Booksmarts

chapter 012

trigger warning: mentions of an eating disorder

"IT'S FIVE AM. IS THIS REALLY NECESSARY ON a Sunday?" I cross my arms to hide the embarrassing stains on my pajamas.

"Yeah, for once I'm with her. What the hell are we doing here? Mason interjects. He looks to Lukas but all he gets in return is a useless shrug. It's the crack of dawn and for some reason, Amira had come to a conclusion in the middle of the night and decided to wake us up and force us to drive to her shady apartment complex lobby.

Amira narrows her eyes at us. "So, okay. Hear me out. Since both of you guys work so well together. We–" she looks up to Lukas, "–have decided to merge."

"Like merge? Like we're gonna workin' together?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I knew we were gonna be working together more often, but I didn't expect a full-on merge!

"Yes...Is that not what merge means? We will be joining together as of right now. Any questions?"

I raise my eyebrow, "Is this why we're here?"

"Is this all you had to tell us? If this was all then you could've just shot us a text goddamn." Mason yawns and stretches his hands outwards, purposely hitting Lukas in the process.

"Aren't we still...competing with one another? Wouldn't this defeat the purpose?"

A confused jumble of questions continued to arise. Well, more like complaints. It was only after another round of questioning before Amira finally snapped.

"SHUT. UP! Okay fine, not my greatest idea bringing you guys here at like six o'clock in the morning–"

A loud coughing fit from Mason interrupts her. "–five, actually." Amiras' right eye twitches for a good second before talking again.

"Okay. I see your point. But now that you're awake I hope you take advantage of these extra hours of your day to work on the links I sent you. As soon as Amira finishes, loud buzzing and dings erupt from our phones at the same time. "I created all of these worksheets digitally so you'll have easy access to these files. Now I'm not saying you guys will but, these worksheets consist of unique questions created by me and Lukas. So if you try to cheat, it definitely wouldn't exactly help."

"Great." He mumbles. Mason clicks on the link and scrolls through the pdf files. His eyes slightly widen as he skims through the worksheets. "Sheesh. You both will be helping us right?"

"Yeah we will but, we want to see what you both know so, feel free to collaborate with one another." Lukas points his finger at both of us and winks. At this point, I fully understood their motives. Both Amira and Lukas decided to merge to force us to work with one another. It wasn't because of our "work ethic", but because they want us to...be friends? I take it back, I'm not sure of their motives anymore.

"So..." I rock back and forth using the tips of my toes. Now that Amira and Lukas discussed their plans, we're left standing around aimlessly in the middle of an apartment lobby.

"So? Go home now!" Amira shoos us away and forces me and Mason to stand outside. The air was crisp enough to see your breath every time you exhaled. The kind of cold to make your nose runny and cheeks pink. Since it was a bit early, it was still dark out. No cars drove by and streetlights were broken on this side of town, making me feel on edge.

"Aren't you gonna go home?" Mason asks. He twirls his car keys in his hands, letting me know he was more than ready to go home. Instead of answering, I look around for a taxi, since I was scared of driving half-awake. Distracted drivers were responsible for 18.5% of car accidents in this town, and with my mind barely awake, I didn't want to risk it.