Аманда Хокинг: Switched

“But I gotta get going,” I cut Patrick off in mid-sentence. He’d been saying something about history that I hadn’t even been listening to anyway. “My brother is waiting for me.”

“Oh, alright, okay.” Patrick nodded and smiled brightly, so I smiled back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I didn’t even know where Matt was and I was already hurrying away from Patrick into the parking lot. Scanning quickly for Matt’s light blue Prius, I absently started to chew my thumb nail. When I looked back at Finn, he and his Cadillac had magically disappeared, and for some reason, that only bothered me more. I was still staring at the empty spot where Finn had been when a loud honk startled me, so I jumped. Matt was sitting a few cars down, looking at me over the top of his sunglasses.

“Sorry,” I opened the car door and hopped in, but he just stared at me for a moment. “What?”

“You were biting your nails and looking around. Did something happen?” Matt asked seriously, and I sighed. He took his whole big brother thing way too seriously.

“No, nothing happened. School sucks,” I brushed him off. “Let’s go home.”

“Seatbelt,” Matt commanded, and I did as I was told.

Matt had always been quiet and reserved, thinking everything over carefully before making a decision. I rarely argued with him because there wasn’t a point in it, even though I tended to argue with everyone about everything. He was a stark contrast to me in everyway, except that we were both relatively short. I was barely over 5’4, and he was 5’9. He had sandy blond hair that he always kept short and neat, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as our mother’s. My hair was an unruly dark brown mass of curls, and my eyes matched it perfectly. Since Matt was a pretty intellectual guy, he was shockingly muscular. I think he had some kind sense of duty, like he had to make sure he was strong enough to defend us against anything, so he spent a lot of time working out.

“How is school going?” Matt asked carefully.

“Great. Fantastic. Amazing,” I lied.

“Are you even going to graduate this year?” Matt had long since stopped judging my school record. A large part of him didn’t even care if I graduated high school. In fact, he probably preferred it. The thought of me going off to college had to terrify him.

“Who knows?” I shrugged and started rummaging through my bag for my iPod.

“Just to warn you, we got a call today,” Matt said. “About you sleeping in class.”

“Delightful,” I sighed. Matt could care less about my schooling, but my aunt Maggie was an entirely different story. And since she was my actual legal guardian, her opinion mattered more than I would’ve liked. “What’s her plan?”

“Maggie’s thinking bedtimes,” Matt informed with a dry smirk. He had been privy to all my failed attempts at bedtimes over the years.

“I’m almost eighteen!” I groaned. “What is she thinking?”

“You’ve got four more months until you’re eighteen,” Matt corrected me shortly, and his hand tightened reflexively on the steering wheel. He was suffering from serious delusions that I was going to run away as soon as I turned eighteen, and nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

“Yeah, whatever,” I waved it off. “Did you tell her she’s insane?”

“I figured she’d hear it enough from you,” Matt grinned at me.

“You told her it wouldn’t work, though? And if she tries to make me go to bed then… I don’t know. I’ll take sleeping pills in the morning so I sleep through all my classes!” I announced triumphantly, as if it were a perfectly brilliant, logical idea. Matt laughed, the same way he laughed at all my ridiculous posturing.

“I told her it wouldn’t work,” Matt assured me. “But I thought it would be best if you let her tell you the rules, and then you yelled about not obeying them. Then you both agreed to some kind of compromise where you pretty much do whatever you want.”

“Yeah, that is usually what happens,” I yawned and looked out the window. We were rapidly approaching our new house, buried on an average suburban street amongst a slew of maples and elms. “I hate this town.”

“It’s a beautiful town!” Matt sounded shocked at my complaint.

“I guess.” I shrugged, and the scenery did look pretty. Overall, it was an okay town, but I just hated moving. Maggie and Matt probably hated it just as much as I did, and they only ever did it for me, so really, I was the one that had the least to be pissy about.

“You promised you were really gonna try here,” Matt reminded me, almost pleading with me. We had pulled up in the driveway next to the butter colored Victorian that Maggie had completely fallen in love with.

“I am!” I insisted. I disappointed people constantly, but I could never stomach disappointing Matt. “Did you see me talking to that kid? His name is Patrick. And he’s kind of a friend.”

“Look at you. Making your very first friend at the ripe old age of seventeen.” Matt shut off the car and looked at me with veiled amusement.

“Yeah, well, how many friends do you have?” I countered evenly, and he just shook his head and got out of the car, so I quickly followed after him.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I’ve had friends before. Gone to parties. Kissed a girl. The whole nine yards,” Matt said as he went through the side door into the house.

“So you say.” I kicked off my shoes as soon as we walked in the kitchen, which was still in various stages of unpacking. After as many times as we’d moved, everyone had gotten tired of the whole unpacking/packing process, so we tended to live mostly out of boxes. “I’ve only seen one of these alleged girls.”

“Yeah, cause when I brought her home, you set her dress on fire!

While she was wearing it!” Matt had pulled off his sunglasses and looked at me severely with his deep blue eyes.

“Oh come on! That was an accident and you know it!” I protested.

“So you say,” Matt countered and opened the fridge.

“Anything good in there?” I asked hopefully and hopped onto the kitchen island. “I’m famished.”

“Probably nothing you’d like.” Matt started sifting through the contents of the fridge, but he was probably right. I was a notoriously picky eater. While I had never purposely sought out the life of a vegan, I seemed to hate most things that either had meat in them or man-made synthetics. It was odd, and incredibly irritating for the people who tried to feed me. “Oh. We have plain yogurt.”

“Oh yum!” I clapped my hands together. It was one of the big generic tubs of it, and he tossed at me. I opened the drawer next to my legs and pulled out a spoon. I’d probably eat the full tub in one sitting, and I’d still be starving afterwards. It was maddening.

Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, flecks of paint stuck in her blond curls. Her ratty overalls were covered in layers of multi-colored paint, proof of all the rooms she had redecorated over the years. She had her hands on her hips, and she didn’t look too happy to see either of us, so Matt cautiously shut the fridge door.

“I thought I told you to tell me when you got home,” Maggie glared at him.

“We’re home?” Matt offered sheepishly.

“I can see that,” Maggie rolled her eyes, and then turned her attention to me. “I got a call today from Ms. Page.”

“Sorry,” I said gulping down a spoonful of yogurt. “Isn’t it nice that you don’t have a job so you can get calls during the day?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

“You know that I don’t work because I can’t work. You are a full-time job.” Maggie crossed her arms over her chest.

The thing is, I don’t think she’s exaggerating. All the time she’s had to spend getting me in and out of school, cleaning up my messes, and moving us around, I don’t know how she would’ve had time to establish a career. Luckily, my loony mom and dead dad left us with enough money so she didn’t need to work.