back door to where my dads storage shed was. "Hey is this you?" He asked pointing to a picture of me on the wall when i was a little kid. My sister was in the shot. We were showing off our medals i had two and she had five. "Yea even back then she was better than me. Go figure. " I smiled. "Wow you really don't like her do you?" He asked eying me suspiciously. "Of course i do she's my sister. But she's not so easy to like when she makes it her life's mission to out do me in everything." I said.

        "I'm sure she doesn't try to." He said. "No she does, when we were little and we would play games. I don't know she was so aggressive about winning it's weird you know. But now it all makes sense. If she lost she would like go nuts. I even lost a few times just so i wouldn't have to hear her whine. Be glad your an only child." I said sighing.

       "I almost wasn't." He said sniffling a bit. I opened the door and walked out. I got to the shed and opened it. "What do you mean?" "My mom was pregnant when she died." He said. "Oh I'm so sorry." I said hoping on top of the freezer. He took a seat next to me. "It's ok really, it just kind of hurts to hear you talk about yours that way when i would of given anything to have seen my new sister. I think i would of made a good big brother." He shrugged.

        "I know you would have." "Yea well what do you know?" He asked getting defensive again. I reeled. "What does that mean?" I asked. "You just cut yours down at least you had the chance to know her!!" He said. "Why do you always do this its like you are incapable of having any real human emotion. Anytime i think your almost human you go off on me and for no reason at all just because you can." "Because you are nosey." He said. "Ok you're the one who asked me about my sister and you're the one who told me about yours nobody asked you too." I said. 

       "Fine well then I'm sorry for opening up." "I know you are and i don't know why. I am just trying to be nice here ok. I like it when you open up." I said. "Well i don't need you to be nice to me ok?" "Fine then note taken, i wont be nice to you anymore I'll just stick to work and that's that." I said jumping up from the freezer. 

       The back of my pants got stuck on the handle and ripped a huge hole. The back of my leg also got scraped up. "Are you ok?" He asked hopping down to help me. He reached a hand out. "Don't." I said putting my hand up. "If i can't be nice to you then you can't be nice to me just leave me alone I'm fine." "But you're bleeding pretty bad." He said. "I'll be fine." I said looking in a box for the goblets. I found them in the third box and then handed them to him. Then we went back inside. 

       "I'll be right back." I said going into my room to change. I grabbed a towel and wet it under the faucet in the bathroom so i could clean the blood. When i got into my room the blood was all the way down to my socks. The one sock was completely soiled in my blood. It smelled of rust, i hated the smell of blood. It was so strong and potent. I tossed my sock into the bin and put on a the first clean thing i could find a pair of shorts. They were light pink with a white stripe down the side at least they matched my white tank. I grabbed my pants and walked back into the kitchen. Tyler was looking at some of his homework. I sat down next to him and threw the pants on the table. "Great their ruined." I said angrily. "I..." I glared at him and he stopped what he was going to say. A few minutes of silence passed between us. I needed to say something i was fumming.

       "What else do you have to work on?" I asked him icily. Maybe it was the sharp pain in my leg maybe i was just really mad at him. "Nothing until tomorrow." He said shoving his books back into his bag. "Can i ask you something?" He asked. "Are you going to bite my head off if i say yes?" I asked. "You never know with me." He said smiling a bit. 

       "Fine then ask me." I said. He bit his lip debating how he wanted to word his question. He looked me up and down and i glared at him. "You have nice legs why not wear shorts to school?" He asked. "I mean your hot." My eyebrows shot up. "The weather, i mean it makes you hot? Wouldn't you be cooler in shorts?" He smacked his forehead. "I just wanted to know why you didn't wear shorts to school." He said standing up. 

       I was taken aback. "Really? That's what you wanted to ask me?" I said a bit angry. "Should i have asked you something else?" He asked. "No it's just, i hate that we can't even get along for two seconds!" I said slamming my fist onto the table. "Sometimes we talk about serious stuff sometimes we talk about...whatever that was. We always end up fighting!!" I said. "Ok look i will admit i have issues that i need to deal with and it's really not fair for me to take them out on you." He finally admitted.

        "Thank you, why do you get so angry?" I asked hopping to gain insight on him. "I don't know, i just don't know how to handle things sometimes. And they usually come out in anger." He said. "I bet your last girlfriend loved that. Or is it new?" "New, we broke up after my mom died. She tried to be there and be comforting to me and it's not what i wanted you know i just wanted some space i just wanted her to leave me alone. She was just always there trying to make things better and she couldn't nobody could. I couldn't even do it. I just didn't know how to process it." He said.

        I nodded. "I know what you mean." "So me and her just ended it she was mad, my dad wasn't too happy either that i broke up with her he said i needed her or at least somebody to let this out. Like talking to somebody was just so easy. And he thought i was wrong for dumping her. I get it i do she didn't deserve that. It wasn't her fault my mom died. But i was trying really hard just to cope with everything." He said.

      "I'm so sorry." "Don't be to be honest this is the first time I've ever told anybody about that, and it feels i don't know okay to talk about it." "Yea. I think it supposed too. You can always think about your mom and be sad and angry or you could try to remember all the good times you had with her." I said. "Yea, i guess so. So, Why did you and your last boyfriend break up?" He asked changing the subject, maybe before he started crying again. 

       "He cheated on me with another girl. That idiot, it was all around school. I was humiliated." "That's it..." "What's it." "I've figured you out." He said holding his finger up. "What do you mean?" I asked puzzled. "That's why you study all the time, because you're scared to get hurt." He said.

        "Yea pretty much, i mean he didn't even feel bad about the fact that he cheated on me. But you're right about everything. I'm plain, and maybe that's so i don't attract attention and get hurt again. But maybe that's just how guys are ya know? Jerks." "Yea we can be jerks and I've been a pretty big one to you, i may have misjudged you." He said. "You mean it? Cause sometimes i think we're okay and we talk and it's fine and nice then you're yelling at me again and i don't know which you I'm getting." I said. He sighed shaking his head. "You've made your point I've been a jerk. And I'm sorry. Friends?" He asked holding on his hand. I timidly put my hand i his. "If you mean then, then i would like to be your friend." I said.

        A weight lifted off my shoulders i felt maybe we really could be friends. "Wait wait. If were friends now you'll stop yelling too right?" I asked hopeful. "Yes of course no more going off on you, it wasn't cool of me." He said. 

       "Well great, are you thirsty?" I asked starting to stand up. "Sure. Whatever you have is fine." I turned around to go to the fridge. "Brooke oh my gosh your leg." He said as he gasped. "What?" I turned to try to look. "I can't see it, is it bad?" I asked worried.

         "Yea you're bleeding again. It's all over the chair. "That would explain the sharp pain I've been feeling." I said. "Here we need to put some band aids on that." He said getting up. "Where are they?" He asked.

        I led him to a cabinet in the kitchen and took the box out. He grabbed a napkin and wet it under the faucet. Then he crouched down and gently wiped at my scratch. I winced at the sharp pain. "Sorry." He said. He opened an alcohol wipe. "This may sting a bit." He said. He wiped my leg. "Ouch!" I said. He blew gently on the spot.  A chill went up my spine.

       He placed a band aid  at the top of the scratch then he put three more to cover the whole thing. "How's that?" He asked standing up. "Better thanks." I looked into his eyes. "Are you ok?" He asked me looking deep into my eyes. "Oh uhm yea." I said turning around to get the cups. We'd never been that close before and it was starting to get weird.

         "My mom is going is going to kill me when she sees that cushion." I poured two cups of tea and brought them to the table. I untied the cushion i had been sitting on and examined it. "Just toss it in the wash, it should come out." He said. "Lets hope so." I said walking to throw it in the laundry room. I sat back down at the table and took a sip of my tea. Tyler was watching me. "What?" I asked. "Oh nothing, sorry." He said. "How's your leg?" He asked. "Better, thanks." I said.

       My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was Kaitlyn. "So are you in love with Mr. McDreamy pants yet?" She asked.  "What? No! Ew!" I said. "What's ew, he's cute. Come on admit it." She said. I looked at Tyler discreetly. 

       He really wasn't a bad looking guy by any means. He had dark smoldering eyes that could catch something on fire. Strong features and a chiseled face. He hair hung shaggily in his eyes. "Okay fine I'll admit he's cute but that's it." I said. "That's hardly fun." She said. I could hear her pouting.

       I wondered what he thought of me. I caught a glimpse of my self in the mirror my mom had hanging on the wall. Guys thought i was attractive i guess but i didn't do anything to stand out. I didn't want to stand out. I was to afraid of getting hurt. Even if i did try. There was nothing too pretty about me. I sighed. 

       Tyler caught my eye. "You alright?" He asked. "Yea sure." He glanced down at my phone. "Everything ok?" He asked. "Yes it's just Kaitlyn she had a question about the homework." I said. "Geez now i see why you never lie. You're terrible at it. What were you talking to her about that you couldn't tell me anyways?" He asked. "Nothing." I said.

        "You were talking about me weren't you?" He asked catching on. "Oh she just thinks your cute is all." I said waving him off. "And what do you think?" He asked laughing. "I don't know i guess i hadn't noticed." I said doing my best to lie. He shook his head a big grin spreading on his face. 

        "You're a terrible liar, you think I'm sexy." He said flexing his biceps. "Whatever." I said rolling my eyes. "That's fine you can keep pretending you don't find me attractive." He said. I groaned. "Okay, fine. You're not a bad looking guy okay." I said admitting the truth. "Thank you. And don't worry you can tell her I'm not interested in you either." He said winking. I groaned again. "I'll be sure to do that." I said sarcastically. "I mean unless you'd rather tell her you're totally into me." He said. "You're dreaming." I said rolling my eyes.

        I didn't want him not at all but the fact that he didn't want me made me want him a little bit. I hate being told i couldn't have something. My sister freaking took everything. I was sick of being told no. And The one thing i can't stand is some guy pushing my buttons. I took a deep breath. 

       I put those thoughts on hold. I needed to distract myself. I pulled a few books from my booksack at my feet to organize. I set them on the table in a neat stack. He pulled my green  mentorship book out. "What's this?" He asked picking it up. "Oh something they gave us to give us incite on the program." I shrugged. 

       "Like what do you mean?" "Well it has things to do if you and your partner don't get along." "Oh kind of like us?" He smiled a devious smile. "Yea. But were friends now sooo." I shrugged. "True, but when we WERE fighting like an hour ago fighting. Why didn't you pull it out?" He asked. I laughed. "Like you would have been up for doing anything in that book. The exercises are probably really corny." I said. He flipped through reading a few. "Some of them actually look pretty funny." He said.

       "Okay pick one out and we'll do it." I said. "Really?" He asked. "Sure why not? It'll knock off some mentor hours at the very least." "Ok fine I'll make it a good one....hm lets see. role playing is to blah." He said. "Really now?" I asked. "Psh yea, i could do you easy. 'Omg i have to study, i need good grades. I'm gonna wear the most ugliest outfit i can find....Okay yea that isn't as much fun as i thought it'd be." He shrugged.

       He kept looking through the book. The silence was defining. Finally he spoke up. "Here's one, that might fare a little better with us. It says we should go to the mall and choose an outfit for the other person. Something we think that they are not but could be." "Ok that actually sounds kind of fun." I said taking in his faded t-shirt and ripped shorts. Yep he could use something nicer. 

       "Sounds good." He said. "Ok well then just meet me in parking lot after school Friday." I said. "You assume I'm not busy." He argued. "Doing what, you don't have any friends other than me." He stuck his tongue out at me. "Actually i have friends. What do you think i just sit alone at school?" He asked curiously. I laughed. "I have no idea." I shrugged. "Fine I'll see you then, do you need anything else from me?" He asked. "No we have our lines written out and i think were good to go." I said.

       "Ok I'll see you tomorrow at school then. Do i need to come over and study?" I asked. "No we got plenty done today and i can count the exercise Friday as some hours as long as you study at home." He rolled his eyes. "I got it brain I'll see you tomorrow." He said sliding his back pack on his shoulders and we left so i could bring him home. "I'll see you later." I said. "Ok bye." He said once we were at his house.