Chapter 4- Judgement

He chuckled, ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we just…’ He leaned in to kiss me. I cringed, feeling uncomfortable and scared for him. If Eli saw us kissing he would freak out. Austin backed away with a confused look on his face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘N-no, I’m not. I’m sorry..’ I looked away, ashamed. I wish my life were different, I wish I was allowed to be able to like someone without my brother getting jealous all the time.
‘Don’t be sorry, it’s my fault. I’m sorry, I’m…’ He sighed and got up.
I looked over at Eli who was staring at me looking infuriated with his arms crossed. Jamie was looking at Eli, then me, then Eli again. ‘We’ll talk later,’ he mouthed. I looked at the ground, scared. We all started walking towards the park again, talking about stupid things.
‘Sooo, I’m thinking about skipping today, anybody with me?’ announced Jamie. She was on one side of me and Eli on the other, Austin was on Eli’s other side.
‘Not me,’ breathed Austin, ‘my parents would kill me if they knew I skipped.’
‘I may. I don’t know yet, if Jessica is there I definitely will,’ Eli reasoned. Jessica was the school’s s**t that’s been trying to f**k Eli for over two years now. So pretty much every time he goes to school she tries flirting with him or dragging him into one of the bathrooms.
They all looked at me expectantly, I hesitated and glanced at Eli. He shook his head slightly signaling that I would not be skipping today. ‘No. I can’t you guys, I have to turn in that essay that I forgot to hand in last Friday for english.’
‘You can do that tomorrow Ali,’ whined Jamie.
‘Mr. Douglas said that every day that it’s late will be ten points off,’ Austin defended, I silently thanked him.
‘Oh…’ The subject was dropped and we arrived at the park.
I saw Raven over by the swings and ran to her, she was looking gorgeous as usual. ‘Hey beautiful,’ I winked.
‘Hey sexy,’ she teased. We both laughed and looked over at the others who were walking towards us. I sat on the swings and sighed, I remember when my dad used to push me on these swings and I would tell him to make me go higher. I missed those days, I don’t know why he left us alone like that with our mom. Not one of the best choices he’s made.
‘So,’ said Eli. ‘Did you bring it?’
She looked down feeling guilty, ‘My parents found my stash last night and took it. Sooo, yeah now I’m grounded.’ I smiled, she was always so calm about things. She didn’t even care that her parents grounded her, she didn’t have a care in the world about anything but her friends and family.
‘That sucks Ravez,’ Austin sulked.
‘Eh, it’s cool,’ she replied smoothly, ‘only for a month.’ With that she stood up and started walking away, we followed. She usually did that when she had nothing left to say. We all sort of drifted over to the trees and sat in a circle next to one.
‘What are we supposed to do now that Raven didn’t bring the stuff?’ Eli demanded. Clearly he was disappointed that he didn’t get what he wanted, he sat there with his arms crossed over his chest and huffed. It wasn’t fair to Raven that he acted like this, she really liked Eli and he knew that. He was trying to make her feel guilty.
I looked over at her in just enough time to mouth ‘Sorry’ to Eli, who just looked away.
‘Anyways,’ I blurted out of the blue. They all looked at me, waiting for me to finish my sentence. I cleared my throat and then looked at Jamie, ‘Truth or dare?’
She perked up, ‘Dare!’ I smiled, she loved this game.
Thinking for a minute, I finally said ‘I dare you to… chew a piece of gum from that tree.’ I pointed to a tree that had gum covering it. She made a nasty face but got up and slowly walked over to the tree. Everybody looked at her, thinking that she wouldn’t do it. But she did.
‘Ew!’ Eli said, disgusted.
‘Gross!’ Austin shouted.
‘Why?!’ I laughed.
‘That was sweet,’ Raven said calmly. Everybody looked at her and then started cracking up, she looked confused. Jamie sat down and kept swiping at her tongue with her hand.
‘Truth or dare?’ Austin asked me after everyone settled down.
‘Dare.’ I eyed him suspiciously. Hopefully he wouldn’t dare me to do anything Eli wouldn’t like.
He smiled evilly, ‘I dare you to set your bag on fire!’
‘What the f**k?’ I laughed.
‘Do it!’ Raven howled.
I sighed, with a smile on my face. I took all of my things out just in case and took a lighter out of my jacket pocket and caught my bag on fire. ‘How long till I’m allowed to put it out?’
‘Uh….. Now.’ I threw my book bag on the ground and stomped on it. It fizzled out slowly, smoke spilled into the air. I looked down at my bag to see that it didn’t burn through, just scorched the surface. I laughed.
‘Where did you come up with that?’ Raven asked.
‘My mind is a dangerous place,’ he whispered, tapping his head with his finger. Raven, Jamie and I giggled while Eli just glared.
I sat back down and it was Eli’s turn, he started down Austin, ‘Truth or dare?’
He looked down all of the sudden as if he was scared. ‘Truth,’  he whispered. That was odd, something was up and I wanted to know what it was.
Eli didn’t seem to notice though. He went right along with his question as if he knew that Austin was going to pick truth the whole time. ‘Do you like my sister?’ Eli cocked an eyebrow up, expectantly. I blushed, Raven’s eyes widened, and Jamie gasped. We all knew that if he answered yes that Eli might beat his a*s, and if he answered no he’d be safe but he’d be lying.

Reviews

[A. Amos]

Again very interesting chapter...